I don't know how far I want to get into this right now. I was really just trying to think of something to satiate the OP's G.A.S. I guess that is less important if you're putting guitar through amp sims that saturate anyway. I know that lots of bassists really like having a transformer in the signal chain for DI. Many conflate DI as in plugging a guitar directly in with the conversion to balanced, it's a nitpick but I like calling DIs the ones that actually do the conversion and the ones that don't buffers or similar. That's also why Radial DIs have that very thick folded metal enclosure.Īll that being said, a true DI is for converting an unbalanced signal to a balanced signal, if that isn't needed then you can achieve the same with any input circuit/buffer that has sufficiently high impedance. Thusly to make one that can cover 20-20K and be properly shielded (using MU metal etc.) they can be extremely expensive to manufacture, this is precisely why Jensens (and Radial) cost so much so that isn't a scam, it's just a byproduct of the technology. That being said, when I stated insertion loss above I meant loss of dB level not really loss of fidelity.Īnother tidbit about transformers, they will pick the crap up out of hum. Many modern pedals, at least DIY ones use 1-10 Megaohms to ensure there simply isn't a source impedance high enough to cause any frequency losses. Most guitars fall in that 5-10k range IIRC so you can sort of see we are within but close to the 10 times number. Typically the rule is that the target device's impedance (the DI in this case) should be 10 to 100 times higher than the source impedance (the guitar). I think 130k is a little low for 2017 but that depends more on what is plugged in so in many ways it is perfectly sufficient. Our fellow member ashcat is going to know far more than I but I can offer a couple tidbits. In fact with the advent of high output active basses, passive direct boxes are often preferred as they are able to handle the output without clipping." Therefore the loading is no longer as problematic as it used to be. Today, we specify our Eclipse transformers in our direct boxes at 130,000 ohms, a far cry from the 600 ohms that were once used. When you do this with the wrong transformer, the bass player immediately notices a lack of fidelity and punch. What happens is the magnetic pickup in the bass is driving the signal to the bass amp and hundreds of feet of cable to feed the PA system, splitting the signal evenly between the two. The 600 ohm standard line level transformer changed the tone and feel of passive instruments like the Fender P-Bass due to loading. In the beginning, the 'transformer of the day' came from broadcast. Passive direct boxes have had a bad rap for years, mostly due to misunderstandings and holdovers from the early days or touring. "Do passive DI's present a different load to a guitar or bass as opposed to active DI's? Hey, you know far more about the guts of stuff than me, just wondering what your thoughts on the below are: To your point, that doesn't mean that any losses don't sound good, I surely have a box I built where I can adjust impedance because sometimes I don't want an exactly pure copy of the original guitar signal.
![onyx blackjack for bass recording onyx blackjack for bass recording](http://media.musiciansfriend.com/is/image/MMGS7/Onyx-Blackjack-Premium-2x2-USB-Recording-Interface/H14105000000000-00-500x500.jpg)
A well-designed instrument input is essentially the same as the input of a properly designed stomp box input (that's good).
![onyx blackjack for bass recording onyx blackjack for bass recording](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/9120Xw0WGdL._CR3,0,1914,1080_SR342,193__BG0,0,0__QL65_.jpg)
![onyx blackjack for bass recording onyx blackjack for bass recording](https://www.promusictools.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/1352x901/bd5be3e4bffe87df985139cc5e5c836c/m/u/music-man-john-petrucci-majesty-7-kb-kinetic-blue-203-10-ffffff.jpg)
If the interface has a proper instrument in with high enough impedance, there is really nothing he'll gain.