What's the Best DI Box for Me?
Every musician wants to be able to hear their instrument loud and clear when they’re on stage. It’s just that sometimes, the many metres of cabling between the instrument and the PA system can cause signal loss. To keep the signal free from interference and sounding nice and crisp through your mixing console and PA speakers, you’ll actually need a DI box. In this Buyer’s Guide, we answer the most important Direct Input unit related questions. If you can’t find the answer to your question here, feel free to contact us!
1. What’s a DI Box?
DI stands for ‘direct input’ or ‘direct injection’ if you will. What’s immediately obvious here is that this means your signal is directly injected into an external device to prevent signal loss. DI boxes are often used to connect instruments such as electronic pianos, synthesizers, double basses, and electro-acoustic guitars to a mixing console. The circuits inside the box convert high-impedance (resistance) signals that are generally unbalanced (TS jack) into low-Ohm, balanced (XLR) signals so they are safe for your mixer and don’t sound distorted. The advantages include not having to use a microphone, which in turn ensures there’s no risk of any feedback or crosstalk (multiple sound sources reaching a microphone at the same time).
2. Why Would You Use a DI Box?
A DI box is mainly designed for natural sounding instruments without built-in amplification. In addition, it ensures that the input volume is adjusted and set to a level that your mixer is able to handle. Also, if you link up your signal cable directly to your mixer, you risk losing some of the higher frequencies. Some guitar and bass amps these days feature a ‘direct out’, an XLR connection that lets you send out a signal without the need for an external DI since one has already been built in. So, when you need to fully amplify your signal over a PA system without any interference, that’s when you could do with a DI box.
3. Active and Passive DI
There’s one important difference when it comes to DIs: there are active and passive models. Passive DIs use transformers to convert a high-impedance input signal into a low-voltage, low-impedance signal that can then be used freely without the risk of interference. The downside is that weaker signals from instruments without a preamp aren’t picked up as well and therefore can’t be passed on optimally. Active DIs feature a small built-in amplifier to convert the signal, which means that they need a power source in order to work. This can be a power supply, battery or phantom power. The nice thing about an active DI is that it can pick up and pass on a weaker signal more easily, the drawback is that you always need some sort of power supply.
4. What Are All These Controls on My DI Box?
The most important control of any DI box is the ground/lift switch, used to remove any unwanted hum caused by a ground loop. Bear in mind that when switched on, phantom power often can’t be used because you’re essentially interrupting the signal. What you might also find on your DI box is a pad switch, which can be used to weaken the signal to line or speaker level as indicated by terms such as ‘0 dB’ (microphone level) and ‘-20 dB’ (line) or even ‘-40 dB’ (speaker). Less common features include phase and mono/stereo switches. The first ensures that a combined signal from a microphone and a DI doesn’t reverse and cause the sound waves to crash into each other, while the second can convert a mono signal into a stereo signal or the other way around.
5. Which Inputs and Outputs Can I Find on My DI Box?
DI boxes are often two-sided, meaning there’s an input side and an output side. The input section generally includes jack inputs since the device is made for use with instruments, after all. Other possible inputs include a mini-jack, XLR and RCA inputs, and USB. Sometimes, you can even find thru or bypass connections. Say you’re using your own amplifier as a monitor on stage, then you’d send the sound of your instrument to the DI first. The DI then routes the signal to the mixer and at the same time, to your amplifier via the thru output (see the second image). On the output side, you’re likely to find mainly XLR outputs and sometimes RCA, jack or mini-jack outputs. Tip: When browsing through our selection of DI boxes, you can use the filters on the left side of the page to specify the inputs and outputs.
6. Are There Any Special DI Boxes?
Keyboard players can benefit from stereo inputs and outputs (two channels), or a multi-channel DI in the case of more than one keyboard. Bass players and acoustic guitarists might want to add some colour to the sound before it’s sent to the mixer, and here, a special DI box combined with preamp will be preferred, which even lets you save presets or overdrive the signal. Electric guitarists tend to combine effect pedals with an amplifier, but if they were to send their sound directly to the mixer, it would sound far from optimal. Via a speaker emulator, you can trick the mixer because this special DI ‘pretends’ to have the frequency range of a guitar speaker. A load box (or attenuator) takes this even further, and can be connected to an amplifier to not only convert amp power into heat for more overdrive, but make sure that the signal of your amp that’s sent to your speakers is also sent to the mixer.
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