DI Box - What is it and how to use it? Direct Box 101 - Passive or Active? Which should you use?

with this video i wanted to talk about dis so by the end of the video you'll know about the different types such as active and passive and when why and how to use a di i have several models here on the table and this whirlwind m2 is like the sheer sm58 of dis just about every sound company has a few of these and they are solid simple and predictable the m2 is a passive di if we look inside you'll see it has a transformer and that's what balances the signal and gives us a mic level output a ground lift switch that simply breaks the pin one contact two quarter inch jacks an in and an and they are paralleled so it doesn't even really matter which is which finally one xlr output and a passive di uses no power so it doesn't need phantom power or a battery an active di needs power from a battery or phantom power from the mixing console let's look at these passive di's first some do have more features than others but all of the circuitry is passive some even have the ability to accept the signal straight from the speaker output of your stage amp this radial jdi is one of the more popular passive dis it does have the same basic connections as the imp 2 of course but adds things like a pad so that you can lower the input level into the di a phase reversal switch which does the same thing as the phase reversal switch on a console inverting pins two and three and this merge switch the merge switch allows you to connect a stereo input into the di the left and the right and merge those together through a passive mixer circuit thereby giving you those two stereo inputs combined into one mono balanced output you might use this for an mp3 player or for a keyboard of course if you want to keep things stereo you would need to either use 2d eyes or a stereo di the radial jdi uses the respected jensen transformer to balance the circuit there's also radio's more budget-friendly version the pro di and then there are active dis these are all examples of active dis now an active di requires power that's either through a battery or from phantom power from the mixing console it uses more circuitry to balance the signal and in theory it should be more transparent than a simple transformer in a passive di the circuitry can also boost the level of the incoming signal let's look at the basic hookup for a di you connect your instrument to the di instead of directly to the amp using a normal instrument cable you then connect another instrument cable from the di to your stage amp finally you connect an xlr cable a normal mic cable to the xlr out of the di and the other end of that cable then feeds the mixing console or the snake cable that feeds the mixing console this countryman type 85 was for years the gold standard in active dis it has the same basic i o as the other dis it's built like a tank and can accept instrument level or speaker level inputs but these days several other active dis are more frequently seen on stage the radial j48 is a popular active di i've also included this behringer ultra di active di the main knock on the behringer is that it seems to be more susceptible to noise if it's placed near some type of electronics so you wouldn't want to set it on top of your amp as opposed to just sitting on the floor beside the amp that's really down to a shielding issue but really that's good practice with any di to minimize the chances of picking up noise so why do we use the eyes instrument cable is susceptible to noise over distance the longer the cable the more likely it is to pick up noise meanwhile balance cables feeding balance connections are much quieter for longer distances while a mixer like the behringer xr18 has high impedance inputs on channels one and two that are designed specifically for directly connecting an instrument like a bass keys or an acoustic guitar those inputs are really only practical if your cable is around 20 feet long or shorter you might push that length a bit but certainly 25 feet or 30 feet is about the practical limit for an instrument cable connecting to a di will let you run a balanced signal hundreds of feet if needed so active or passive first there's no time that an active di will be the wrong choice it might be more expensive and overkill though a conservative rule of thumb is use active dis for passive instruments use passive dis for powered instruments if your instrument uses a battery has a building preamp or plugs into a wall like a keyboard then a passive di is fine but there are plenty of cases where a passive di will be fine anyway bass guitars tend to have enough output to be fine with a passive di unless you have a bass guitar that has an unusually weak output into your amp in the first place then a passive should be okay the main place where you'll likely run into issues are acoustic guitars with piezo pickups and no preamp in that case an active di would be recommended something to consider in general when it comes to dis is while an active din theory is more transparent some people like the coloration they get from a transformer in a passive di it's part of their sound well everything we've talked about so far works live on stage or in the studio there is another di application for recording you mic the amp for one track and take a di signal for another track so that you can have a clean signal for re-amping in post-production this could be reamping planned from the start or has a backup against the original guitar sound that just might not be working as the mix builds for the studio if you have a usb pre interface with an instrument level input then there's no need in a di unless your instrument is far away from that input here are some things to remember try and keep your unbalanced instrument cables as short as possible to avoid noise the two instrument cables connected to the di combine for total length if you get noise when connected to the sound system flip the di's ground lift switch never use speaker cables as instrument cables you will get noise placing the di on the stage amp or other electronics can sometimes induce noise that can be fixed just by moving the di if in doubt use an active di it's never the wrong choice that said many times problems that occur when using a passive di won't be cured with an active di because the di wasn't actually the root of the problem in the first place always make sure you're using proper cables that are working and proper gain structure before blaming the di and if your guitar uses a battery and this is especially true for acoustic guitars please make sure the battery is not dead let me know in the comments below if you've ever had to troubleshoot a line or di problem only to find out that the musician had a dead or weak battery in their instrument i'll leave amazon links for all this stuff in the text below this video here talks about mixing live bass guitar go ahead and check that out if you haven't already seen it thanks for the likes and subscribes please leave any questions or comments below check out the other videos check out the patreon page and i will see you next time [Music]

Channel: Alan Hamilton Audio

Views: 25,197

Keywords: Whirlwind IMP 2, phantom power DI box, Radial JDI, di box for keyboard, Passive DI, active DI, direct injection box, Direct Box, DI box, D.I. box, live sound reinforcement, re-amping box, Behringer Ultra DI, di box for electric guitar, di box for acoustic guitar, live audio, bass guitar box, connecting a bass guitar to a DI, church audio, acoustic guitar box, re-amping guitars, DI for acoustic guitar, piezo pickup, d.i. box for acoustic guitar, behringer ultra di100

Id: 6iwW5_Ia9Uc

Length: 9min 3sec (543 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 07 2022