Placing a di between the head and cab help please

[victor5string]

Hi all

Ok here we go, I've always had issues at gigs where soundguys don't whish to mic the cab and only use a di, this is fine and a good di can sound great but now I use more effects and especially overdives mostly coming from my Pearce bc1 and DHA vt2-twin eq. But these don't sound good via di.

So I recently started looking at running two di's as I feel sound guys will be more open to doing this so one clean di and one effected in-between the head and cab like guitarists do. So I've been looking at loads of di's and amp emulators, palmer stuff has been looking very interesting but most of them have attenuators on them with none selectable ohm ratings and can only handle up around 120watts which is far from enough. Does any one use the palmer stuff like the pdi 03, pdi 09 PGA 05 ect and if so could you let me know if I can bypass the power soak but still have the speaker emulator and di.

Then there is the beringer g 100 di which can (supposedly) handle up to 3000watts more then enough, I know the sound quality will not be up to that of the palmer stuff but could be worth a look any one used this dimand can give me some feedback.

Any adive or info would be a great help, as this way of producing my sound live will solve alot of problems and my drives can used to full effect.

Cheers

Vic

[JakeBrownBass]

I've got one of these,

http://www.artproaudio.com/products.asp?type=89&cat=15&id=60

The spec/manual says this,

Speaker level signals - The dPDB’s ability to accept speaker level inputs from a power amplifier’s output allows post-amplifier, post eq and effects signals to be fed directly to the console. In this manner, a particular effect or amplifier sound can be sent directly to the mix.

Although I've never actually tried it like that.

[Beer of the Bass]

If you're using overdrives which sound good through your amp but harsh through DI, it's probably the high end roll-off of your cab that makes them sound palatable, rather than the amp itself. Many quality DI boxes have a 40dB pad which can be used with amp outputs (in parallel with a speaker), but you'd need something to simulate the frequency response of your cab. I think the guitar cab simulators all cut the low end, which I doubt you'd want. Peavey make a speaker level DI with a variable Hi Cut control, which could be worth a look - It's called the SDI. There's probably not much point in messing with speaker level DI if you're using a solid-state amp though, as the tone before and after the power amp would not be much different, and many players using overdrive prefer to mic the cab.

Edited January 10, 2012 by Beer of the Bass

[hamfist]

THe Behringer box is actually a good bit of kit. All the Behringer DI's seem to be well made.
I have used the both Palmer stuff and the Behringer unit (admittedly with guitar not bass) between amp and cab and the Behringer sounded nicer to my ears. I still own and use the Behringer 3 years later, and it has not given me any trouble at all.

[Bill Fitzmaurice]

Use a DI for the lows, a mic for the mids and highs. Effects pretty much don't affect the lows anyway, and a mic will catch the tone of the speaker as well.