No Amp - Just A DI Pedal?

[The59Sound]

Does anyone gig without an amp and use just a DI pedal with house monitors or IEMs?

I'm considering going this route has a lot of venues I play already have their own PA with monitors on stage. 

Has anyone encountered any problems going this route? 

[EBS_freak]

It all depends upon how good your IEMs are to how much you'll appreciate the performance. If you get it right, you'll wonder why you ever bothered with a rig. If you are reliant on monitors then you'll want to ensure that they are good ones... (which invariably they aren't and will fart out at the faintest sniff of bass).

I personally like the sound of a DI, but you may want some means of EQing the sound to your ear independent of front of house, as you may find the DI signal a bit thin in your ears if you want to experience the full bloom that you would normally get with a bass rig. There's loads of discussion about this in the big IEM thread in the Accessories section of this site... and the FRFR thread brings it up a few times.

[EliasMooseblaster]

10 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

I personally like the sound of a DI, but you may want some means of EQing the sound to your ear independent of front of house, as you may find the DI signal a bit thin in your ears if you want to experience the full bloom that you would normally get with a bass rig.

It does depend on the sound you prefer of course, but there's a wealth of amp modelling / preamp / preamp+DI pedals which you can put in front of the DI. Never been keen on a dry DI signal myself, but when I was still mostly playing the London Toilet Circuit, I usually had to like or lump it; wish I'd known about even half of these clever little boxes back then!

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited March 1, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[bassmachine2112]

Hiho,here,s my take.

I,ve been using preamp /DI boxes for over a decade.They are the most useful tool in the box.I wouldn,t go out without one.

I do some gigs without amp n cab where there in the city center and impossible parking, its bass,Preamp/DI ,cables in gigbag over shoulder and walk in.

Recording,plug in play-job done.

Live with amp n cab,stick it in front of amp,DI to desk/FOH amp for stage volume.The handy bit here is if your backline goes down your still in FOH/PA and the gig goes on.

There is little excuse not to have one tucked away as they can save the night.There is a lot of love for the Behringer BDI21 on here ,not only is it cheap it does the job.I,ve had my one over a decade and got it S/H for 6 quid and it still works faultlessly .Ido have a few others and they,re good but keep going back to BDI21 as  it,s so easy to use.

They are clever little boxes.

[EBS_freak]

3 hours ago, Jus Lukin said:

 

As you mention a DI pedal, I presume you are thinking of a Sansamp or similar. The Sansamps in particular are well regarded amongst techs, and will give you a sound more reminiscent of an amp, rather than the ultra clean, bright sound of a DI. They also give you some control over the sound of the signal, with EQ and clipping to tatse. This is problematic however, as any adjustments you make on stage may be completely inappropriate for front of house, especially if you're trying to compensate for a crappy monitor. If you need more low end and the front needs less you can literally fight the tech in the PA. This leaves a bad sound out front, and with limited time, one often ends up getting a 'best I could do' sound. If the effected signal can be sent direct to the monitor, you can then control it for yourself, whilst sending a clean DI to the desk.

This is easy to get around. Bass -> DI1 -> DI1 passthrough -> DI2 (with eq controls etc for yourself)... FOH have the balanced out from DI1.

[Tech21NYC]

3 hours ago, Jus Lukin said:

As you mention a DI pedal, I presume you are thinking of a Sansamp or similar. The Sansamps in particular are well regarded amongst techs, and will give you a sound more reminiscent of an amp, rather than the ultra clean, bright sound of a DI. They also give you some control over the sound of the signal, with EQ and clipping to tatse. This is problematic however, as any adjustments you make on stage may be completely inappropriate for front of house, especially if you're trying to compensate for a crappy monitor. If you need more low end and the front needs less you can literally fight the tech in the PA. This leaves a bad sound out front, and with limited time, one often ends up getting a 'best I could do' sound. If the effected signal can be sent direct to the monitor, you can then control it for yourself, whilst sending a clean DI to the desk. This gives the tech more room to do what he needs with the sound, but without any modelling. It is also fairly unlikely, as few sound techs will let you plug your bass guitar directly into their monitors with your own volume and bass EQ controls!

The Bass Driver DI was originally designed as a tone shaping direct box. The concept was to plug into the DI and send the "parallel" output to your bass amp and use your amp for your stage monitor and tone. The Bass Driver DI's XLR would be sent to the mixer and would be set for the most desirable DI tone. The pedal is designed to be used into the front end of an amp or efx loop if you are unhappy with your amp's inherent tone or for additional sounds. If using the XLR out to the PA this can lead to the issue described above. It's the reason many DI's on bass amps have a pre EQ switch. In a small venue where people hear mostly the sound of the stage amp and the PA is used for additional reinforcement there is probably more leeway. In a large venue where the sound is heard mainly from the PA it makes more sense to dial in the sound of the pedal from the FOH perspective. 

[fretmeister]

Helix.

 

But I've recently been experimenting with my Tech21 dUg straight into a powered PA cab too. 

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited March 1, 2022 by Jus Lukin

[Dood]

6 hours ago, EBS_freak said:

It all depends upon how good your IEMs are to how much you'll appreciate the performance. If you get it right, you'll wonder why you ever bothered with a rig. If you are reliant on monitors then you'll want to ensure that they are good ones... (which invariably they aren't and will fart out at the faintest sniff of bass).

I personally like the sound of a DI, but you may want some means of EQing the sound to your ear independent of front of house, as you may find the DI signal a bit thin in your ears if you want to experience the full bloom that you would normally get with a bass rig. There's loads of discussion about this in the big IEM thread in the Accessories section of this site... and the FRFR thread brings it up a few times.

@The59Sound Yup, this is essentially me. I have a wonderful backline that sounds amazing, but for my current gig I only run a Line6 Helix via our desk and straight to In-Ears. I don't use any cabinet simulation but I have carved my outgoing sound with drive, EQ and a bit of compression. We then tweak the EQ per venue when necessary for FOH.

I totally agree that whereas some IEMs are 'good', there is nothing like running something really nice in your ears through a stereo mixed system. Rocking up to a gig with a pair of basses and a gig box is pretty nice these days and I can be as loud or as quiet as I want to be in my mix and never upset anyone  

My one thing I make a point of when it comes to the way in which most bands do their IEM mixes (and by that I mean on a relative budget if it's not a Pro function type rig) is that many complain of feeling disconnected from the venue and audience when using IEMs that are capable of a large amount of attenuation of the ambient room sound. Think of it this way. The singer's voice in to the mic is being thrown straight to your ear drums without any sort of air gap that you'd have on stage between speakers and head. Same for the mic'd up guitars. The keyboards too. Drums, when on a budget may not have a monitor mix that gives a bit of space either unless there are enough channels to mic and mix the whole kit. (A luxury for some)

So, one of the most important aspects for me is a stereo, realistic blend of the ambient venue and stage sound in to your IEMs. For me I can balance the ambient sound with my monitor mix and it sounds way more like the sound of the band on stage. Stereo because  Mono just becomes way too congested (for me anyway) with a busy band set up. Oh and your ears aren't picking up in mono lol. I actually recorded a video about the subject ages ago, but since then I have upgraded my personal kit arrangement, so I am well overdue to do another. Everyone who has tried my rig has absolutely loved it! Definitely worth looking in to that as it can be a huge help to bring life back to a mix on a budget*.

 

*By this I mean not having access to say a digital desk with effects and EQ on each channel etc. I will however be correct as said devices aren't that expensive these days in the grand scheme of things.

I may come back and edit this as I typed quickly whilst waiting to teach my next lesson!

[The59Sound]

3 hours ago, Jus Lukin said:

Or just send the parallel out to a DI, and the effected signal to a powered monitor, if you're allowed (which you probably won't be!). There are a million ways to patch things, but the point remains that using just a DI, coloured or otherwise, is different to using an amp in many ways, with different compromises.

And very well they do it too, might I say! Both uses there make sense, but while I'm sure it works under the right circumstances, there is a notion of 'getting my sound in the front of house' which can go with the use of coloured pres. While it does do that in cooperation with the tech, what one can't do is tweak away to get the sound one wants onstage without altering what happens front of house, the room and the different positions in it being a huge factor in the difference in requirements.

I know you guys know this, it's just for the benefit of The59Sound, as he's asking in very broad terms!

@The59Sound, what sort of stages are you playing, as your options will be very different if you're playing the Albert Hall, compared to 4th band of ten at a pub beer festival.

Ha, most likely the beer festivals. 

[Skybone]

As mentioned above, a number of people these days are using amp modellers, (like Helix, Kemper, AxeFX, Headrush, etc.) direct into the PA, and/or have their own powered PA monitors (FRFR) setups.

It can be done.

 

[Frank Blank]

https://www.basschat.co.uk/topic/315455-interesting-frfr-story/?tab=comments#comment-3410353

[Tech21NYC]

21 hours ago, Jus Lukin said:

And very well they do it too, might I say! Both uses there make sense, but while I'm sure it works under the right circumstances, there is a notion of 'getting my sound in the front of house' which can go with the use of coloured pres. While it does do that in cooperation with the tech, what one can't do is tweak away to get the sound one wants onstage without altering what happens front of house, the room and the different positions in it being a huge factor in the difference in requirements.

For the most part in smaller situations your bass sound is pretty much a composite of what's coming off stage and what reinforcement the sound tech feels is necessary. Unfortunately in the states at least, most sound techs don't understand the difference between sound reinforcement and reproduction. They try to use a studio approach in a live sound environment. Many players seem predisposed to this approach as well. The band I play with does a lot of large outdoor shows in the summertime and the bass and low end is the most problematic frequency. Many times the low end backwash from the PA's subwoofers will negatively impact the sound on stage. My bass player will often lament that he's "playing the PA" instead of his bass amp. As a lead guitarist I've been told by sound techs I'm too loud when it's the PA system that forces the band to play louder because they place the system too close to the stage. When we pay to provide our own sound I will make them move the subs and line arrays farther from the stage so we can play at lower volumes. Live sound is always a challenge. 

Edited November 1, 2018 by Tech21NYC

[micguy]

I've been ampless and in ear for 90 percent of my gigs for the last 5 years. Any pedal that has a decently low impedance can be used to drive a DI (assuming the venue has one), or, like many of us, you can bring your own DI. I currently am using a Tech21 Q strip as my eq and DI at the output end of my pedalboard.

The tough thing about going ampless is, if you want to use dirt, you don't have a cabinet to filter out high frequency stuff that the dirt pedal creates. That means you have to figure out how to deal with that on your pedalboard. A low pass filter or cabinet emulator are the usual  way, though some overdrives have enough filtering built in that you're OK without additional EQ. The 3kHz low pass on my Q strip is on all the time - just a bit of filtering to dust that tiny bit of fizz or clinkiness of my signal

I assess and tweak the tone of my rig though a mixer driving a pair of headphones that I know the sound of really well. So far, FOH guys are able to work with what I'm feeding them without issues - I ask, as I don't ever hear what's coming off the PA mains, and I want to know if there's anything I can do better.

Edited November 1, 2018 by micguy

[Jus Lukin]

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Edited March 1, 2022 by Jus Lukin