How does a DI box affect your tone?

[jasperok]

I am just curios - After you spend all that hard earned cash on your stompboxes and preamps - if you find yourself in a situation of having to run into a DI box fro say a line level out on your Preamp
does it change the tone much?

[BOD2]

YES !

Your speakers contribute a great deal to the sound you hear and the DI feed bypasses those completely. Your DI sound is then EQ'd on the mixing desk and played through PA speakers which will affect it again.

[chris_b]

[quote name='jasperok' post='515191' date='Jun 16 2009, 12:25 PM']....I am just curios - After you spend all that hard earned cash on your stompboxes and preamps - if you find yourself in a situation of having to run into a DI box fro say a line level out on your Preamp does it change the tone much?...[/quote]
If you have a good quality amp you should have pre and post DI outputs on the back. This will let you send the bass, with or without pre amp and effects, to the FOH.

You will bypass the speakers, can't help that, but as the PA speakers are likely to be better than yours I wouldn't worry about not using your speakers. If you have a good quality bass and amp and a DI box full of low quality components your sound can be affected by the DI box. Good, studio quality DI boxes, like REDDI, can cost thousands and you won't find them on a stage! Most of the stage DI boxes will be OK though. Unfortunately your sound is more likely to be adversely affected by the FOH soundman!!

[JanSpeeltBas]

DI quality is crucial in the studio where you'll find the great sounding REDDI's & Avalon U5's, they may be important for theatre gigs (with controlled acoustics and pro-sound engineers) but less important for common live gigs. Nevertheless you can hear the difference between a good one an a bad one which had me buying my own (BSS AR116) years ago. When using your amps DI out you'll get the best result using it Pre EQ (this is a direct feed from the amps input) so you can use your amps EQ for adjusting your stage (monitor) sound. When using effects in your effects send/return loop you'll have to go Post EQ, leaving you without EQ for your stage sound since all your sonic changes will be heard through the main PA system (you'll probably want full bass in the PA but may want to cut some bass on stage for less rumble & more clarity).