Going ampless...DI?

[mrtcat]

9 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Jamie was only posting yesterday on facebook how he cant get any decent sounds out of it! :0 Is he a Kemper tart at heart? Mind you, I think he's one of those gear obsessives that will never find nirvana! I see he's sporting a St Vincent Musicman at the moment too! (I always wondered who would buy them when they were released - quirky looking things!)

This is his second helix. I think he really likes the idea of it but got on so well with his kemper that he struggles with anything different. He loves how easy it is to put patches in order on tye helix for every gig. He's an absolute nightmare with gear though. I've never known anyone turn over so much stuff. He had two St Vincents until the start of May. He traded a black stealth one for a Tom Anderson but now he's traded that for a USA custom schecter and I reckon that'll be gone soon because he doesn't like the single coil pickups. The St Vincent suits him tho cos it was designed for a girls body and to be fair it sounds great. I'm a massive Musicman fan tho so am pretty biased. 

[Cuzzie]

Those St Vincent’s are absolute corking guitars, and musicman guitar necks are some of the best around, I quite like the looks as well.

Sounds like that chap could do with the Fractal FM3

[mrtcat]

6 minutes ago, Cuzzie said:

Those St Vincent’s are absolute corking guitars, and musicman guitar necks are some of the best around, I quite like the looks as well.

Sounds like that chap could do with the Fractal FM3

Only a matter of time I'm sure. Totally agree about the St Vincent.

[Cuzzie]

Ha!

The FM3 though more expensive than the stomp actually makes complete sense when paired with the FC6 controller, and that brings it more in line cost-wise with Helix, Plus you have 48 blocks!

My guitarist is always on the look out for a potential St Vincent, but they are hens teeth

[EBS_freak]

He's already been through his AxeFX phase... maybe it's time to revisit it with the FM3.

Anyway, I don't think there's much been mentioned around these parts about the SIM1 XT1 - (it's basically a guitar modeller, eg make you strat sound like a LP, 335, acoustic etc) and XTB (similar for bass) - I've seen today that they've started putting pres and IR in there. Makes for a very interesting little box that is doing something that none of the other modellers are doing. Desperately want to try one - but there's no UK distribution so it would be a blind buy based on all the youtube videos.

I think I'll just wait for Jamie to buy one and try and buy it off him once he's done with it.

[bazzbass]

the Elf is a seriously good DI, with the bonus you can add the 8kg 1x10" cab as your stage monitor

[EBS_freak]

7 minutes ago, bazzbass said:

the Elf is a seriously good DI, with the bonus you can add the 8kg 1x10" cab as your stage monitor

I'd rather go with 16 grams for a set of IEMs

 

[bazzbass]

6 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

I'd rather go with 16 grams for a set of IEMs

 

good choice.

I fear my already bad tinnitus, I mean REALLY bad would mean I'd have to have IEMs too loud and probably cause more damage. Safer for me to wear good ear plugs and keep stage volume down. Luckily my bandmates are seasoned pros with tiny guitar amps and a pro drummer who doesn't play very hard.

Wish we had IEMs, or even just good ear protection back in the 80s and 90s

[Woodinblack]

1 hour ago, Cuzzie said:

My guitarist is always on the look out for a potential St Vincent, but they are hens teeth

Nah, they are easy to get if you are very well off.. or I guess St Vincent - she seems to have a few spare.

Would certainly like one if they turned up cheap!

[EBS_freak]

30 minutes ago, bazzbass said:

good choice.

I fear my already bad tinnitus, I mean REALLY bad would mean I'd have to have IEMs too loud and probably cause more damage. Safer for me to wear good ear plugs and keep stage volume down. Luckily my bandmates are seasoned pros with tiny guitar amps and a pro drummer who doesn't play very hard.

Wish we had IEMs, or even just good ear protection back in the 80s and 90s

You played with Joe Bonamassa too then?

I dunno... custom IEMs would be a really good shout. Better isolation than the typical ear plugs that you are wearing... and you can drive the monitors to the point where its comfortable where you can hear what is going on. With ear plugs, you still rely on ambient bleed to hear whats going on. With IEMs, next to no ambient bleed... and you are in complete control of what gets to your ear drum. In reality, the sound pressure waves on your ear drum could be a lot less than what an ear plug would be due to that ambient block and controlled input of your mix that a custom mould would give you. I'd certainly investigate.

[dave_bass5]

Can i ask why a DI box is needed? Whats wrong with going B3n - Desk?

[EBS_freak]

3 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

Can i ask why a DI box is needed? Whats wrong with going B3n - Desk?

Nothing* - although purists would argue you should be using a balanced connection into your PA. A lot of PAs will want a XLR in balanced connection... but granted, a lot of prosumer desks have balanced/unbalanced input and things like combo jacks. As you go into the pro market, you won't find that.

* I seem to recall that B3n is unbalanced line out - like keyboards... and the DI box brings that signal to mic level, which is what most (pro) preamps are happiest running at.

[dave_bass5]

42 minutes ago, EBS_freak said:

Nothing* - although purists would argue you should be using a balanced connection into your PA. A lot of PAs will want a XLR in balanced connection... but granted, a lot of prosumer desks have balanced/unbalanced input and things like combo jacks. As you go into the pro market, you won't find that.

* I seem to recall that B3n is unbalanced line out - like keyboards... and the DI box brings that signal to mic level, which is what most (pro) preamps are happiest running at.

Thats what i thought. I cant see an issue (in the real world) with going direct to the deck via a jack to jack. Ive been doing it for years without any issues, also on keyboards back in the day, in the same sort of environment as the OP.

[jrixn1]

For a long cable run, unbalanced could pick up noise where balanced would not.   Not an issue if you're near the desk.

[Cuzzie]

1 hour ago, Woodinblack said:

Nah, they are easy to get if you are very well off.. or I guess St Vincent - she seems to have a few spare.

Would certainly like one if they turned up cheap!

Yep - first hand prices are chronic.

There was a rumour of a bass and I would be interested in that for sure, but I am not a small chap so it could look ridiculous 

[dave_bass5]

1 hour ago, jrixn1 said:

For a long cable run, unbalanced could pick up noise where balanced would not.   Not an issue if you're near the desk.

Yeah, my comment was purely based on the OP's situation, which sounds very similar to the gigs ive been doing over the past 15 years. Bigger stages etc, different story.

[51m0n]

Get a BSS AR133 DI box as a minimum. It's bullet proof and effectively flat and will put out what you put into it.

If you want to get really into this a lot of people love the REDDI box, rather than an amp SIM.

Depends on the genre but don't forget all the Motown bass was recorded DI, Bernard Edwards did all his stuff DI, if you aren't rocking the grindy tones then stick with a DI in other words 😉

Edited June 4, 2019 by 51m0n

[Woodinblack]

16 hours ago, jrixn1 said:

For a long cable run, unbalanced could pick up noise where balanced would not.   Not an issue if you're near the desk.

Remembering it is quite low impedance so it wouldn't be a lot of noise like running from a passive bass to an amp for instance. So you would have to be on quite a big stage before it really became an issue.

16 hours ago, Cuzzie said:

There was a rumour of a bass and I would be interested in that for sure, but I am not a small chap so it could look ridiculous 

I looked into the idea of a bass of that and did some drawings, but the body on the St Vincent is actually pretty long, so I wasn't sure it would work - On the plus side its really easy to draw!

Edited June 5, 2019 by Woodinblack

[NancyJohnson]

I've done one gig in my lifetime where I went ampless, and not through choice.  It was a disaster.  Sound guy told me to just leave my gear in the car...took a DI out of my Sansamp; no monitors, couldn't hear anything except for drums.

There's something reassuring having an amp/cab(s) behind you.

[mrtcat]

18 hours ago, Woodinblack said:

Nah, they are easy to get if you are very well off.. or I guess St Vincent - she seems to have a few spare.

Would certainly like one if they turned up cheap!

There's a sterling version out now for about £800 rrp 

[dave_bass5]

43 minutes ago, NancyJohnson said:

I've done one gig in my lifetime where I went ampless, and not through choice.  It was a disaster.  Sound guy told me to just leave my gear in the car...took a DI out of my Sansamp; no monitors, couldn't hear anything except for drums.

There's something reassuring having an amp/cab(s) behind you.

My first gig without back line was what promoted me to get a BDI-21. Just for that gig. it was a few years later when the BDDI bug hit me though.

On that gig i got the sound guy to put my monitor behind me, seemed to work much better than in front where it started. It felt and sounded wrong in front.

[stingrayPete1977]

1 hour ago, NancyJohnson said:

I've done one gig in my lifetime where I went ampless, and not through choice.  It was a disaster.  Sound guy told me to just leave my gear in the car...took a DI out of my Sansamp; no monitors, couldn't hear anything except for drums.

There's something reassuring having an amp/cab(s) behind you.

I'm not sure that's a very fair comparison?! 

[NancyJohnson]

17 minutes ago, dave_bass5 said:

My first gig without back line was what promoted me to get a BDI-21. Just for that gig. it was a few years later when the BDDI bug hit me though.

On that gig i got the sound guy to put my monitor behind me, seemed to work much better than in front where it started. It felt and sounded wrong in front.

Hey @dave_bass5
We were playing this little club in Reading, it did seem a little weird that there was nothing about sharing of backline being circulated pre-gig, so as we were second on, I just took a 4x10 and my rack.  The stage was low and tiny, but we never really stayed on stage anyways, these type of platforms served more as a drum riser than anything else.  The sound guy was adamant about keeping the stage volumes down and letting the PA do the work, which, fair enough, would be fine if the (house) PA and monitoring were fit for purpose, which it wasn't.

There's something somewhat disconcerting playing live in a situation that you can't actually hear what you're playing, plus my fecking tuner was in my rack, which was in my car, which was no use whatsoever.  Luckily I was always carrying a BDDI, so at least I could shap what I sounded like, even through the tech was telling me to roll off the dirt and go cleaner (he didn't even know what we sounded like, so why would I do that??).  We just tuned up between us and went for it.  It wasn't great really.

P

[NancyJohnson]

8 minutes ago, stingrayPete1977 said:

I'm not sure that's a very fair comparison?! 

To what, Pete?  In answer to George's OP, this is one experience I'd had and from that alone my boy scout fallback position would always be be prepared.

Sometimes you have defining moments that make you sit up and reconsider how you've done things previously; in this instance it was enough for me to make the decision there and then that I would always carry my amplification to every live show I did.  Unless you're running your own event, with your own PA (and are wholly aware of it's limitations), then expect the unexpected and pack everything, because there's always someone or something that will bite you in the donkey.

[jazzmanb]

I like my Radial tonebone which gives the desk my sound ,2 channel,boost,tuner ,loop out etc .It could be used alone but I also have a rig  I can play with on stage to suit me without affecting the front of house sound 

we're too loud a band to ditch the rig but other music the Radial would do fine