Why put the distortion on the DI pedal?

[Vin Venal]

Seems like a good idea in theory - yay you only need one pedal.

 

But in reality, you know you will end up needing more than one pedal.

 

And because of the way overdrive stacking works, you can't put anything into the DI pedal without it sounding like the distortion on your DI pedal only more so.

 

And you can't put anything after the DI pedal, cuz it won't be in your DI signal chain. So you better like overdriven chorus rather than chorused overdrive.

 

Maybe having overdrive on your DI pedal makes sense if it's a crazy fuzz you only use occasionally, and want to colour everything else, but otherwise it kind of gets in the way the minute you go above 1 pedal.

 

So why is it the most common configuration? And almost always your low gainy type drive? Wouldn't a built in compressor be more useful to most people?

[SumOne]

Yeah, I'm with you on that. They need an fx loop and switchable overdrive unless it's the only pedal being used. 

[Doddy]

This is the reason I never use the DI out on any of my preamp pedals. I like preamps at the front of my chain, and I want the DI at the end.  I get it if you are only using one pedal like a Sansamp or something, but they don't work for me when I'm using a bunch of pedals.

[jimbobothy]

… I tend to favour single use/function pedals if I can get away with it myself due to this sort of thing.

[Downunderwonder]

Sansamp Deluxe has an fx loop. I can't remember if it is pre or post the Drive. Google ain't what it used to be.

[krispn]

In theory at least you probably don’t want distortion on a DI as the DI is likely to put out a full range signal 20hz-20khz type thing and drive/dirt up at that top end sucks unless you want the harsh fizzy sound. The beauty of speakers is that they often remove the high end in a pleasing way especially with the tweeter off (unless it’s the FRFR kit). You can imitate the high end roll off at the desk but often a clean DI is far less hassle. I tend to run clean to the desk and only have drive coming out the amp or use a cab sim/IR to the desk on my hx stomp.

 

 

[Fionn]

On 08/01/2022 at 21:48, Downunderwonder said:

Sansamp Deluxe has an fx loop. I can't remember if it is pre or post the Drive. Google ain't what it used to be.

The SansAmp section precedes the FX loop, so you have the flexibility to position that specific preamp at any position in the chain, and have the full chain going to DI

[Tech21NYC]

Our SansAmp DI's are tube amp emulators. They are designed to sound like a vintage tube amp. They can be set totally clean or overdriven if desired.

 

The original intent behind the design was for the product to be used like a typical direct box. You plug into the Bass Driver and the parallel (uneffected) output goes to your amp. You would use your amp as you normally would but the DI to the mixer has the ability to send your uneffected buffered signal (boring) to the board or the sound of a tube amp instead. The blend control allows you to add in the uneffected signal with the tube emulation. This is a common technique that was used in studios for years. The engineer would mic up a bass amp and take a DI of the bass and the final sound was a composite of the two sources.

 

Somewhere along the way players started using our SansAmp's in front of their bass amps like stomp boxes. It can work either way. You just have to decide what you are trying to do. Our original Bass DI didn't even have a stomp switch or controls on the face of the unit. It looked like most direct boxes and had internal controls.