Great video! In my setup I've also noticed that when I play directy into my SSL 2+, I get plenty of strange hi-pitched whiny noise (not a ground loop), which is gone with DI.
Interesting! Sounds like the DI is doing its job by isolating the signal from something. I once had high pitched noises that drove me nuts. Turned out my phone was too close by (in my pocket). Moved the phone away, the noise disappeared. These days, I'm running balanced out from my Line6 into my SSL's XLR input. Pretty happy with it. Thanks so much for watching!
@@jonathanwong458music A mistery indeed. I had a RTF specialist to look at that. His opinion was - it's a CPU inflicted noises. And it started after me replacing the CPU. So, probably there's something to it. Yes, most of the noise dissapears with a DI or with an external FX unit.
Haven't finished the video yet, but commenting anyways lol - few things I think about when recording direct, in no particular order. Fewer components between pickups and converters can give you the best 'dry' sound to manipulate later with plugins; Outboard gear like external preamps, EQs, DI boxes, effects, can help you get a great recorded tone that requires less fussing with later and trying to approximate your final 'tone' before hitting the converters is a good practice in most cases; No reason to not record multiple tracks if you have the inputs; Some DI boxes are great at getting a neutral tone, others impart their own profile.
Absolutely! My preference is to record through my Line6. It's set to exactly what I want to hear. Balanced out. Yes it's baked in, but I've spent the time to bake it in!
Jensen xformer is 12:1 ratio. It means you have 288kohm input impedance. After splitting your bass sees 224kohm input impedance. What you are comparing is SSL mic preamp plus input transformer vs HiZ with lowered input impedance.
Thanks for commenting! Interesting. Far too advanced electronics for me. Is there a better way to compare apples to apples? If I split the bass signal upstream from the JDI, the impedance would be slightly altered too, would it not?
@@jonathanwong458music No point of comparing apples to apples if you like pears. ;) Some active DI boxes have 3Mohm impedance and all of them require mic pre, so comparision is difficult. I understand you like sound of lower impedance input plus good transformer plus SSL mic pre better than HiZ pre to the same ADC. :)
I guess I like oranges! My preferred chain is my Line6 model, balanced out, into the mic pre. But yes, I do prefer the JDI into the mic pre over the HiZ input, if those were my only options. But it's a pretty subtle improvement, which was the point of the video.
Also if you have both recorded tracks lined up precisely in the DAW you can flip the phase on one to run a 'null' test and what you hear after flipping the phase is the difference between the two.
This won't work, as he records two different takes for the comparison. For a null test, it has to be the exact same take, otherwise there is not even a real possibility to really null.
Just saw this. In this video, it’s the same take recorded onto 2 separate tracks. One through the DI, the other from the parallel through into the hi-z input.
Hi! Very nice video! Although, I think the DI you need is an active, since your bass is passive. For what I could hear, the DI sound is slightly better... but not a day/night difference. Cheers!
Thx for watching! I got the JDI for the transformer. It was the most versatile DI for my different instruments (both active and passive). Live, I could not really tell the difference between it and the other Radial offerings. These days I just take the balanced out from my modeller and haven’t used the JDI much.
I appreciate that you wanted to capture the one performance to eliminate that variable. Unfortunately, that kind of invalidates the test. The impedance reflected through the DI is significantly lower than the Instrument input, and having them in parallel means the bass is seeing that low impedance. The Instrument input is recording the sound of the bass connected to a low impedance. It would probably pass a lot more high frequency information if you plugged straight into it without the DI involved at all. You have not shown us the difference between the DI and the Instrument input. The only good way to show the actual difference is to plug straight into the interface. That means two performances. I think the difference will be obvious enough that no reasonable listener could blame the performance. Granted, the parallel connection is a common setup, just that usually the thru signal goes to an amp. The bass usually would sound different straight into the amp also, but…
Thanks for the feedback! Fair enough, the input impedance on the Radial JDI is 140 kohms, vs the input impedance on the SSL hi-Z is advertised as 1 MOhm as per the manual. The sonic differences will also be influenced by the voicing or colouring of each too. I won't pretend to understand how that's done, I'm after the one that sounds 'better' that doesn't require a ton of setup and tear down time. Simple signal chains make me happier! Thanks for writing!
We very often don't actually want all of the treble that the bass could possibly give us, and we'd expect the speakers in an amplifier to roll most of it off anyway. The low Z of the DI acts almost like a cheap and easy speaker sim, and probably does sound objectively better in many cases than actually straight into the interface without it. That's easy to correct with EQ after the fact, but also pretty much the same as just turning down the Tone knob on the bass itself.
Should maybe mention that I did think I heard the difference in the bottom end that you talked about, and can't really account for that part atm. I'd imagine it would be even "worse" if there's was more top end (from higher in-Z) too.
@@ashcatlt my typical recording setup is using the balanced outs from my line6 into the mic pre. It’s a baked in sound, but it’s modelled after the real amp, and sounds like me. I prefer committing to a tone (at least for bass) rather than be left with option anxiety over how to process it later. If it really doesn’t fit or sound right/good, I’ll just grab a different bass and re-record it .
Was looking for a DI box a couple hours ago, great timing, thanks.
Thx for watching!
Great video! In my setup I've also noticed that when I play directy into my SSL 2+, I get plenty of strange hi-pitched whiny noise (not a ground loop), which is gone with DI.
Interesting! Sounds like the DI is doing its job by isolating the signal from something. I once had high pitched noises that drove me nuts. Turned out my phone was too close by (in my pocket). Moved the phone away, the noise disappeared.
These days, I'm running balanced out from my Line6 into my SSL's XLR input. Pretty happy with it.
Thanks so much for watching!
@@jonathanwong458music A mistery indeed. I had a RTF specialist to look at that. His opinion was - it's a CPU inflicted noises. And it started after me replacing the CPU. So, probably there's something to it. Yes, most of the noise dissapears with a DI or with an external FX unit.
Haven't finished the video yet, but commenting anyways lol - few things I think about when recording direct, in no particular order.
Fewer components between pickups and converters can give you the best 'dry' sound to manipulate later with plugins; Outboard gear like external preamps, EQs, DI boxes, effects, can help you get a great recorded tone that requires less fussing with later and trying to approximate your final 'tone' before hitting the converters is a good practice in most cases; No reason to not record multiple tracks if you have the inputs; Some DI boxes are great at getting a neutral tone, others impart their own profile.
Absolutely! My preference is to record through my Line6. It's set to exactly what I want to hear. Balanced out. Yes it's baked in, but I've spent the time to bake it in!
Jensen xformer is 12:1 ratio. It means you have 288kohm input impedance. After splitting your bass sees 224kohm input impedance.
What you are comparing is SSL mic preamp plus input transformer vs HiZ with lowered input impedance.
Thanks for commenting! Interesting. Far too advanced electronics for me. Is there a better way to compare apples to apples? If I split the bass signal upstream from the JDI, the impedance would be slightly altered too, would it not?
@@jonathanwong458music No point of comparing apples to apples if you like pears. ;) Some active DI boxes have 3Mohm impedance and all of them require mic pre, so comparision is difficult.
I understand you like sound of lower impedance input plus good transformer plus SSL mic pre better than HiZ pre to the same ADC. :)
I guess I like oranges! My preferred chain is my Line6 model, balanced out, into the mic pre. But yes, I do prefer the JDI into the mic pre over the HiZ input, if those were my only options. But it's a pretty subtle improvement, which was the point of the video.
Also if you have both recorded tracks lined up precisely in the DAW you can flip the phase on one to run a 'null' test and what you hear after flipping the phase is the difference between the two.
very interesting idea
This won't work, as he records two different takes for the comparison. For a null test, it has to be the exact same take, otherwise there is not even a real possibility to really null.
@@TheAris621 You can record multiple tracks simultaneously, the DI box has a thru which could route into the 2nd channel of the interface.
@@tylerwmbass true
Just saw this. In this video, it’s the same take recorded onto 2 separate tracks. One through the DI, the other from the parallel through into the hi-z input.
Great info!
Thanks for watching!
Hi! Very nice video! Although, I think the DI you need is an active, since your bass is passive. For what I could hear, the DI sound is slightly better... but not a day/night difference. Cheers!
Thx for watching! I got the JDI for the transformer. It was the most versatile DI for my different instruments (both active and passive). Live, I could not really tell the difference between it and the other Radial offerings. These days I just take the balanced out from my modeller and haven’t used the JDI much.
@@jonathanwong458music Interesting about the live scenario. Maybe they are giving you a nice DI as well. Cheers!
Typically other Radials. Once it travels through 200ft of cable, gets EQ’d by FOH, and comes back, it gets tricky to hear any differences
@@jonathanwong458music Oh. Well, Radials are very good in general.
I agree that the JDI sounded richer in quality.
Thanks for watching and commenting!
I appreciate that you wanted to capture the one performance to eliminate that variable. Unfortunately, that kind of invalidates the test. The impedance reflected through the DI is significantly lower than the Instrument input, and having them in parallel means the bass is seeing that low impedance. The Instrument input is recording the sound of the bass connected to a low impedance. It would probably pass a lot more high frequency information if you plugged straight into it without the DI involved at all. You have not shown us the difference between the DI and the Instrument input. The only good way to show the actual difference is to plug straight into the interface. That means two performances. I think the difference will be obvious enough that no reasonable listener could blame the performance.
Granted, the parallel connection is a common setup, just that usually the thru signal goes to an amp. The bass usually would sound different straight into the amp also, but…
Thanks for the feedback! Fair enough, the input impedance on the Radial JDI is 140 kohms, vs the input impedance on the SSL hi-Z is advertised as 1 MOhm as per the manual. The sonic differences will also be influenced by the voicing or colouring of each too. I won't pretend to understand how that's done, I'm after the one that sounds 'better' that doesn't require a ton of setup and tear down time. Simple signal chains make me happier!
Thanks for writing!
We very often don't actually want all of the treble that the bass could possibly give us, and we'd expect the speakers in an amplifier to roll most of it off anyway. The low Z of the DI acts almost like a cheap and easy speaker sim, and probably does sound objectively better in many cases than actually straight into the interface without it. That's easy to correct with EQ after the fact, but also pretty much the same as just turning down the Tone knob on the bass itself.
Should maybe mention that I did think I heard the difference in the bottom end that you talked about, and can't really account for that part atm. I'd imagine it would be even "worse" if there's was more top end (from higher in-Z) too.
@@ashcatlt my typical recording setup is using the balanced outs from my line6 into the mic pre. It’s a baked in sound, but it’s modelled after the real amp, and sounds like me. I prefer committing to a tone (at least for bass) rather than be left with option anxiety over how to process it later. If it really doesn’t fit or sound right/good, I’ll just grab a different bass and re-record it .
Jdi more detail
Yes! Thanks for watching!
sounds exactly the same
Indeed, very similar. Thanks for watching!