guitar, monitor question/digi002

[djkiller]

I'm getting some new monitors in soon some mackie mr8's :) and isince i have some money i'm just doing a little overhaul trying to get the best sound out of everything. anyways i was wondering should i be using a DI box when pluging my guitar in direct and using say gtr3 or amplitude?

also i went out and bought some balanced trs quarter inch cables for my new monitors for the main right and left on my digi 002. is this the best way to go about it?

[nst7]

The trs cables are fine for your monitors. As for a DI, I've been experimenting myself with this lately. I have the 003R but I assume the principles should be similar. Apparently, most passive pickups, such as typical electric guitar pickups, like to see an impedance load of at least 1 megaohm for best tonal quality. The 003 hi-z input is only 300 ohms. By getting a quality DI with a higher impedance input, and then connecting a mic cable from the DI box to the 002 preamp, you may see some improvement. However, my solution (based on good things I heard) was to get the Waves PRS interface (which you can buy separately, you don't have to have any waves plugins). This has a built in preamp. I then bought a Mogami XLR female to TRS cable. This way I plug in to the line inputs on the 003, completely bypassing the preamps. I was amazed at the improvement in quality and clarity, as well as localization in the stereo field when panning/double tracking, etc. This was true for both clean and distorted sound, even bypassing the plugs and recording just the actual direct sound of the guitar. For $90 for the interface, and $30-50 for a good xlr cable, this is a great value. It even sounded good on bass, though I couldn't get a lot of gain (it's an active bass, and the impedance seems to function differently). You may want to check it out.

[djkiller]

thanks for the info... i was looking at it and it looks pretty good for what i was thinking of. the guitar doesn't sound bad or anything as it is right now but i'm sure this waves thing would help and might even surprise me. allthough i wish i would of checked my comments before i bought more ram tonight lol. i only had 3gb in my mac quad core for the longest time and bought 4gb more tonight. thought protools could really use the extra 1gb and it would help with some logic plugings and my work in final cut with rendering. but when i get a little more cash next month i'll probably order one of these guys. thanks for the info! i was getting a little iffy if i was right about the monitor cables and really didn't want to rush back to the store. so thanks! ugh, still waiting on those monitors, damn labor day and shipping lol