Tracking guitar DI into dig 003 VS DI box

[Wave Mason]

Hello I am just looking for opinions on tracking guitars Direct In.
I've been running into a passive Radial DI box then to input 1 on my Digi003.
Is it more common to track DI guitars in the "DI 1" input on the front of the Digi003?
Further more, my guitars pick-ups are passive and my DI box is too, I've read that I need the Active DI box for passive pickups...?.. Anyone experience much of a difference? Worth buying an active one or using one at all?
Thank you.

[Darryl Ramm]

Very unlikely an active DI will help you. Spend the money on good beer, much more useful. If you were fighting low signal levels then maybe, but you also have so much digital gain in Pro Tools to play with that its just likely not an issue.

You have two DI available to you, so which one sounds and works best for you? Don't forget to play with analog and digital gain staging to make the proper comparison.

Most folks will just use the DI on the 003. A good reason to use an outboard DI is to avoid long instrument cable runs killing tone and/or problems with noise pickup. Which is why it is always great to have a nice DI, like your passive Radial box in your toolkit.

[Wave Mason]

Thanks for the input.