Jack Input on Rack 003 as a DI

[Matt Darcy]

Chaps,

I'm plugging bass guitar directly into one of the jack socket inputs on the 003, I'm looking at the manual at the moment and it seems the 003 should act as a DI, but from your experience would I benifit from putting Bass -> DI -> Jack 003, instead of Bass -> Jack 003.

I'm using the a bass amp simulator, and wonder if I'd get better results with a DI in between.

thanks.

[dogon]

Do you have a DI you can try or are you thinking of buying one? If you have one, plug it in and see if it gives you the chubby, if you don't, try to borrow or try a few out.

Will it sound better......hmmmm
Do you have good monitors? Is your control room treated/sound good? How much of your sound is the simulator? How good is your Bass?

At the end of the day I think it is YOU that has to decide if something like that (DI) sounds better, (or worth the money). Let's face it, there is so much stuff we could spend our money on, new plugin's, mic pre's etc. etc.
(sorry, raving on there...)

The output of your DI goes into a Mic Pre too (XLR)
Hope this helps
Dogon

[Matt Darcy]

very interesting comments, and all taken on board.

I wasn't asking in reality "will this sound better" more a case of " is the Jack on the Rack 003 meant to be used as a DI" and technically should I put a DI in between.

My monitors are good, my, it's a home setup so it's not the greatest setup nor acoustically sound solution, The bass is a reasonable fender USA bass, so kit wise I'm fine, I just find the input being fed into the ampeg bass simulator plugin a little harsh, eg: can here "twang" on the strings, which I think from my limited understanding is because of the signal of the bass being fed directly into the 003 - which then made me think is the Jack socket on the 003 meant to be used as DI ?

I'm considering buying one and to be honest should get one any way, nothing major, but at the same time I'm trying to understand my kit better and should it be used in the way I'm using it, and if not what is the correct solution and way to approach this.

Thanks,

Matt

[DigiTechSupt]

Matt - you absolutely can use the DI inputs to connect your bass directly and no other DI box is needed (and, in fact, if you use a separate DI, you should be going into the mic input on the 003..).

I doubt the 'twang' you're hearing is caused by the DI. Have you used Ampeg before and gotten different results with the same bass?

Typically if you're using an input that isn't a 'real' DI input, you'd hear more rolling off of highs than an exaggeration of them.

[flommer]

I have an 002 but I believe the 003 is similar.. I hope you are talking about the DI inputs on channels 1-4. They can be used for instruments, just select DI on the input switch...

You should be able to use this with no problems... the gain knob can fine tune your input gain..

However, almost every article/book/forum post etc I have ever seen has said that the best results are going to come from using a good external DI. In fact, the pros seem to rely on a good DI (into a really good mic-pre) track more often than mic'ing up a bass cabinet, etc...

I use a GT Brick and am very happy with it.

A couple I have seen mentioned quite often for bass are Aguilar and Demeter. The Avalon DI is also highly coveted...

Passive DI's don't seem to get as much mention for bass (radial, for example) because maybe the previously mentioned tube DIs really add to the sound instead of just passing a perfect, clean signal...

do a google search for "bass recording techniques"... there's tons of info on the net about how people are getting it done..

[Matt Darcy]

I'm getting much better results now, a little more control on matching the guitar volume, 003 gain, PT level and Ampeg Amp volume gain, plus a amp setup better suited to the sound I'm looking for has given me a much better recording tool, not perfect, but it is an amp sim after .


Thanks for the input.