MIKING OR DI BOX?
CAN A DI BOX CAPTURE THE SOUND OF YOUR AMP?
Have you ever asked yourself whether you should pick a normal dynamic cardioid microphone like the SM57 or even get in touch with a DI Box to capture the sound of your guitar amp?
In the studio you can spend a lot of time finding the best mic position, but in a live situation you normally have to do everything as quickly as possible. The advantage which arises in using a DI Box is not only in saving time, but also in getting a pretty good and consistent sound in every conceivable situation.
Make sure you are using a dedicated guitar DI Box including filters to emulate speaker response. They are available in both active and passive versions and mostly are capable to convert line and speaker signals sourced from guitar amps into balanced, frequency-compensated, microphone-level signals with tonal characteristics of a guitar cabinet.
Launched in 1989, the RedBox was a world first and is still the most commercially successful cab simulation on the market today. Since then, it has become a standard tool on stages around the world and has even coined its own term: Let’s redbox the amp!
In the most ways the use of these tiny little helpers is easier than you would imagine. The only thing you have to do besides choosing your preferred “speaker” settings is to connect the DI Box between the amplifier output and the speaker and using the balanced output to feed the PA mixer.
There are a few guitar amps on the market which are equipped with an integrated DI Box and are capable to turn the signal into a very authentic sound.
Note: The RED BOX 5 emulates the speaker, not the microphone. In other words, signals provided by the RED BOX 5 sound like those of an actual cab rather than that of a microphone picking up the sound of a cab. The benefits are considerable: You get a fatter, punchier and more direct signal with far greater presence, bandwidth and dynamic range than signals captured with a microphone.
The Red Box 5 is the latest version of the award winning speaker simulation, now with new filtering options for small/large housings, modern/vintage speakers, and loose/tight response of the cabinet.
With the RED BOX 5, you can take the PA and playback device out of the sonic equation and deliver the sound of a guitar cabinet straight to audiences and listeners. Best of all, there’s no latency, spillover or crosstalk from other signal sources such as drums, frequency cancellations caused by neighboring microphones or any danger of feedback.
This signal is the best you can get for processing with compressors, equalizers, reverb effects and microphone simulations on stage and in the studio.
Tip: Experimentation is very much encouraged: Make the most of both worlds by mixing the signals from the RED BOX 5 and a microphone. The RED BOX 5 lends every microphone signal more girth and presence without detracting from its inherent characteristics.
In this video, Sebastian from Darkness Divided gives a good impression of how the Red Box sounds. He uses a GrandMeister Deluxe 40, which is equipped with an integrated RedBox AE, to make a nice A/B comparison between the speaker sound and the Red Box.
Guitarist Sebastian from Darkness Divided brings his metalcore tones to the Hughes & Kettner GrandMeister Deluxe 40! Sebastian did a playthrough for us and then tested the differences in tone between an H&K cab miked with a Shure SM57 and the GM40’s built-in Red Box AE DI.
To find out more about the wiring methods and the different configuration options, we recommend you read more about them here, and you can see a summary of the standalone model compared to the built-in models here.
And if you can’t get enough from the theory, check out the article about “Using Mics & DI Boxes On Stage” from our friends at “Sound On Sound”…
