active DI vs passive DI

[Killjingle]

which do u prefer for recording purposes.

the basses that I own are all p style passive pickups. my bassists are j and p style passive as well.

[bassist_25]

Active DIs are generally more noisy than passive ones. Also, you need to be careful because phantom power can sometimes do wierd things to preamps and such. I think that all of the times I've recorded, it's been with passive DIs. I remember I once recorded a Rickenbacker stereo with two DIs. That was pretty cool.

There are a lot of cool active DIs with tone-shaping capabilities, the most notably probaly being the Avalon U5. The Avalon can also be used as a preamp for either guitar or bass. I've never tried one, but everyone who's ever used one has nothing but great things to say about it.

[Killjingle]

man 4 that kinda cash it better be. thats way too high end for my budget right now, but I would love to hear what it can do

[Punkinhead]

Man, in Martyrdom our bassist used actives and every time that we recorded we had to go to lengths (at times more than others) to keep the noise down.

[lonewolf]

As long as the signal stays strong enough, passive is much quieter than active. Active should only be used where passive cannot produce a strong enough signal.

[Banned]

I've seen cases where active has a detrimental effect on your tone.
My experience has been less crap, cleaner signal. I've used both, and my experience has always been that passive DI is cleaner and (as Lonewolf stated) if your signal is strong enough don't bother with the active.

[Mackovyak]

Passive.

Definately.

But I've heard really really good things about people using the ART Tube MP as a pre-amp/DI for bass.

That's second hand, so I can't be honest, but for $65 what the heck. But, I already have a passive DI. I just have a cheap ART I picked up for $30 new and it works great. Don't know the model off hand.

[songsmith]

Can you use the Sansamp Bass as a DI? TJKelly and Red both use those, and as a tone-shaping tool, it really does the trick.
I've heard the Avalon used as well... the guy was a poor bassist, but his tone was awesome. Sort of an unfair example for it.
I think if you have active p-ups, you shouldn't need an active DI, and as a soundman, I always thought it was just overcomplicating things, and adding another step to a gain structure many players don't fully understand anyway. And it's at least one more cable to trip over. That said, I prefer vintage bass sounds mostly, which are easier to get than the modern piano-bass-type sound.------->JMS

[bassist_25]

Can you use the Sansamp Bass as a DI? TJKelly and Red both use those, and as a tone-shaping tool, it really does the trick.

Yes, both the bass driver and RBI have unbalanced XLR outs. The bass driver is more or less an effects box that can double as a preamp, whereas the RBI is a rack-mounted preamp.

I'd like an RBI to run with my BBE unit. Of course, I just said this past Friday, if I could have a 10 space rack full of preamps (with everything from a Sansamp to a Kern), I would.

[Hannibal]

We normally use passive DI boxes for most applications. We keep a couple of active DI units for acoustic guitars and basses with extremely high impedance pickups where looping it through a passive DI drops the signal level too much for the artist's amplification system.