ABSTRACT
Some amplifi ers have a dedicated line output which can be recorded in place of a DI signal, but this rarely sounds as clean, so I almost always favor a DI box if one’s available. There are also some specialized DI boxes that can safely accept an amplifi er’s speaker-level output signal, sitting in-line between the amplifi er and the speaker-some can even substitute for a speaker, retaining some of that “real amp” character in the recorded timbre without waking the neighbors. However, because the speaker is typically responsible for taming the frequency extremes of an instrument amplifi er’s raw output, you’re unlikely to achieve a usable timbre in that instance without artifi cial speaker simulation. Analog speaker simulation is usually built into DI boxes that can handle amplifi ed signals, but if you can switch this off for recording purposes you’ll often get a better end result, given the range and quality of software speakermodeling bundled with most DAW systems these days. To be honest, though,
there’s little point in DI’ing an instrument’s amplifi ed signal if you’re able to mike it up instead, because it’ll hardly ever sound as good.
