do you need a direct box when you are playing live or even when you are recording this is a common question that I seem to get asked quite a bit in my comment section so I think it's worth addressing long story short if you've been using something without a direct box for a while and it sounds good keep doing what you're doing my tone philosophy is if it sounds good use it however you might be able to fix some common problems if you use a direct box in the right situations so it's worth knowing how to use one and when to use one I'm going to keep this as simple as possible if you look this up online you're going to see the definition for direct box everywhere that says a direct box will take an unbalanced High impedance signal and convert it into a low impedance balance signal well we're going to simplify that a direct box is meant to take a noisy signal and turn it into a less noisy signal while preserving the tone and Signal quality it's basically what it does an unbalanced cable is a TS cable that is used for guitar and bass and instruments and stuff like that those cables are a lot more noisy a balanced signal is like like a TRS cable or an XLR cable that are far less noisy so when you see unbalanced and balanced just think noisy and not noisy High impedance and low impedance you don't even have to know what that means for this video just know if they're mismatched between two different devices of audio equipment you're going to have tone and signal loss so again a direct box will fix that so there's three main reasons I can think of to use a direct box there are other reasons but the these are the most common one is just to get into an XLR signal a lot of stage boxes and stuff like that at concerts they're set up to receive XLR so it's just an easy way to convert into an XLR mic level signal second if you're trying to send a guitar or Bass signal direct into an audio interface or a mixer if you do not have a high Z or instrument input you are going to want to use a direct box to convert it into a mic level signal if you don't know what that means I do highly recommend that you watch the video that I just released about mic versus line versus instrument I actually made that video as a prequel to this video so I do think it's worth watching that if you don't understand the difference between those three terms and then third for long cable runs it actually makes sense to use a direct box those TS cables the unbalanced signals are very noisy especially if you run more than 20 ft of cable you can pick up a lot of noise with those with an XLR signal or a balanced signal you are able to run that signal much further if you're doing shorter cable runs it's not really that important and I'll show you some audio examples here in a little bit some other reasons is that a direct box often has a ground lift so if you are getting ground noise or a hum coming from somewhere try plugging into a direct box and see if it removes that ground noise some direct boxes also have a pad which can be nice if you need to lower the signal active direct boxes can amplify a signal so if you need to boost a signal you can also do that most direct boxes have one in and then the XLR out and then a through Port that is/ quter inch out that can be helpful for doing different routing if you do want to see one of the ways that I use that I go over that in my 10 tips if you use back backing tracks live video as a fail sayfe for our drummer to always have the click track in his ears but the main reasons that you're going to want to use a direct box is for conver it to an XLR signal if you don't have a highz or instrument input on your mixer or audio interface and for long cable runs those are the most common reasons to use a direct box if you're already outputting something at mic level you very likely do not need a direct box if you're outputting something such as backing tracks from a tablet or something like that that outputs at line level you don't necessarily need a direct box you could go in a line input on a mixer or an audio interface but again if you're doing a long cable run using a direct box definitely can help and if you have an audio interface or a mixer that has a high Z or instrument level input like my Apollo twin interface it has a high Z input on the front likely you do not need to use a direct box as well so let's do some audio samples I'm going to do some audio from my keyboard some of these are going to be going into a direct box which then go into my Apollo twin interface in Via XLR the other Clips are going to be of an unbalanced signal just a standard instrument cable coming out of the back of the keyboard and going into my Apollo twin and I've set it to line level see if you can hear a [Music] difference I'm going to do the same thing on my Rolland spds X sorry about the camera shaking on this one I will post the answers Down Below in the description if you did not hear a difference and I will say I personally did not hear a difference between these two and I was the one who recorded these but if you truly didn't hear a difference between them like me I don't think it's even worth checking in the description to me it just means oh I can use either either or it's really interesting cuz I've had a few people get really upset at me that I do things this way I mean people getting upset on the internet who would have thought but the thing is is that I still give you the answers in the description so if you truly want to find out the answers are there to me the thing is is that we listen a lot with our eyes more than we do our ears if I said number one was direct box and number two was line level and so on and so forth I think we listen more with our eyes and we go oh it switched to the direct box yeah it sounds clearer when in reality I think our ears play more tricks on us so my logic is I gave you four different samples if two of them sounded better than the other two check the description if you selected both the direct box Clips or both the line level Clips then I think that means something and that's the one that you should go with if you don't hear a difference or if you think you heard a difference and they were not the same at all down below in the description I think that says all that you need to know and they're both completely usable that's my personal philosophy but I gave you the answers just in case if you want to do things a a little bit differently next up I'm going to do some backing tracks again it's going to be either direct box or line level this time I'm not even going to tell you when it switches between them I will post the answers down below and I will include timestamps on when it changes but I'm not even going to show you when it switches I will do two parts of the song but during both of those sections in the song I'm going to change between the direct box and the line level signal I'm not going to tell you when see if you can hear a [Music] difference [Music] again time Stamps will be down below on when I switch between those do keep in mind I do have this balanced so that the audio is the same one of the things that our ear plays tricks on us for is we always think that louder sounds better so if you are doing a tone test just make sure that the levels the volume level is always the same because one of the common issues we run into is louder is better and that can play tricks on our ears okay next up is going to be high Z input versus a direct box so my Apollo twin has a highz input I'm going to record my guitar direct either into a direct box and then go into the XLR input or I'm going to go just direct into the high Z input and then I'm going to put one of my favorite plugins the neural DSP py plugin and I've copied the exact settings on the plugin on both the direct box one and on the hey input [Music] [Music] this [Music] FYI all the little riffs that I played in this video except for the backing track one were all my original music I have links down below if you want to check it out again answers are down below in the description to me they both sound great I love the sound of my Apollo twin anyways now you might ask about well what if I go into the line input with a direct signal from my guitar I go over that in my mic line and instrument videos you'll notice that in that video I recorded guitar direct via line in and it rolled off quite a bit of highend with that so it is always better to go in high Z or instrument input as opposed to line input if you are sending guitar or Bass direct having said that I have gone guitar into line inputs before in a pinch I've done that at weddings before I bump the volume just a tiny bit and I add a little bit of treble into it I guarantee you that the bride and the groom just wanted to hear the song that they selected while they walk down the aisle they're not going to come up to you after the show and go hey man what was up with the guitar some of the high-end was rolled off did you go into the lime input instead of the high Z input on your mixer so of course you you can do it in a pinch but best practice is either highy input or a direct box all right one more tone test this is with the HX stomp now the HX stomp actually has a balanced output it can do TRS output so I'm going to give you three different tones with this one I'm going to give you one which is direct box so just like we've been doing another one is going to be unbalanced TS cable into the line input of my mixer and the other one is going to be a balanced TRS cable into the line input on my mixer see if you can hear a difference [Laughter] [Music] [Music] to me personally all of those tones are completely fine it's just more important that you make sure that you match mic line and instrument and if you don't have the ability to do that then using a direct box will definitely be helpful so there's multiple different types of direct boxes out there some of them are low pric some of them are much more High pric I've been using these Live Wire ones for a long time they're pretty cheap they're like 35 50 bucks and they've done really well the cheapest ones that I seem to have found are by pile next level up from there seems to be Livewire and the Behringer ones Next Level Up is the Whirlwind which seems to be the best bang for the buck one and then the highest level ones are usually the radial ones and radio ones are generally considered by most people to be the most durable and the best sounding I'll have links Down Below in the description so you can check out these direct boxes for yourself I'll have the cheap ones as well as the high-end ones if you do use those links it is a free way to support the channel at no extra cost to you so I would appreciate it so as far as the tone difference between the cheap and the high-end ones is it really that big of a difference well surpris I actually did switch between these two during the tone test that I did earlier some of them I did with this cheap direct box and some of them I did with this high-end radial ones I didn't tell you when did you hear a difference in those not not going back and rewatching the video and going oh yep no that's the more expensive one going into it blind and just listening did you really go oh man this one sounds a lot better again I will post the answers down below if you do want to know which one was which but to me again if you heard it the first time and you didn't hear the difference between the cheap and the expensive one I think that says everything that you need to know radio ones are really nice the main reasons why I like these ones is that they're built like a tank and they have some more features like to have the pad this is actually a double one which is really nice although there is one by art that I use that is cheaper that is a nice double one and has quite a few features it's not built as like a tank like this one is but it still works really well so that's the main reason why I like radial some people swear by they only use radial stuff it really just depends to me personally I don't really hear a difference between the cheap and the expensive stuff and lastly there are passive and active an active direct box is going to add power to it and therefore it requires power either a battery or some sort of power source active di will give a stronger signal so a stronger output that's the main reason to me why you would want to use one they say that actives have a better frequency range I I'm personally I I just I'm not on board with that some people think that it's up to you active ones are going to cost more as well I don't actually own any active ones so I will also post some videos in some articles down below if you do want to find out more about active ones overall just remember just the same with my tone philosophy if it sounds good use it it's worth knowing how to use these tools but if you've been doing something fine and it works if you try using a direct box and nothing changes I think that says everything that you need to know so the answer no you do not always need to use a direct box but they can be helpful in the right situations so if you found this video helpful please do me a favor and hit the thumbs up button it truly does help feed the algorithm gods and help support the channel and I would appreciate it especially if you found this useful I do highly recommend that you watch my video about mic line and instrument levels and and also I do have a video going over what is the difference between Bluetooth audio and wireless audio because people seem to get mixed up on those you can check out both of those videos by clicking the links on your screen now thank you guys again for watching don't forget to follow me on Instagram at Scotty music don't forget to like And subscribe thank you guys again for watching and I'll see you next time