Do I need a DI Box

[bronson]

Hi all

I want to record both a mic'd and di'd bass and blend the two.

My question is......

Do I need a DI Box

I have a dean edge Q4 bass guitar which has active electronics..
because the electronics are active, its confused me a bit

I have just normal line ins on my soundcard and have a mic pre-amp which only takes a microphone signal.

If a DI Box is needed, do I have to find a box that can take the active electronics or does that not matter.

Recomendations are welcome.

Cheers

Al

[brandondrury]

Do I need a DI Box

Good question. While I do have a Sansamp DI which does a great job, I have sometimes ran straight into the preamp on preamps I own with 1/4" inputs.

So I guess the answer to your question is you don't necessarily require a DI if you can plug straight into your preamp.

As for the active bass, there really isn't that much fundamental difference from an active bass and a passive bass in the eyes of the DI/preamp. Too much output could exceed the overhead in either a preamp or DI and there may be certain impedance differences that could increase the likelihood of that happening, but this is a problem that easily solved by turning the bass down if it's distorting in an unpleasing way.