Which DI Box on Which Instrument?

[nedorama]

We have a live gig tomorrow for a large crowd (1,000) where PA is being provided for the show and we show up with amps, instruments and ourselves.

We have:
guitars x2 (57 or 609 on grill)
Bass (line 6 bass floorpod into Ampeg B115)
Keys (Kurzweil K2000)
Vocals

On the bass and keys, I know we need to use DI boxes; the engineer running the show asked us to bring our own as there are several bands playing before and after us. Here's what I have:
Whirlwind IMP DI Box
GT DI Passive DI
Radial JDI Passive DI

Which would you put on Bass, and which would you put on keyboard (mono)?


thanks.

[bishopthomas]

I've never heard of the GT but the Whirlwind and Radial are both great DI's. They're all passive, so it won't be a huge difference. The Radial is built like a brick so maybe put it in the more hazardous place (probably under the keyboards). You say that the PA company told you to bring your own DI's? That's kind of scary and doesn't say much for the competence of the sound co. Good luck with that, hopefully my suspicions will not be confirmed.

[nedorama]

Originally Posted by bishopthomas

I've never heard of the GT but the Whirlwind and Radial are both great DI's. They're all passive, so it won't be a huge difference. The Radial is built like a brick so maybe put it in the more hazardous place (probably under the keyboards). You say that the PA company told you to bring your own DI's? That's kind of scary and doesn't say much for the competence of the sound co. Good luck with that, hopefully my suspicions will not be confirmed.

I did find that odd, as I asked if I needed to bring mics, stands, monitors, speakers, etc., and he said no problem , he's got all that, has done sound for 15 years. But, that's why i'm bringing a SRM450 (with speaker stand) for the keyboard player instead of relying just on the stage monitors. I faxed him our stage plot and he said fine, no problem. I'll report on Saturday with pictures.

[nedorama]

Show went well - we pulled up and were able to park behind this portable stage (much nicer than a trailer bed). PA was simple, but they weren't trying to blast all 1-2000 people in the park, only the few hundred with in a 75 yard radius. 4 monitors, although next time we'll ask for another for the drummer.

The sound guy was helpful, just doesn't do a lot of DI stuff, so he patched into both for bass and keyboards. We played for 2 1/2 hours and had a blast. We'll probably do it next year. By then, we may have a drum mic kit and may just send him a submix of the drums; the overheads and a kick meant the snare was pretty thin in the mix.

Couple of things we were prepared for:

• Since we were in between 2 acts, we set up all the drums off stage. Having a pedalboard helped; now I want to take my old reverb/Vibrato pedal and turn it into a stomp box on the pedalboard with detachable cables to make setup and teardown easier.
• We actually soundchecked one by one and didn't use the time to noodle over each other (nice!)
• Drummer bought 6 pairs of extra sticks, went through 4 sticks.
• Snapped a string in 3rd to last song (played through it), reached back and grabbed a spare guitar all ready to go for the last 2.

Couple of things I wasn't prepared for (but will be for the next show):

• We played 6:15 to 9pm; for the first hour, I couldn't see any of the lights on my pedalboard, which made for some interesting sounds - anyone have tips for seeing your pedalboard lights in bright sun?
• Other guitar player's amp died Wednesday, he bought a new one Thursday. Good amp (Fender Tweed Hot Rod Deluxe) but no enough time to suss it out before the show.
• I have my amp on a milk crate up on an extension speaker, so it's loud for me since it's higher up. We need to get boxes, chairs, tilting going for the other guitar so his amp isn't blasting at his ankles to get volume.
• My external 1x12 speaker wasn't working - the jack died. I hadn't played through it before soundcheck, since our practice room is small enough that my 22 watt Princeton Reverb (modified) is loud enough on its own. Should definitely have set it all up at our last practice to ensure it worked. So instead, it just served to lift my amp up high enough.
• Had bought a Zoom H2, but picked up Thursday; not enough time to try out to figure the right recording level off the board, so we got only the second set, and the levels were insanely low.

[nedorama]

Here's a picture of the band and the fold out stage - nice (at least for us).