need help selecting a good D.I./pre

[rallycars]

Howdy fellow slutz! I got the stimulitis last week. I went to school for recording, but have a modest home recording setup. I am still rocking the mbox 1. I have played guitar for about 12 years, and just got an Ibanez sr-505 5-string bass for christmas. I don't have a bass amp, and recording through the mbox's DI sounds like turd smoothie. I was looking into a good DI for recording. I have heard good things about the Avalon U5 and the reddi DI. I will probably stay away from Samson, Art, and Behringer. I also record acoustic guitar and an electric through a tube amp with KSM141's, my only mics at the moment. I was hoping there might be a good DI with good characteristics as a preamp also. If i wanted to record guitar and maybe vocals through it would it sound good? Maybe it will sound better if I get a Large diaphram condenser mic down the road. I would really like one with built in A/D so i could run it in the S/PDIF in the mbox and avoid all of it's flawed sound characteristics. But I don't really see that feature anywhere, not that it wouldn't be a good feature if one decided to make and market it. So a good DI? Hopefully with a good Preamp? U5 is a reasonable price. The reddi is a stretch. What works well for you all?

[skythemusic]

I personally do not like the sound of the Avalon stuff. Many do. If you are tracking digital I highly recommend a fairly dark sounding di. The Summit 2ba221 is awesome sounding and highly versatile and has a preamp and has a sweepable hi pass and has a di and costs about the same as the Avalon which is only a di and sounds rather boring to me. For more $ check out the Brent Averill 1272 racks. I also like the di's on the Sebatron preamps when tracking digitally, their cost is roughly somewhere in between. Definitely get a ldc, especially for vox, even if its just the mxl 2001 that you can afford.

[Snatchman]

I have the U-5 as I stated, it's good. I find myself reaching for my HotBox more tho'.....Give it a try ( HotBox) if you like what your Bass sound like. It gives back basically what you put thru it... Good luck...

[drumkideric]

The U5 and Reddi are just DI's, not pres. As for a great DI and pre, I think the Chandler Germanium might do you well. It is a very versatile pre.

[rallycars]

Thanks for the help guys. The Summit looks pretty interesting. I will have to read some reviews on that. I looked on sweetwater and they describe the U5 as a DI/Pre. No offense, but I trust them more than a forum poster. I am sure the Germanium is very nice, but I can't justify paying $200 for just the power supply, and that unit is out of my budget. I also saw someone saying good things about the UA 610, but it is $800. If I saved a little more I could get that, but I would need to know how it works for those who own it. Thanks again muchachos.

[lowfreq33]

The U5 is a DI/instrument preamp. Not for mics. I'm looking at one right now. And I will say it sounds pretty good, it has a lot of options for tone shaping. I still like a Countryman DI for just about everything, they're pretty clean. You may want to also look into the Evil Twin DI from Eclair Engineering.