DI for piezo equipped silhouette

[spirited]

Hi all,

i was wondering what DI do u use for piezo equipped silhouette?
im looking at DI boxes and almost all of them are either passive or active.
and since, the piezo option offers both active and passive, its pretty hard to find a single DI to cater to both signals..
i could always get 2 DIs, but im looking to see if a singular DI is able to handle the 2 different outputs

anyway have any thought?
please share them!
thank you!

 

[DrKev]

When we talk about passive or active DI boxes, that means whether or not the DI box requires external power to function (active) or not (passive). On the JP guitars, the magnetic pickups are passive, the piezo is active. Confusing, eh?

I don;t have much experience with the piezos and DIs but I do think Radial Engineering make some of the best DIs out there and are regarded as the industry standard. Check out their passive and active DIs and then look at the ToneBone range too. the PZ-Pre can accept two inputs, has a full EQ/preamp, boost and affects loop.

Other folks have their preferences (Fishman for exaple) and I'm sure they'll chime in here too, as soon as Christmas preparations permit.

 

[spirited]

yea so i heard that passive pickups go with active DIs while active pickups (eg. piezo) go with passive DIs
hahaha
i too have been looking through the Radial Engineering website, and i believe i'll get something from there somehow.

but my main concern is whether theres such a DI which can handle both signals in a single unit, not forgetting on stage monitoring and connection to PA (both via DI)
am i making things even more confusing?? i hope not! hahahha

 

[beej]

As the good doctor mentioned, the output from the piezos is active. And that's what you want a DI for, right? (There's generally little point in running the mags directly through a board ...)

 

[spirited]

As the good doctor mentioned, the output from the piezos is active. And that's what you want a DI for, right? (There's generally little point in running the mags directly through a board ...)

So getting a passive DI with 2 outputs is the way to go?
even if the magnetic pickups are passive too? passive pickups on passive DI?

 

[beej]

Why would you want to run the magnetic pickups through the DI?

 

[DrKev]

Whether your DI is active or passive has nothing to do with whether the pickups are passive or active.

To best answer your question, let's start at the beginning - what are you plugging your guitar into and why do you think you need a DI?

 

[spirited]

I'll be plugging my guitar into the eb 6165 stereo pedal which splits the mag and piezo. The mag signal then goes into a vox tonelab which is then plugged into a DI. The reason I use a DI here is because the mixer which receives the mag signal is pretty far away. I'll plug the on stage monitor for my electric signal into the DI too. So in essence, I'm running my vox tonelab straight into the FOH and then the DI is used to connect the on stage monitor. This is for the electric signal.
For the piezo, after going through the eb 6165, it will go into the DI and into the mixer, with on stage monitor connected via the DI too.
Yup that's about it

 

[DrKev]

OK. I see.

The easy thing would be if the tonelab has a patch that would work for the piezo signal too but I guess that's not the case. The Radial JDI duplex would work but you'll have to press a button on the DI to switch between the piezo and the Tonelab output (you can't run both).

 

[spirited]

OK. I see.

The easy thing would be if the tonelab has a patch that would work for the piezo signal too but I guess that's not the case. The Radial JDI duplex would work but you'll have to press a button on the DI to switch between the piezo and the Tonelab output (you can't run both).

I would be using the eb 6165 stereo pedal to split the mag and piezo right from the output of the guitar, that should work right?

 

[beej]

The output of the Tonelab and the piezo are both low impedance (active), and should be able to drive long cable runs without needing another preamp. So passive DIs are probably fine (take the Thru of each to run to your monitor/stage mixer). That said, there's a lot different products these days (esp. for piezos, e.g. the Fishman Aura stuff) so some solid research is probably warranted. Pretty wide price range on that stuff. That said I had a cheapie Behringer DI I used with my piezo for years and it sounded ok.

I'd personally take two DIs over a single unit ... handy when one of them inevitably dies at a gig.

If you're using the same stage monitor for the Tonelab/piezos, another option is to get a little mixer and run the XLR cables from sends to the board, watching out for ground loops.

 

[spirited]

Thanks Beej!

looks like im gonna get the ProD2 then!

 

[spirited]

Beej, just an off topic question, if i use the same stage monitor for the tonelab and piezo, should i get an FRFR speaker like a keyboard amp with at least 2 inputs?

 

[beej]

Yeah, probably. I did something similar years ago when I had a Pod, I preferred it through a keyboard amp to a guitar amp with the cabinet modelling off.

But try a few things out and see what sounds best to you, is affordable, and easy to set up at a gig.

 

[spirited]

Alright thanks everyone for your sound advice!