If you are living in an area that doesn’t permit you to make a lot of noise, then you’ve probably run into the problem that being a recording musician or any kind of musician can bring. You are noisy! It’s okay. I’m noisy too. How do you get around the blistering blots of the electric guitar or the thunderous roar of a fat bass line without completely stripping your work of its rock n roll integrity?
Forget your amp if you are in a pinch and cannot make the noise you so dearly love. Plug in to your direct injection box. If you don’t know what direct injection is you probably haven’t been doing much recording. If you have an audio interface it is probably some kind of direct injection or DI box. The DI box can take the audio signal from your guitar and send it straight into the computer without making any noise louder than that of your strumming. A lot of people prefer their amps, which is totally cool, I love my amps and use them when it’s necessary, but it isn’t always necessary. There are a lot of benefits to direct injection.
There are two types of DI boxes, one is active and one is passive. The active DI box has a built in amp, so you can actually edit your sound just like you can on your amplifier. This is even more reason to sacrifice the loud sounds of an amp when you are recording. The tone and dynamics can always be added, but they can’t really be taken down if the original audio came in to hot.
The fact that DI boxes help with noise prevention is a game changer because you can now record anywhere you can bring a guitar without having to worry about the loudness. That’s not all that direct injection brings. Once the audio is cleanly into the program, you can add amplification and all kinds of other effects with different plug-ins and inserts.
What is your favorite plug-in for guitar effects?