One instrument that this works particularly well for is the bass guitar, which can be one of the toughest elements to tame in a mix. In saying this, a little delay can sometimes give your entire tone some breathing room, giving it space and enough delay for the ear to hear the whole frequency spectrum without those frequencies clashing. However, it’s really important to think about your phase when blending DI signals into guitar tracks, as even a mic an inch away from a speaker cone can be delayed enough to muck up your carefully crafted tone. While guitars, pedals, mics and amps may differ from song to song, a subtle mix of a uniform guitar tone beneath all of these can create an overarching vibe and bring it all together.
The infamous Ibanez Tubescreamer works by blending in a portion of your clean signal alongside the clipping silicon diodes of this historical circuit, so take a leaf out of their book and think about how a subtle blend of a clean signal can help your next mix.Ī cohesive and uniform guitar tone is an increasingly common trait of a lot of contemporary music, and a clean DI can assist in bringing a uniformity to your tracks.
A nice clean DI from a guitar can be used to make a lead more articulate or clean up the frequency range of a distorted guitar, similar to how a clean bottom end on a bass might be blended in. While this may fall under the umbrella of re-amping, previously static guitar tracks can be enhanced depending on the playing style and the section of a song. The DIs, once edited together with our amp tracks, can become very useful in mixing. as reference.įast leads can be more accurately edited when need be, as the transient of each note can more clearly be seen for editing. Stereo guitars and double tracked rhythms and layers can be nudged and comped far more accurately when you’ve got that super tight transient, and you can really make sure that your phase is super tight (or purposely out of alignment) across any amount of mics as long as you have your D.I. This allows us to cut, fade and comp the perfect take much faster, because we’re not over-analyzing our edit and cross-fade points, and as confidence is key, the clearer transients give us that. Tracks can be grouped together in your DAW of choice, and the DI can even be muted or turned right down and used solely for editing. Tube saturation and room sound fill in the gaps between notes in audio files and the more saturated or distorted the amplifier you’re recording may be – regardless of whether or not the transient remains sonically – it won’t remain visually, which is primarily what we use for editing and comping.Ī clean DI recording, especially one with plenty of headroom and a low noise-floor thanks to a great quality DI box, offers an unparalleled transient that makes editing a breeze. You don’t even need to use the DI track in mixing, but it’s a very handy tool to help you get through a song or entire album. The beauty of a clean signal is that it is just that – a signal clean enough to be used as subtlety or overtly as you like, and everything in between. Yes, DIs are often used for re-amping, but it’s important to remember that re-amping doesn’t have to be replacing entire guitar tracks, but instead can be used to enhance and augment existing rhythm or lead guitar tracks that are already recorded. While taking DIs to re-amp entire songs is a personal workflow preference, having the DI there just in case is simply good practice. This is endlessly helpful when editing, comping and mixing, as you’ve got an unaffected signal to reference against, then mix in or out to taste. When you take a DI, you’re not only safeguarding your recording, but you’re creating a blueprint for guitar and bass to follow, because the signal is so clean, and the transient so visually obvious. Words by Lewis Noke-Edwards Taking a DI for guitar and bass doesn’t have to mean you don’t intend to get the sound right at the source, and I think that’s a good thing to keep in mind.