Can I record via Tubescreamer without DI-Box?

[siegfried]

Hello, a little bit green question- can I record my guitar thru Ibanez Tubescreamer (probably TS7 or any other clone) directly to preamp of my interface (Esi ESP1010)? Or I still need to use DI-box after tubescreamer? I heard that some of stompboxes does impedance matching so you don´t need direct injection box... But I want to be sure... Also, somebody told me that modern humbuckers has so high output that you don´t need preamp because it is already almost on line level. True or bullshit? Thanks a lot.

 

[slashvanyoung]

Your ESP 1010 has two Hi-Z instrument inputs, use those and you won't need a dedicated DI...

 

[siegfried]

slashvanyoung: are you sure? I think they are not Hi-Z... there are no such information on the unit nor in the manual...

 

[Jarkko Mattheiszen]

ESP1010e has two Hi-Z inputs. It's a new version of the discontinued ESP1010, so if that's what you got, you're out of luck. You're always off using a DI box into the line in of your interface, I'm pretty sure a TS7 doesn't impedance match the signal to a line level

 

[slashvanyoung]

Ooops, my bad. I thought you had the 1010e...

Well, the TS7 (or TS9) hasn't got a true bypass, so it could be possible that there is impedance matching going on... but I doubt it (sending out on line-level), because it wouldn't make much sense to send out the signal on line-level (remember why we need reamp boxes?).

Edit: And your question about pickups not needing a DI box - There are some special pickups around with very low impedance, that you won't need a D.I. for.. see: http://www.langcaster.com/ for example.

But the typical Duncan/EMG/DiMarzio isn't in that range...

 

[siegfried]

Unfortunatelly I have old discontinued version of ESP1010 Thank you, so I´ll get some DI-box... I want to do this: Guitar->Computer (correction of timing, maybe TSS plugin and maybe some EQ)->hardware Sansamp PSA1 (line level input)->Computer (line level input)->boogex with impulse. I hope that ESP1010´s converters and preamp will not fuck up my signal too much...

I have small budget now so I can buy only TS7 OR some di-box (and use TSS VST)...

 

[slashvanyoung]

Umm, do I miss something here?

Why don't you just slap a TS in front of the PSA and go from there to the 1010?

 

[siegfried]

slashvanyoung: because of my shitty untight playing technique And also I can EQ signal before Sansamp by my favorite VST plugins etc... I think it is much easier to correct timing in DAW on clean track than on distorted. And also it will be very luxury to have endless possibilities to change settings of sansamp DURING mixing etc... (thanks god for its line-level inputs!) I already tried this as I mentioned on this forum some time ago and it works... now I must figure out cheap way how to get good clean signal to computer... and also to figure out if the behaviour of Sansamp´s line ins are the same as it´s primary instrument input...

 

[slashvanyoung]

Ah, alright. Didn't know that you want to be able to reamp...

Looking forward for some clips, cause there's quite some A/D- and D/A-ing going on in your chain.

Edit: But can't you use the PSA as a pseudo DI box with a clean setting? (Have very limited experience with Sansamps..)

Edit2: Scratch that. You probably want to monitor with the distorted sound of the PSA...

Edit3: But if you could dial the PSA to basically just bypass the guitar signal, you could monitor ITB with Wagner, SoloC, 7170 etc.

 

[siegfried]

slashvanyoung: thanks for tips, yes I need to monitor during playing, I´ll try to monitor with something ITB and record thru sansamp´s clean or "bypass" setting...