DI Box, be or not to be?

[HappyBlues]

Hi guys. I run my guitars straight into -10db line input of my M-Audio Delta44. I found out that Guitar Rig 4, praised by some people sounds really bad. Not like an amp at all. Muddy and all whatsoever bad.

Is it because I run high impedance signal into relatively low impedance input? Would DI box make Guitar Rig sound much more like guitar rig?

Thanks for any valuable input.

[DeanM]

yeah a guitar plugged direct needs a high impedance as oposed to a mic input which would need low impedance. i dont know if thats why it sounds bad but in general you plug a guitar into the "hi-z" input. both my firewire interface and my 8track digital recorder have a "hi-z" switch for when pluggin the guitar straight in. but i dont know anything bout the hardware you mention!

i was thinking about this today belive it or not!! see normally in electronics with voltage amplifiers n stuff you want to feed a high input impedance with a low output impedance etc etc i havent researched it but as far as i know with microphones they act as a current transducer which means that they produce a current when the diaphram moves and hence would normally be fed into a low impedance.

so yeah guitar jack into hi-z basically!!

[surfnorthwest]

Perhaps this question would be better asked on the forums for Guitar Rig. I have Guitar Rig 4 and it can do some amazing things. IMO it really is a studio tool more than anything because you can record your amp on one track then split that guitar sound so it captures the guitar only on another. This allows you then to fine tune the tone and effects post production which is really cool.

When I use GR 4 I go through my RME FIreface 800 and honestly I think I am running the input on that at +4. I do not know what the DI box that comes with GR 4 is set at but I am sure they can tell you over at that forum. There is so much tweaking you can do with that program but it is one of those that you will spend an entire year learning how to do it and get it right unless you have a experienced user showing you. Don't give up on it and use that forum to get some support. I have been able to get some great tones out of it.

http://www.native-instruments.com/forum ... y.php?f=75