[Hugh Verdam]

OK, I know I'm going to I'm going to be hammered for asking something
so elementary, but as long as you educate me at the same time I can
take it!

I just got a Countryman DI box and it is the first time I've ever used
DI. I got it mainly for recording my bass guitar direct and it
certainly works as advertised.

One thing I've never done with my guitar, though, is try to get my old
Sunn Solaris amp into the mix. Too loud to mic it in this house when
everyone is sleeping! I usually record through some amp
modeler--hardware or software.

So I thought I might run the speaker out from my Solaris to the
Countryman and into my Fireface, just to see how that sounds.

Well, it sounds just awful. There's a very unpleasant distortion
(that appears to my untrained ears to be in the upper frequencies)
almost like clipping.

Someone years ago installed a master volume switch on the Solaris.
Even with both volumes turned low--say 5 on the original volume and 2
on the master, the distortion is there. There are no clipping lights
going off anywhere. I still get that "clipping" distortion sound even
when I'm recording at levels so low I have to normalize the wave file
to hear it.

I've used the amp for years and it's always sounded great. So this is
a little disappointing. Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Hey! Since I've made this dumb question day, let me go for a two-fer.

The whole point of the DI through the amp idea is so I can record a
screaming amp at low volumes. Hence, that means I certainly don't
want to run the amp line-out from the DI back to the amp speaker. Will
that hurt my amplifier or does the DI alone make my amp think a
speaker is attached?

Or should I just forget about this idea altogether? :-)

Thanks, folks.