[Scott Dorsey]

In article ,
Hugh Verdam wrote:
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.

Yes. That is what guitwr amps do.

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.

That's because the speaker and the cabinet change that distorted sound
into something that sounds good. The speaker and the cabinet are part
of the instrument and where a lot of the tone comes from.

The DIed feed is useful for a lot of things, including later reamping,
but the DI is coming to you halfway in the middle of the instrument's
signal path.


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?

You will need a resistive load for the amp. There are commercial "power
soak" boxes out there that more or less simulate a speaker. However,
they don't give you the sound a speaker will.
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."