Always record a DI
- Thread starter Whizzinby
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mavrick102000
Shredder
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What happened? Did you print a processed take you now hate?
MirrorProfiles
Rock Star
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who isn’t recording DI’s? everyone knows you ALWAYS record a DI. Unless you’re a maniac. or an absolute shagger
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I used to and still do for bass, but they became a rabbit hole for me and forcing myself to work with the tones I had at miixdown was educational. I definitely got a hell of a lot better at getting the right sound at the start, or just making choices at the start of a recording based off the sound I want to hear in the end result.
If I'm not careful, I can easily slip into various rabbit holes and waste a lot of time not making final decisions. Somewhere around my 3rd or 4th year or recording I adopted a "I'll get it on the next one" POV out of sake of progress. I was learning more and faster by making final decisions and moving onto another song that used different sounds, rather than playing in the same sandbox. Whatever I don't get out of the song or mix of the thing I'm currently finishing, it's something I'll be mindful of on the next one.
MirrorProfiles
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I VERY rarely use my DI for reamping, but I don’t see a reason not to record it. Even as a visual reference for editing/comping, it’s just way easier. I absolutely think it’s best to commit to the tone early and not have the attitude of “oh i’ll just reamp later” but sometimes SOMETHING changes with the song later that you didn’t see coming and a DI can be a lifesaver.
I used to and still do for bass, but they became a rabbit hole for me and forcing myself to work with the tones I had at miixdown was educational. I definitely got a hell of a lot better at getting the right sound at the start, or just making choices at the start of a recording based off the sound I want to hear in the end result.
If I'm not careful, I can easily slip into various rabbit holes and waste a lot of time not making final decisions. Somewhere around my 3rd or 4th year or recording I adopted a "I'll get it on the next one" POV out of sake of progress. I was learning more and faster by making final decisions and moving onto another song that used different sounds, rather than playing in the same sandbox. Whatever I don't get out of the song or mix of the thing I'm currently finishing, it's something I'll be mindful of on the next one.
The attitude of “oh I can change the tone later” is more of an issue than just having it there in case.
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Yup!
I always record one.. seldom use it.
Although for bass sometimes that's all I record because I like to tweak the bass in the final mix
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I was going back and remixing a song. I didn’t like the DI I had for it originally as it was a little sloppy, I kept dicking around with different amps on the AxeFX so long I lost track of the feel for the song I was actually doing and ended up with an awesome high gain tone. (Left to my own devices I just end up increasing gain profile in amps until it’s a chughead amp I’m on) So I spent an hour obsessively trying to nail perfect takes and in isolation it sounded great. I queued up the song from the top ready for triumph and when it got to the drop, it took a total of one chord to realize after fucking around so long amp shopping on the Axe I had landed on some Uber-death-metal-fumble-dick tone that had minimal coherence with the song I was tracking. Which I would have laughed off had I recorded a DI to reamp.
I spent another hour tracking a DI.
Yeah I almost always record a DI and rarely reamp. I either have the right tone, or I’m going to use a plug. But this was a brutal reminder to take the extra 2 minutes to setup the DI tracks in the event you made a boneheaded tone decision. I just got lazy and it bit me in the ass.
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This is another issue for me; maintaining that DI through multiple takes and ensuring I track it every time. I'm kind of sporadic the way I'll track, I'm constantly opening new tracks to record something in then I'll drag it to another track and forget to do the same for the DI.
MirrorProfiles
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You use Logic right? You can make a track group where they’ll automatically record arm and comp etc for multiple tracks. If you have a template session you can use the session import to add them to your session, saves having to name/route/colour code etc. Or you can record the DI and amp tone to a stereo track and mute the channel that the DI is on.
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I’ll have to look into this and see if I could adapt it without slowing down the workflow.
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Since working with HX Native I do save a lot of my DI tracks. When/if I bounce an instance of it I'll hide/deactivate the DI track. I need to organize my routing setup better though, sometimes I'll run a dirt pedal or other up front before the DI and not THRU out to the pedal > DAW > separate track. I'm due for an overhaul with my workspace though, just have to make the time.
Before using plugin amps I rarely made a separate DI track but I never was one to reamp much or use plugins for guitar, although Sansamp is one I used on occasion.
Before using plugin amps I rarely made a separate DI track but I never was one to reamp much or use plugins for guitar, although Sansamp is one I used on occasion.
Same here. I have two Apollos and save my console settings with everything I need. I will do a bit more fine EQ and compression on drums, but I get my core sound from the UAD console when tracking. Same with vocals, guitar and bass. For guitars I know pretty much the sound I want and don't need the hassle of having a track I'll never touch for reamping.
Sascha Franck
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I used to record DIs for a while but got annoyed by the additional houskeeping required (and no matter how clever you're dealing with grouped tracks and what not, there is an amount of additional housekeeping involved), so I just record the finished (minus spatial FX and occasionally minus cab) sound and call it a day.
It's now changing a little bit as I can run my system at 32 samples (resulting in 3.5ms roundtrip latency), so I'm at least a little back into recording through plugins, and as a result, there's always a DI.
But still, I pretty much always only record one track. In case I need to redo it because I'm not happy with the sound anymore, I call it free practice time.
It's now changing a little bit as I can run my system at 32 samples (resulting in 3.5ms roundtrip latency), so I'm at least a little back into recording through plugins, and as a result, there's always a DI.
But still, I pretty much always only record one track. In case I need to redo it because I'm not happy with the sound anymore, I call it free practice time.
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