How to Record DI Guitars and Basses

Before you Begin

Recording a guitar or bass DI is very different than the “conventional” way with a microphone. If your interface has a DI or “Instrument” input, you’re off to the races. Otherwise, you’ll need a DI box. Trying to record a guitar via an input that expects a balanced line level signal will yield poor results. A DI box converts your guitar’s high impedance, unbalanced signal into a a balanced, low impedance signal that a mic input on an interface or mic preamp would expect to “see.”

If this matter of impedance and balanced/unbalanced doesn’t make sense to you, don’t worry too much; it’s technical stuff, and what you need to know is that you need a DI box to capture your guitar or bass via a mic pre or interface without an instrument input.

How

Turn on your computer and load up your favorite DAW. Create a track with the desired interface input as the input source. Plug in your instrument to the interface (via a DI box if necessary; otherwise, make sure the input is switched to “Instrument,” or however the setting is labeled on your interface).

Play your instrument as hard as you can with your volume knob turned all the way up. What does the meter read on the channel in your DAW?

Is it super low, like -30db? Or getting into the red or going to/above 0db?

Adjust the input gain knob on your interface (not the fader in your DAW!) until your hardest playing has you peaking around -6db.

Recording too hot can cause the A/D converter on your interface to clip your signal, and clipped instrument DIs do NOT sound good! Avoid clipping the DI track at all costs. Recording too quietly is the lesser of two evils here. Recording too quietly will make for a very noisy recording later, especially if you will be using amp sims or re-amping. But it is not necessary to try and record as loudly as possible without clipping; there’s a lot of misinformation floating around about this practice, but all it does is waste your time, put you in danger of accidentally clipping, and produce subpar results, shockingly with more noise (most interface preamps get noisy after the gain is turned up about half way in my experience). Peaking at around -6db is plenty loud, and the quieter parts of your playing will come through fine.

Why

Why would we do this? If you’ve ever heard a raw DI track, it doesn’t usually sound that great, especially on guitar.

From most obvious/common to least, here are the reasons:

Amp sims

It may come as no surprise in this day and age that the use of amp sims might be eclipsing that of actual amplifiers. They’re so convenient and infinitely tweakable after recording. And they’re operating off of a DI signal.

Not just for guitar, bass DI with a bit of amp simulation can sound really great, especially when blended with the raw DI track. In fact, it often sounds better than miking an actual bass cab, and so many producers and engineers actually prefer working with a bass DI!

Live Sound

In a live setting, there are so many variables. If you’ve got an amp cab setup on stage, maybe it’s not going to reach the audience appropriately. Maybe it has to be miked and then your tone is at the mercy of the guy setting up the mic and mixing at the board. Maybe you need some monitoring and can’t hear your amp out of the cab if it’s pointing at the crowd, or you want to be able to use your cab like a stage monitor. In all of these scenarios, having a guitar DI is useful or essential. Place your DI box in your setup and run it one of two ways before sending to the mixing board or your IEM (in ear monitoring) rig:
1. Before it hits any of your FX or amp, and route it through a digital modeler of your choice;
2. After your amp, and route it through your preferred impulse response

Re-amping

I personally love re-amping. I used to record my guitar parts without also capturing a DI. Most of the time that was fine, but man do I wish I had a DI track for some songs! After tracking was done, I found I wanted or needed a different sort of tone for aesthetic reasons or because it would result in a cleaner mix.

In re-amping, you send your recorded DI track out of your DAW via your interface line outputs and into your pedal chain/amp/hardware modeler, and capture a new recording by miking the cab or via a load box. Re-amping in one form or another has existed for at least 80 years, and for good reason. It’s an ultra-flexible studio method for choosing and tweaking tones beyond that of amp sims. I personally find real amps easier to work with and mix, so having the option to re-amp if I really want to change up my tone is a godsend!

To get started re-amping, you’ll need a re-amp box, or a DI box used in reverse. A reverse DI box is a cheap way to try it out, but I recommend a high quality re-amp solution with adjustable gain control. It really makes a difference in how well and how naturally your amp receives the DI signal.

Straight-Up

Believe it or not, sometimes the guitar DI track is exactly the sound desired for the song or style.

Going back to earlier times of recording electric guitar, it wasn’t uncommon for guitarists to plug directly into the recording console to record their part. This minimized or eliminated bleed from the guitar amplifier to the microphones capturing other instruments or vocals in the studio.

The intro to the Beatles’ Helter Skelter.

Almost every early Motown guitar track coming out of Hitsville.

Those were straight DI track, no amp!

Want an 80s sort of clean sound? Your best bet is to record a DI through some heavy compression (and then add chorus and delay of course!).

How about funk? Yep. Record that guitar DI with a bunch of compression. You’re really better off without an amp if you’re in search of that ice-picky, dry, percussive sound.

Conclusion

DI recording is has many applications and is almost an essential studio process. It is definitely essential if you’re recording DI tracks for a production, and/or sending these off to a mix engineer. With a DI track, a producer or engineer have a blank canvas and can transform that performance in the most creative or practical ways.

Recording your guitar DI tracks at home can save you studio time and some serious money as a result. So if you’re an artist or band, consider recording your DI guitars at home. If you go this route, it is extra important that you have quality DI captures. Remember as a rule of thumb, peak around -6db at your hardest playing. Your engineer will not be able to make magic with your recordings, no matter how great the performance, if they’re way too quiet or they’re clipping.

Check out these production and mixing services if you’d like some professional help turning your DI tracks into full, stream-worthy songs.