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I your worship group uses plugged-in acoustic or electricinstruments (or a mix o both) during perormances, thenyou need more than microphones to get your sound romthe platorm to the PA system. Thats what makes thesimple, efcient direct box such a necessity. Sweetwaterhas a great selection o direct boxes, so youll fnd theone thats perect or your house o worships platormand budget. Were here to help you simpliy your setup and make your system sound its best!

A direct box (oten reerred to as a DI, or direct

insertion) usually consists o a pair o 1/4" jacks and asingle XLR mic output. You plug a guitar or a bass (eitherelectric or acoustic) into one o the 1/4" jacks on the DIbox, and then you run the XLR out to the mixer. This putssound directly rom the instruments output into a micinput on the mixer. The other 1/4" jack on the direct boxcan be used to eed the same instruments signal to anonstage amplifer, i so desired.

You might be thinking, I my mixer has 1/4" inputs,cant I just plug into the mixer, rather than use a directbox? While some mixers do have instrument-levelinputs, the signal quality is greatly diminished on guitarsand basses i the cable run exceeds about 30 eet. A

direct box converts the signal rom unbalanced (what aninstrument-level signal is straight out o the instrumentsoutput jack) to a balanced mic-level signal. A balancedsignal lets you use very long cable runs; thats a realplus or situations in which the mixer is a substantialdistance rom the platorm. The act o balancing anunbalanced signal requires passing the signal througha small transormer or circuit, which is why a simple1/4"XLR cable isnt an acceptable substitute. Plus, usinga direct box puts the person running sound at the board

in complete control o the instrumentssound that can be a very goodthing i you have musicianson the platorm whoarent amiliar withbalancing theirsound withthe otherperormers.

With a

multitudeo electricand acousticinstruments on theperormance platorm,how do you determinewhich ones you should use adirect box with? Any guitar-style instrument can be usedwith a direct box, but the most common instruments areacoustic-electric guitars and electric bass. Oten, acoustic-electric guitarists play without an amplifer, so a direct boxserves as a very simple way to make sure they get heardalongside the other instruments. And though bassiststypically use amps, these amps are oten very heavy andhard to move. A direct box is much easier to transport,and the sound quality aorded by a good DI box is veryavorable, especially in a live perormance environment.

There are direct box solutions that ft any price point andnearly any I/O confguration. Call your Sweetwater SalesEngineer to fnd the perect DI or your churchs situation!

Worship Sound Pro 101 Guides

Call us today at (800) 2224700

$4989More info on pg. 143

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