How to get the best DI's

Want to know why the pros get the best guitar and bass DI's? Read on to find out!

Practice

Want a better take? Learn how to play your parts in your sleep. If you don’t want a take that sounds timid and messy, practice your ass off. Knowing your parts, playing them well, playing them consistently, and playing them in time with the click track will dramatically improve your overall tone.

Prep that guitar

Do as much guitar prep as you can yourself but at lease do these simple ones:

- New strings. For professional results, change all strings once per song (Every 4 songs for bass guitar). And when we say new strings, we don't mean a set you swapped out 3 weeks ago and jammed on for 5 hours. Strings start to erode the second you touch them and you have a 2-4 hour window before they lose their sound.

- Brand new 9 Volt battery

For the best possible sound, you might consider letting a professional handle some of these: 

- Intonate

- Adjust the action

- Truss rod adjustments

- Repair or replace noisy hardware

- String radius

- Fret jobs

DI Box

Sorry, we can’t use the instrument input on the front of your interface. We need to use a high-quality DI box to get the highest quality guitar DI’s possible. These DI boxes are built for the sole purpose of converting your guitar’s instrument signal into an XLR signal in the highest possible way before it reaches the interface. The industry standard DI box brands I recommend are Countryman, Radial, or Little Labs.

Cabling

Remember that your signal chain isn’t just you, your guitar, and your interface, it also includes everything from strings to batteries and cabling. Don’t skimp on this step! You spent all that money on a sick guitar and now you’re going to use a $5 instrument cable out of the bulk bin? Go buy yourself high-quality gold-plated cables from somebody like Monster or Mogami. Also, keep it as short as you can possibly get away with. The shorter the instrument cable, the better the overall quality. I prefer a 6 foot cable but you can get away with a 10 foot cable if you absolutely have no choice. But anything over 10 feet is just too much of a compromise on your tone.

Preamp

We’re not looking to color the sound, or to overdrive the preamp, nor do we need phantom power. We just need a high-quality transistor preamp found in most common entry level interfaces these days. A higher quality preamp will outperform those standard preamps but the return on investment is pretty marginal for the $1000’s of extra dollars you have to spend to make any sort of difference.

Tuning

This is more important than you think. Want good results? Tune every song. Want great results? TUNE EVERY TAKE! I'm not kidding about this. You know why it takes the pros so long to record guitars? It’s not because they suck at playing guitar, it’s because they tune relentlessly.

Turn it up!

Most amp sims aren’t great at amplifying the subtle background noises that a cranked-up tube amp can. I’ve been surprised to hear all sorts of noises in my DI tracks suddenly appear when played back through a real amp. The usual offenders are: ground hum, string chirp between stops, and unwanted string vibrations and/or ringing.

If you’re having hum issues check the following:

- Make sure you’re using an outlet that is grounded

- Always run your computer, monitors, and interface through a quality power conditioner

- Flip the ground lift switch on your DI box

- Use quality instrument cables and XLR cables

- Don’t set your DI box on another piece of electronic hardware

If you’re hearing a chirping sound from the strings in between stops try this:

- Lightly deaden the strings between the nut and the tuners using blue painter’s tape, a hair tie, jimmy clips, or some soft foam

- Deaden the strings between the bridge and the saddle in the same way if not playing on a thru-body guitar.

To stop unwanted string ring out caused by un played strings vibrating:

- Have another member of your band lightly place a finger across all strings not being played

- Blue painter’s tape or soft foam can do the same thing

Buffer

Make sure to set the buffer on your interface as low as you can to prevent latency. There’s nothing harder than trying to perform well and in time when you’re not hearing your playback in real time.

Picking

It’s possible to pick a string so hard that you cause the string to go sharp in an unpleasant way.  But 99% of you aren’t picking hard enough. You know how they get that Djent sound in Djent? They pick the fuck outta that open string! A high-quality signal chain will never replace a high- quality performance.

More than one guitarist?

Consider having the best person for the job complete the task at hand. For example – if one guitarist is better than the other at playing a tight rhythm on a particular section, then he gets the job. Set your ego aside and do what’s right for the band. Better yet, be the person who get’s to do most of the tracking because you’ve spent so much time practicing your parts that you’re unbeatable. The key to insanely tight rhythm tracks is for one guitarist to track both the left and right takes using one single guitar.  You want sloppy ass un-syncopated chugs in your breakdown?  Try having two separate guitarists play two separate guitars for the same part.  Good luck getting those to sound tight. 

Composition

If you’re used to writing songs as a five piece band, you might be tempted to only track a single left guitar and a single right guitar representative of what you would each normally play live. DON’T DO THIS! Take advantage of the power of stereo to create some dynamics by tracking two rhythm guitars panned left/right with the occasional lead or textural mono/center guitar.  And don’t forget all the other combinations: single lead/mono guitar with no rhythms, stereo rhythms with no leads, just one rhythm panned hard left or right, two stereo cleans with a mono/centered electric lead, 4 rhythms during choruses... Try it all out and decide what is best for the song.  The one thing you don’t want to do, if you’re playing any sort of punk, rock, or metal is to only track one single electric rhythm guitar for a full song.  Even if you’re a 3 piece band with only one guitarist, I still recommend recording two rhythm guitar tracks to pan left and right.  Even if they’re the exact same parts.  This gives us the maximum amount of flexibility when it comes to producing and mixing.  The more you start to listen for these things in your favorite songs, you’ll start to see how bands use the whole stereo field to entertain their listeners when it comes to guitar tracking. 

Editing

While it is possible to move individual notes through slip-editing, quantizing, or stretching, the best possible sound is to nail the take.  The less editing the better in every single way. This is precisely why we insist that the best guitarist play all the rhythm tracks for both the left and right sides. These tracks all need to line up with each other perfectly without any editing. But sometimes editing is needed and here’s your best options:

Slip-Editing

Most DAW’s these days have slip-editing or something similar. Slip editing is the process of cutting before and after a note and “slipping” the note left or right to be on time. This process does not affect the remaining audio, only the note or section of your choice. I like to slip edit notes so that the transient is on the grid but this only works if you go back and reveal the pick attack just before the transient so it doesn't get lost. It just doesn’t sound natural otherwise. I find this process to sound better than quantizing but also more time consuming.  And this only works if you’re editing the rest of your material similarly.  Go check out some Joey Sturgis guitar DI editing videos on YouTube to check this technique out. 

Quantizing

I don’t understand the algorithm that allows us to record audio and then stretch it into time, but it kicks ass. I use this process much more on slower rhythm guitars than faster more complicated parts. Depending upon the tempo and signature, I quantize small sections at a time, always listening to make sure it sounds natural.  The quantizing algorithm isn’t magic; it has it’s limitations and it’s not always right so always listen back to make sure it sounds right.  I especially like to listen to both rhythm tracks soloed to make sure they sound tight together. 

Stretching

Most DAWS have the ability to stretch audio these days.  Stretching is similar to slip editing where you apply a point or cut just before and after the note you want to move but instead of  slipping the note into place, you’re actually stretching the note into place. You really have to give it a try, it’s pretty cool.  I only use this option when all else fails because I’m so slow at it but I know a lot of pros that only do it this way and get great results.

Wrapping up

If there’s only one thing you learn, I hope it’s this:  every single decision matters.  The more items on this list you ignore or half-ass, the more your final product will suck.  Production is literally the combination of a million different decisions to get to the final product and a great album is made when all parties involved give the necessary attention to every single one of those decisions.