Direct In
Analog amp emulator for electric guitar that takes to fuzz pedals like a fish to water
Direct box for electric guitar that emulates a mic'd clean, pedal-friendly amp's sound, so you can gig or record without an amp
- Luxurious, transparent low end
- bright, chimey mids that are scooped in all the obnoxious frequencies
- detailed, accurate top end (rolled off in accordance with average speaker-cab response curves)
Perfect for "silent stage" venues or any time you don't want to lug your amp along.
Even if you don't plan on going amp-less, this can serve as an insurance policy in case your amp ever breaks down at a gig.
Just plug your pedalboard's output into its input and connect it to the mixer board or recording interface using an XLR/microphone cable.
Plug and play! All analog; no menus, no complicated setup; just the exact right sound every time. You can always adjust the eq on the sound board or recording interface to dial it in to the context of the mix, but it is ready to go and sounds amazing into a flat eq right out of the box.
The Direct In features:
- (a solid-state emulation of) the full preamp section including bridged Normal and Bright channels
- 3-band Hiwatt model tone stack set to my favorite levels (typical David Gilmour settings)
- power amp emulator including Presence calibration
- speaker cab emulator
- balanced XLR output that sends a strong noise-free signal to the sound board or recording interface.
Also featured is a THRU jack which is a passive, parallel line from the INSTRUMENT jack that you can send to your amp on stage or any other splitting situation you need. You could actually use either the INSTRUMENT or the THRU jack as your input, depending on the way you prefer to set up your board and cables.
The only adjustable control is VOLUME, which of course you'll want to set wherever it needs to be in order to avoid overloading the receiving device. Test for levels using the loudest and most extreme signal peaks you'll ever anticipate from your guitar and pedalboard to keep it out of the red. Typically you'll find that about noon is the best starting place. An analog mixer board will be more tolerant of a hot signal than a digital interface, but that doesn't mean you should blast the mixer board. High settings on the VOLUME knob will bring up the noise level. Experiment with the interaction between the VOLUME control and the input gain of the mixer if you have time; but again, about noon should work in most situations (maybe a little lower than noon for a digital interface just to be safe) and give plenty of signal that can easily be dealt with by the sound engineer.
This is not the sort of amp emulator you should expect to give you any amount of overdrive (that will all come from your pedals); it is clean and very articulate yet silky smooth at the same time, with lots of headroom. It is designed to give you the most transparent pedal-friendly platform possible, and it does sound like a circa 1977 Hiwatt model DR103, because I tested meticulously against it until I matched not only the tone of the amp but also of the speaker cabinet frequency response (which requires a lot of math).
Finished in a textured black powdercoat that resembles the "elephant skin" tolex of the Hiwatt amp it's modelled after.
Power supply requirements:
Recommended: 18v for best results, though it will still work with 9v
Skreddy pedals use the industry standard Boss/Roland style negative-ground polarity, which have a 5.5mm barrel
(positive) and 2.1mm center (negative) coax plug.
It will not make use of phantom power.
