howdy all!

anyone have any recommendations for a DI box that will accomodate an XLR in from an accordion clip mic and a 1/4" input from a guitar in one box?

thanks!

kevin anthony
the twin city playboys
http://www.tcplayboys.com

On the second link there are a few DI-boxes.
It's a Dutch shop, but the specs are most in English.
How you want to connect the mic and the guitar.
Normally we put the mic in the powered mixer and the guitar with a di-box also in the powered mixer.
If we play on a PA, the soundtechnicians do the same.
When we play in a smaller setting I/we use a Behringer acx1000 combo. It's a two-channel amplifier with build in DI and for the mike there's also phantom. We use the amplifier mostly for the vocals and the guitar. We amplified the fiddle also and the accordion and the tit fer are loud enough.

There are a number of small mixing boards which can handle XLR and 1/4" inputs. Then you can do a little bit of EQ on each instrument. The question would be if your guitar output has an impedence that matches nicely with the board (or the DI) to get the best sound, but that's something you have to try out to know.

I see for example a Yamaha MG10/2 for $89.99 on Musicians Friend. It has phantom power for your clip mic (if you need it) and 3-band EQ. It also has inserts at each channel in case you want to put an effects box in line with one of the instruments.

I haven't tried this unit: just trying to give you an alternative.

S'b'B

not sure what you are trying to do

because
1. an XLR mic doesn;t need a direct box

2. a normal direct box only has one input

if you want to mix more than one
input, you need a mixer, not a direct box

behringer makes decent cheap ones

UB1202 or something

what kind of output do you want?
if XLR, you may need a different mixer

wle.

Thanks for the info. I'll check out the options. Basically, I have an accordion mic which needs phantom power and I have a 1/4" guitar output. I think the Yamaha mixer solution would work the best as it has multiple inputs for both 1/4" and XLR, provides phantom power and has control over the inputs.

merci!

behringer has a phantom powering mixer
for under $!00

it has 2 xlr inputs and a load of 1/4"

pretty sure it;s the ub1202 or its update if
applicable

wle.

I have had good luck with the Whirlwind Director DI. They were recommended by any number of pro-sounds guys. I have two that I got on ebay for a good price, and they haven't let me down yet.

I mainly use them to plug my accordions into the sound board. I have 1/4" phone jacks on the accordions, and I run a normal guitar cable from the accordion to the DI, and then use an XLR mic cable to the board (pretty obvious).

I used to just run the guitar cords direct from the accordion to the board, but going into the DI is better for a couple reasons. One is that you don't need to have such a long guitar cord into the accordion. Shorter cords are cheaper, but the real advantage is that a long guitar cord is more prone to pickup electrical interference than a mic cord of the same length. I am not 100% sure about the next thing, but I think that you also don't lose as much of the signal with the mic cable as you do with a long guitar cable. One of our more knowledgeable people like Larry could comment on that.

-David

yes you can 'lose signal'
but it's not going to be enough to matter

you also 'lose signal' [it;s degraded slightly]
by going through the DI box...

which doesn;t matter either really, the amount
of change is so slight

what i REALLY wish i had done, and still might do,
is to use a balanced mic element inside
the accordion, wire that to a 3-conductor
1/4" jack, then make or buy a cable
that converts that directly
[no DI box, no transformer] to XLR male,
just like a regular XLR mic.

or - i have seen this too - just have
an XLR male jack on the accordion itself..

the accordion becomes just another mic
connection..

the only problem would be if you wanted to
run some effects, they typically take 1/4"
inputs. so the XLR-on-accordion thing
would be a little clumsy for that..

the 1/4" solution would work better for that

and it takes less square inchage on the
accordion face..


wle.