DIs sound awful - why?

[dai h.]

He needs to turn down the gain knob. They are for microphones, which need a lot of boosting. For guitar it should be set pretty low.

Right, the mic pre should be meant for signals in the range of 2mV to 15mV(or so), while a guitar pickup is around 100mV(?) depending on the particularl PU, action (from what I gather).

I suspect the "Pad" added in the newer ones may be low impedance too, meant for active pickups or PODs or Line Outs and such.

Good point. Wonder if the pad works for the high Z input.

[David Schwab]

Hi David S
On post #17 he states that he already

so he canīt turn it any lower.

OK, I missed that. From my own experience recording with such devices, I'd go with a compressor or limiter pedal before the interface. Then it would be set to just limit the peaks, and more importantly, the output of the compressor can be turned down. Since it's an active device, it wont have impedance loading artifacts that you might get with a passive pad circuit, or by turning down the guitar.

These interfaces never seem fully suited to recording passive guitars or basses. You either clip them, or the level is low and dead sounding. That's why I never record right into my M-Audio FireWire Solo, but also go into the instrument inout on my Roland digital mixer.