Hi. Why aren’t the mixers equipped with instrument inputs? I have found only very few mixers like Soundcraft Compact 4 and 10, and Mackie 402 and 802 VLZ.
How connect a guitar to a passive mixer? I have got Alto ZMX862. Shall I use an active DI only?

 

the usual use of "instrument" to describe a 1/4" connection jack or cable implies that it is a TS, not TRS.

 

My mixer has got a mic and a mono line input to choose and not hi-z. It looks it is not dedicated for a guitar.

 

If I understand you correctly: Because TS is unbalanced and sucks. Use a DI box and balanced XLR, if you are talking about acoustic (lined) guitar. If you are talking about electric guitar you usually mic (again, with XLR) the amp/cabinet.

 

To be precise, I mean an electric bass and an electric guitar. Sorry for confusion.
@Baxter You mean, an electric guitar TS jack to DI box and then XLR from DI box to a mixer. But what DI box? Will a passive one do it?

 

can be phantom powered...
Behringer Ultra-DI DI20 Professional Active 2-Channel DI-Box/Splitter

29$


https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000CCSWQA/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

I imagine it's because mixers of that kind are ment for live performances, with the performers being somewhat away from the mixer. At that distance instrument signals are unreliable and you'll need a DI anyway (or mic).

DI yes, active or passive doesn't matter unless phantom power is an issue. The rest is just a matter of features and the "tone" rabbithole. You can also plug directly into a line input if you really need it, it's not unheard of but the result may not be what you want.

 

the berhinger I mentioned has 2 channels so you only need one device to plug in your bass and guitar,also phantom power means you won't leave a 9v battery in it to die and leak all over when you forget about it..

 

You rarely DI electric guitar, directly out into a PA that has full frequency response. You 99.9% of the time put electric guitar through an amp and then mic the amp.
But if you use an amp modeler (on a computer for example) you use an active DI (guitar -> active DI -> audio interface preamp -> modeler -> audio interface output -> mixer/FoH).
When using passive pickups you use active DI (as a rule of thumb), like when DI'ing a bass guitar with passive pickups. Likewise, if you use active pickups you use passive DI.

Edit: That Behringer DI sucks balls. Go with something like Radial. Or even a Palmer.

 

Last edited: Apr 23, 2024

Had one of these years ago, seemed to be the perfect DI for many use cases, but unfortunately it's quite noisy. I would rather use a good passive DI with a good mic pre. But I'm no guitar player and needed it for line signals.

 

I have 2 or 3 and no problems with noise, might be a bad unit or rf interference or too much gain on single coil pickups. I use a noise gate if I want to overdrive the gain, it gives a silent floor also use a ground strap on my wrist and an alligator clip to ground it to the bridge. its clumbsy but it works when recording, if you play to a crowd the hum drops below room noise..

try turning 90 degrees when holding your guitar, if the noise goes away,its the pickups.

 

I see you are recording vocals, not sure why you need a DI for that, but I use an isolation transformer in my studio to make sure i'm not getting noise from the ac power incoming. The Berhinger has a switch for gain or pad. if I remember correctly, not currently using mine in the setup now. but passive is good to, I have a couple of those for reamping.

its always something..i hate rewiring. I'll use the same setup for months or years. I cant imagine working in a commercial studio and rerouting shit day after day. would drive me mad.....

 

So… concluding, I need a passive DI and a preamp. Or an active DI with a built-in preamp. And a guitar doesn’t need DI and a bass needs. And guitars and basses can come with passive or active pickups.
Do I need a preamp if there is gain knob in a mixer?
I am not a guitarist…

 

you are trying to match the impedance of your signal to your mixer. A guitar will need a DI if you only have line level inputs. a bass is a big guitar, it too will need a DI. eventually you will need to own a di box. They are handy to have around. they are not expensive unless you want them to be they run from 25$ to 300$ or more depending on the brand,the features and how much the traffic will bear.

The gain knob will not match impedance.
what are you trying to do with your mixer?
what are you sending the outputs of the mixer too?

what is the end result you wish to acheive?

 

No, not for vocals, it was for instruments like a rhodes and a synth keyboard and an old tape machine with unbalanced outputs to connect to a mixer with only low-z xlr inputs. It was plain white amp/resistor noise, not rf to the source. And I'm absolutely no Behringer hater, so maybe they do a great job, but were just not suited to my special use case.

 

Sorry if I brought up the word "pre amp" or "mic pre", as these are usually part of the mixer itself.

For electric bass, a DI to mixer may work, or at least help to amplify it over the PA.

For electric guitar, it's almost useless to get the direct DI signal into a mixer, because main part of the sound is an amp and cab. So you would need any form of amp/cab sim in front of your mixer.

 

What audio interface are you using? People talk about going direct into their interface's pre's often. You just do not send it to the mixer. They do everything else with plugins. But you do need an audio interface with decent pre's. Recommended way or not, people do it all the time.

 

I use M-Audio Fast Track Pro. But I don’t want to connect the mixer to PC. The mixer will be connected to a home hifi amplifier. I want to play live with friends in a way that feels like a rehearsal or a jam session.

Unless I can use my audio interface as a preamp and DI without connecting to PC…???

 

are you planning on using the mixer as the guitar amp? you will need a dedicated amp for the bass most likely. you can't put all the frequencies together and push them through one speaker and have it sound good,

usually the guitar would go into a pedal board or guitar processor (some processors have amp and cabinets simulators) - then out to a guitar amp, you could mic the amp, but there's no reason to, as it will be loud enough and you want the live sound - the only thing the mixer will give is to set everybody's level the same .

same for the bass,

this might help you

https://tascam.com/downloads/tascam/313/HowToCaptureYourArt.pdf

its an overview of the recording process using a mixer, its the same whether you send it to a recording device or just monitor it on speakers.

 

if i am not mistaken, those mixers you mention are not passive mixers.

passive mixing should only be used to sum signals of the same technical specifications, and not with a mix of guitars, synthesizers and microphones.