Is a DI guitar tone officially BETTER than an amp?

idk any more man just play what you want but definitely watch my longform stuff its chill as a windmill.

[aschneider]

one big advantage of DI: you can experiment with tone and texture without re-recording the part 30 times

[evanloken]

I liked them both. The DI sounded more balanced and full? The Mic’d amp sounded more punchy and like the chorus or whatever fx were more forward? At this point it may not be a which is better but a preference. And DI is definitely more attainable, recordable, versatile and neighbor friendly to living room guitarists like me.

[rome]

I don't consider "amp sim" and DI the same thing. When people say DI, they usually mean going straight into your interface and into your DAW with no plugins.

[youngroyalty]

“the worst amp sim known to man”

Trent Reznor: Yeah that’s what makes it awesome.

[The.One.True.B]

Both. Mix to taste, or mute one. Bassists have done this for a long time now lol I always mic the amp as well as record the DI if the amp has the option, or us a DI box if not.

[Tony-Jabroni]

No need to dunk on a line-6 pod. Frankly i got some excellent tones out of that thing, and still use it as a headphone practice platform. Line-6 pod was some seriously ground breaking tech. Encourage you to grab one and start tinkering

[regularfilledgatoradebot]

I think they work for different things, and it mainly depends on how you eq it and set it up, but DI is SO much more convenient for recording, so it's bound to be number one for a lot and a lot of people

[matthew]

i’ve never recorded an amp, but i definitely wanna learn. i record all of my electric guitar through my interface and there’s definitely more flexibility that way. i use guitar rig 6 and there’s a bunch of amp sims, effects, and microphone sims on it so right now that’s just the preferred method. i haven’t looked into it in a while, but i do wanna look into re-amping again

[robertturner]

The problem with comparison is we don’t know how you mic’d the amp. Mic choice and placement make so much difference. I personally use both amp and DI and find value in both so I ain’t here to hate on either, but I think it’s a fair point

[Bobby-wnyr]

As a bassist I feel like we went there a bit sooner, because a SVT head weighs 40kg; for us it’s just an evolution on a sansamp to be using ampsims.

But yeah, a hx stomp is the best thing I have bought in a long times. Combining physician and digital effects, virtualised routing and mixing, as well as amp sims and cab IR’s and then running a DI out to FOH and another line to my wireless monitors; it’s incredible.

[simondavid]

the thing for me is that an amp reacts in a different way, the four speakers of a super reverb for example can’t be compared to studio monitors. The volume is also a thing, and most importantly, turning knobs and playing through an amp has that little something more that amp sims can’t have : physicality. Hence why the best amp sims are the fender tone master amps (not the tone master pro, but the amps that actually look like amps) in my opinion :)

[SBkid]

I can really hear the tubes in the DI one, real amps can’t fake that

[praiseboognish]

The amp for sure. I listened with my eyes closed and there was no contest.

[enablerx]

It took me a long time to accept it, because I felt like I spent so much time dialing in my amp/pedal tone but I truly enjoy DI now. Mostly for the fact that the variety you can have without buying tons of amps is insane! I will say, the effects still have some work to do because analog pedals still seem to sound a bit better

[bearlythinking]

I love HX Native so much. Not only can I record DI and have it sound better than my amp, but I can change the amp emulation, the room effects, etc after the fact. AND THEN EXPORT IT TO MY HELIX TO HAVE THE SAME SOUND LIVE

[rosiejoeoffical]

Both sounded great, but I feel like tonal preferences comes from what you’re playing. Artists playing country, blues, or more traditional rock would probably go with a mic’ed amp, while the more modern mathy guitarists like Ichika and Tim would go direct, as digital tones are just a lot more part of the sound. Also, even if emulation stuff sounds the exact same, some artists probably just want to do things a certain way out of making it easier (or with stuff they already have) or staying true to making an organic record with all real sounds.

[Aaron-zhkj]

I was following with you and agreeing with the premise of the video, but I surprisingly actually liked the amp sound better. The thing with DI and good digital is that it’s much more controlled and you can usually get a perfectly miked guitar amp sound immediately, unlike using a real Guitar amp. The thing is most guitarist don’t know how to mic an amp like a great engineer, so their results will usually sound better with a digital DI track. Of course, it will be way more consistent too. I think a great rule of thumb that many artists are now following is to use actual tube and transistor amps in the studio, then go digital live. It’s way more consistent and way easier to maintain for a live setting where you need reliability.

[fleetlewood]

Ok personally for recording 9 times out of 10 I will prefer an amp sim but for just playing around and practicing I much prefer an actual amp and cab

[jameswalmsley]

I started with emulations, moved to kemper and used that for about 5 years. Sometimes my “tweaks” ended up destroying my recordings because I’d add frequencies only really achievable through digital source tones that built up over tracking. About 3 years ago I started collecting real amps in my studio, I went from tweaking guitar tones for hours, to having 6 different heads that sound good out the gate, I very rarely take the amp eq further or lesser than twelve o’clock. To me it says that over years of doing this, you can absolutely get good tones out of any tools you use but after a while you just want something you can work with easily and fast. Workflow is ultimately king, and real amps make my workflow faster than amp sims for many reasons but mostly because once it’s down it’s down, no tweaking. I trust my amps and mic placement well enough to know nothing is gonna be unusable haha

[mobymobymobymoby]

My friend came over to play some metal stuff. He plays in drop f, so instead of downtuning my les paul to drop f (impossible) i kept it in drop C and he then pitch shifted it down to f. I thought it was going to sound like garbage, but it was practically identical to his 7 string set up for it. Insane honestly. The stuff you can do on a DAW now is out of this world.