Z-TONE DI

This DI box has been an amazing addition to my home studio so far. For years I have had issues with recording certain guitars direct into my interface. I mainly record guitars direct and use amp sims. I have tried just about all of the amp sims out there and no matter what I try and how much I tweak on the software side, my Strat just sounds a little too thin. I especially noticed it on clean tones where it always felt like it was missing some body. I haver never had this problem on my Fender tube amps, so I turned my attention to the hardware side, specifically the guitar input on my interface. I was properly using my audio interface on the instrument hi-z setting and my gain level was set properly with no clipping occurring. After doing some research on IK's z-tone products and how you can dial in the impedance, I was excited to get this DI box and try it out.I set it up using the phantom power from my interface, plugged in my Strat, loaded up my favorite amp sim, and began tweaking on a clean tone so I could here the effects of my changes. By adjusting the z-tone knob up to about 30%, all of the guitar tone's body and warmth that was always missing finally came out! It sounded amazing! I set up an AB switcher pedal and ran the guitar output through the z-tone DI box and the instrument input on my interface like I had always used. With identical amp sim settings between the two, switching between the two inputs back and forth showed that the difference was night and day!Some people might think that the z-tone knob's effect on the tone can be achieved using a pre-eq. I tried that as well and comparing them side by side, it gets close in sound but not quite the same feel. Because the input impedance is being changed, it affects the feel and response of the pickups as well, unlike a static pre-eq setting.I also really noticed a huge difference when I roll the guitar's volume back a bit. With the z-tone DI box the guitar tone cleans up on driven amp sim tones and still feels responsive. With the interface's instrument input alone, the guitar with the volume rolled back sounded anemic and almost ice-picky. So now with the z-tone box, I can get all those edge of breakup tones I can get on my real amp in my amp sims. Before that, I chased it for years and it wasn't quite the same.On my other guitars it also makes a great improvement to the sound, but I focused on my Strat single coil tones in this review because the difference was immense. For different guitars, tweaking the z-tone knob is what makes the difference and makes each guitar shine in different ways.I haven't used the JFET setting or the Active pickup setting much but they are nice to have as options either way. I've tried out the JFET setting and it does have a subtle difference in tone, like a buffered output pedal would, but I prefer the Pure setting in most cases.Overall, I'm extremely pleased with the unit and may even buy another to record two guitars at once. It's built like an absolute tank and should hold up for a very long time.

Sur le papier cette DI est très bien.Par contre attention, elle n'est pas transparente malgré l'ajustement du Z-Tone. Quand le link est branché, ont perd des aigues.

I used a regular di box for recording with amp sims for many years and was sceptical about how much difference a more expensive, guitar dedicated box would make. How wrong I was, amp sims sound and feel so much better with the Z-Tone, that indefinable something missing/not quite right is gone, as is that slight digital harshness you could never quite process out. Every single guitar I own (too many) sounds so much better into the Z-Tone as does every pedal.If I was 10yrs younger and without the arthritis that's gradually compromising my playing, I'd want to re-record every guitar part on every recording I made (a lot) with amp sims before the Z-Tone. Very highly recommended.

Installé entre un ampli et ma guitare basse active, je peux utiliser l'actif de la basse. L'atténuation à l'arrière aurait été mieu devant ou le potentiomètre-6db +6db aurait dû avoir une atténuation à -15db.Si non les autres fontions pure shape sont très fin.Cela remplie mes attentes afin de jouer à bas volume avec une bonne palette de réglages. Pour la fiabilité, elle reste à voir dans le temps. Bon produit ik !

Buy it at your own risk. The first one I got was missing a screw and the phantom power did not work (used tascam recorder and behringer mixer and got nothing). Got a replacement from the manufacturer and it works well, but now I'm jaded and ain't buying from this company again.