Recommend me a DI for guitar recording

Vintage-T

I've been on an educational journey with Logic for the past few months, and finally have a full band track finished with a combination of live tracks and direct tracks. 

All members of the band I'm in agree that we don't really like any of the plugin amps, and as we had the mics available, we recorded live, mic'ing up our amps. I'm pretty happy with the results, but doing a bit of reading, I could use a DI and split the signal so we have a live track as well as a direct track to use the plugins if needed.

I know absolutely zilch about DI's so does anyone have any recommendations, or is this route absolute folly!

My brother thinks we're mad using live guitars, but we all quite like it, this is a compromise to see if we're right without having to rerecord all the parts again just to get a direct signal for manipulation.

TIA

Musicwolf

I use Orchid Electronics for this sort of stuff (good quality at sensible prices).  Something like their classic DI would do the trick

http://orchid-electronics.co.uk/classic_DI.htm 

You plug your guitar in to the DI then the 1/4" out (helpfully labelled 'amp') goes to, wait for it, the amp.  The Mixer (XLR) would go to either your desk or AI depending upon how you are recording.  If you don't have phantom power available you can use a battery (it's an active DI).

If you wanted to take the DI recording and send it back to a real amplifier for re-amping then you might find this useful

http://orchid-electronics.co.uk/Amp_Interface.htm 

Branshen

Musicwolf said:

I use Orchid Electronics for this sort of stuff (good quality at sensible prices).  Something like their classic DI would do the trick

http://orchid-electronics.co.uk/classic_DI.htm 

You plug your guitar in to the DI then the 1/4" out (helpfully labelled 'amp') goes to, wait for it, the amp.  The Mixer (XLR) would go to either your desk or AI depending upon how you are recording.  If you don't have phantom power available you can use a battery (it's an active DI).

If you wanted to take the DI recording and send it back to a real amplifier for re-amping then you might find this useful

http://orchid-electronics.co.uk/Amp_Interface.htm 

100% what I would go for in OP's shoes. 

thegummy

If you would really prefer to use a plugin but are resorting to micing an amp because you don't like the plugins you've tried I'd suggest trying better plugins - the best ones are easily as good as professionally recorded amps never mind amateur.

Wouldn't say you were mad for micing a real amp though (although I would never do it regardless of budget), it's still done in top studios even though software is commonly used there also now.