Is recording DI harming your tone?

Recording guitar DIs has its benefits, but there’s also one major drawback

In the era of the bedroom producer, where most guitarists have at least a basic grasp of how to record demos, the power of recording DI is king. All of a sudden, a player doesn’t have to be married to a particular guitar tone forever, and what that means for the mixing process is huge. But there is one issue here that many guitarists overlook.

Why players record DI

Recording DI (direct input) means that, while a player hears an amp doing its thing when they record, therefore aiding performance, only the pure guitar signal is captured. What this means from a post-production standpoint is that every facet of an amp modeller or plugin can be tweaked long after tracking has wrapped. The recording isn't married to the tone and effects it was tracked with.

It empowers players to experiment with different amps and tones, helping them achieve a greater tonal balance between guitar tracks and hone in on time-based effects per section. Want to try that swapping that warm Vox AC30 clean tone for a twangier Fender Twin on the fly? The world’s your oyster. Need more gain in the amp, or add in an octave pedal for the ultimate stank face moment? You sure as hell can.  

It also speeds up the recording process. The often convoluted steps needed to go from plugging in to being record ready – ie, dialling in the right tones to anally exacting critera – are destroyed in an instant. This way, players can simply plug in, record, and worry about the tones later. It’s completely understandable why it’s become such a popular recording method, and one that’s used in home and professional studios in equal measure. So what about this overlooked issue?

The dark side of DI

I, like countless other players, no doubt, felt this method was a revolution. But, until I spoke to Connor Kaminski for Guitar World, I never knew about the darker side of DI. When the Strandberg signature artist records, he bakes his well-crafted tones straight into his DAW.

“The philosophy of recording without DI is that, when you’re tracking, you’re having a back-and-forth relationship with whatever you're playing through,” he explains.  

“How the gain sags and blooms is going to influence how you perform. When you track DI and change the tone, I feel you lose the essence of the performance.”

The argument, then, is that the nuances of an amp, how it reacts to the dynamics of your picking hand, to palm mutes, to fingers brushing gently against the strings as you move your hand position, should be leaned into during recording. Players should be one with their tone.

John Browne, who is also an advocate for this philosophy, believes the way an amp sounds, whether that's physical or digital, directly affects the way you play. Amps react to the player, but players should, in turn, respond to the amp, ensuring that how they play a part lets the amp perform at its best.

If I were to record with a high-gain Bogner Uberschalll for a chunky rhythm part, the way the gain of the amp peaks and dives will be completely different from a 5150, so if I were to swap out the amp during post-production, those nuances wouldn't translate. Some of the magic of the performance is lost.

Compounding this is Australian riff machine Keyan, who stars alongside Kaminski on their joint EP, Kinetic, understands the value of these relationships.

“I’m a stickler for the relationship of my playing going into the front end of an amp, and the way the overdrive pedal and the noise gate work with my right hand,” he says. And to truly get the most out of that relationship, a player needs to hear all those components as they record. Even if you were to keep the OD and noise gate at the same settings while swapping out the amp, the characters of those pedals can be wildly different, depending on the grit and grunt of the amps involved.

But what about all the benefits?

On the other side of the coin, many players may feel the benefits vastly outweigh this one negative. That’s perfectly fine. I’m a bedroom producer with limited time and budget; recording DI works for me because it cuts out a lot of pre-production faffing. Kaminski’s words hit me like a revalation – “Shit,” I thought, “I didn’t think of that” – and yet I haven’t changed my habits all that much.

The context of the bigger picture, however, is now firmly planted in my mind. What I will at least try to do is take a little more time before recording. I’ll assess what sort of part it is I’m laying down, and what kind of tones it needs, and loosely dial in a pair of settings. That gives me an approximation of how the final guitar tone will respond to the part and how I perform it.

Hell, even if you read this and think, ‘Nah, I like tracking DI,’ it’s still valuable to be aware of the context that surrounds the bigger picture. Knowledge is power, even if you don’t put it into full effect.  

Become a mixing master

Want to level up your recording and mixing game – and learn how small tone tweaks can help your mix shine? Sign up for Modern Metal Academy’s Recording Masterclass.

Featuring 24 in-depth lessons clocking in over nine hours of tips and exercises, join us as we explore the process of achieving optimal sound quality for your music and demos. Learn in your own time, at your own pace as we analyse mixes and how to optimism them for catching the listener's attention in the modern era by dissecting Monuments' Lavos, which has over four million Spotify streams. 

Head here for more – we’ll see you there.