DI Boxes | Passive & Active Direct Boxes

Notes: The RNDI's signature sound is the product of new custom Rupert Neve-designed transformers and class-A biased, discrete FET amplifiers. The carefully orchestrated union of these two elements is key to the RNDI's unique response, delivering a powerful and vibrant direct sound capable of reproducing the full harmonic depth of basses, guitars, acoustic instruments, and professional line level sources. With portable, powerful, larger-than-life tone for your instrument and amplifier signals, the RNDI is truly the first standalone DI worthy of the Rupert Neve name.

After coming into existence during an experimentation with new transformer designs, the RNDI was fine-tuned over a series of listening tests against the the most popular high-end DIs available. It was in these tests where the RNDI always seemed to add another dimension to the sound and bring the instruments to life. The lows felt richer, deeper and fuller, and the highs had outstanding clarity without any added harshness. Most importantly, the design team noted: "As musicians, the RNDI consistently stood out as the DI we wanted to play through."

The RNDI's signature sound is the product both of new custom Rupert Neve-designed transformers and class-A biased, discrete FET amplifiers. The carefully orchestrated union of these two elements is key to the RNDI's unique response.

The transformers provide superior passive isolation while adding musical harmonics and dimension to the sound. The low impedance, transformer balanced output excels at driving long cable runs, and performance is immensely consistent regardless of the connected equipment. This is very important for both live and studio environments where the unamplified signal may travel almost 100ft before hitting an amplifier. In other designs, these high capacitance lines cause major reductions in high frequencies, however the output stage of the RNDI unrivaled at handling long runs with minimal losses.

The class-A and discrete FET amplifier in the RNDI is powered by industry-standard 48V phantom power on the XLR connection, and creates a very high impedance input of 2M Ohms that ensures consistent performance with a wide variety of instruments. The significance of the RNDI's class-A design is that there is no crossover distortion added to the signal, which can add upper order odd harmonics to the sound that are musically dissonant in nature. With the RNDI, the overwhelming majority of harmonic content is 2nd order (octave) with some 3rd order present (fifth above octave). These musically relevant harmonics - present in subtle amounts - actually add to the richness of the original signal. The discrete aspect of the RNDI design means there are no ICs or digital components that can have negative effects on the tone.

These efforts to harmonize the performance of the transformer and the FET amplifier have resulted in the RNDI's extremely well balanced response. The low end tonality is thick and powerful, with frequency response several octaves below audibility. The high end is clear, present, and smooth, with a frequency response extending beyond 100kHz. The phase coherence is unrivaled at all frequencies, which keeps the sound as natural as possible - especially vital when blending the direct signal with a microphone capture of the same source. Simply put, there is no DI ever made that performs like the RNDI.

In instrument mode, the RNDI's high input headroom of +21.5dBU is capable of handling not only instruments, but professional, line level sources like interfaces, CD players and drum machines without a pad. This allows the RNDI to serve as a way to "Re-Preamp" any previously recorded track using your interface and a desired pre-amp. To do this, simply connect a channel output of the interface to the input of the RNDI and connect the RNDI's output to the preamp and engage 48V. By "Re-Preamping" you can apply the tone of another preamp to the source and more accurately automate or control the drive level on the preamp.

In speaker mode, the RNDI can handle the screaming output of a 1000-watt power amplifier (92 Vrms or 266Vp-p) to capture the full tone of the instrument, preamplifier, EQ, inserts, and the amplifier's output stages before it hits the speakers. This technique allows the engineer to avoid any bleed in a live environment and any unwanted tone added by the speaker cabinet or microphone. When used with modern speaker emulation plug-ins, this technique allows the engineer to take advantage of both the flexibility of digital modeling and the superior non-linear response of an actual analogue amplifier.

In a speaker feed configuration, the DI is used post-power amplifier to capture the tone of the preamp and power amp. Be sure to switch the RNDI input level to speaker and connect the amplifier and speaker BEFORE turning the amplifier on.

Notes: Consider this your clean slate. The Canvas Stereo is a Direct Box/LIne Isolator designed to remove any resistance between you and your audience by giving a pristine, sonic foundation to build your stereo masterpiece upon. From houses of worship to the dive bar downtown, Canvas Stereo is built to be the performance tool that goes wherever you are making your music.

Canvas Stereo is a Passive Line Isolator (LI) and Direct Injection (DI) device that converts your unbalanced signals into balanced signals for interfacing properly with your recording interface or mixer at front-of-house. If you're using an amp-in-a-box (DSP Guitar Rig), like our ACS1, keyboards, or any other instrument utilizing both left and right outputs, then the Canvas Stereo is your new bridge to the front-of-house. The Canvas Series DIs pack everything you need from a DI/LI into a standard pedal-sized enclosure designed to look great right on top of your board.

Direct Injection:
Use DI mode when connecting an unbalanced, high impedance source (Electric Guitar, Bass Guitar, etc). The signal will be reduced by -20dB (-35dB with pad engaged) and converted to a balanced signal via the transformer connected to the XLR output. Use the gain on your mixer or preamp to bring up to line level.

Line Isolator:
Use the LI when needing to connect your unbalanced, low impedance source (Amp + Cab Sim like the ACS1, keys, etc.). The signals will remain full volume and be converted to balanced signals via the transformer connected to the XLR output. Less preamp gain will be required in LI.

DI or LI?
When deciding between DI or LI, check with the manufacturer of your gear to find the output impedance of the device you are wanting to interface. For a general guide:High Impedance = anything above 1k = Use DILow Impedance = less than 1k = Use LI .

Troubleshooting:
This is a passive device, so you will not damage anything if connected improperly, but it could affect the signal level and frequency response if not connected properly. This is an easy thing to test since the LI/DI switch is built into Canvas. If you lose high-frequency information when using LI mode, then you should probably be in DI mode.