Palmer PDI-09 Reviews

Best guitar passive DI box ever

This is a passive DI box. So you need an active input to put this baby to work. I use it both for live performances (with Line6 POD HD500X) and in the studio (preamp + di box into the table). Give a fantastic rich clean tone for enrichment by plugin simulations. It's versatile, it's cheap and built like a tank. I honestly cannot expect anything more from this baby.

Does what it should do and well

I use it for playing into my amp and an MPC at the same time. Works well and has good sound. I like the option of attenuation and the three "amp sims" (bright, dark, neutral) all sound good to me. For performing live it is perfect and exactly what I needed.

Does what it says

I use this to connect a Vox AC30 backline to front of house and it works a treat. Very robust, and sounds great through the PA and best of all - no batteries required! It just connects between the amp and the speaker so you do need two jack to jack speaker cables.

Would recommend for anyone who needs to connect an amp to a desk or PA without the hassle of mics.

Great sound

I use this inside my speaker cabinet. It doesn't require power or batteries.

It includes three sounds: normal, bright and mellow. I use the mellow setting, although normal is also good. Bright is just too bright.

It eliminates the need for a microphone for live purposes and is better than most other speaker emulation tools that I've tried. It is not better than a microphone though, it needs to be said.

An indispensible tool for touring musicians

The Palmer PDI-09 even beats the Today's standards. It's passive, so no need for a power supply. I've been using it since 2011 and it never fialed once.

Very useful box

A very useful tool in my home studio. I use it to record bass and guitar and the quality of the DI signal is excellent and creates a huge sound when mixed with the mic'ed track.

Perfect!

I use this in the studio and live. Perfect to get the exact same sound everytime I use it. I am no longer dependable on the mic, where it stands and which can be knocked over. Another big plus of this thing is that I can use it with as much delay and reverb as I want because a mic often won't catch all of the delay and reverb.

Amazing product

It works like a analog unit. You just put it after your pedals into PA system and it's magic device really.

Solid unit, very good sounding

This is installed in the back of my MusicMan HD130, with a bit of velcro. I use it in the 'normal' setting, with a -15Db pad. This represents my amp sound perfectly. Couldn't be happier.

What a DI-BOX its a must

I highly rate this product for Sound quality and build quality which are fantastic.

If anything happened to my box would defiantly buy a new one.

Under rated product

Incredibly under rated product. Sound quality and build quality are fantastic.

Great DI! I use it for recordings as well as in live situations and the sound quality is really high. The built-in speaker simulator works really well and, using the bright, normal or mellow switch, this unit can give the warmth of a valve amp. I have nothing to object about the Palmer PDI-09. P.S. The mounting plate, which you can buy separately, can really come in handy.

No More Mics

This product is perfect if you, like me want to remove the mics in the small club situatios where a mic take space and take up much more than only the sound of the guitars

When you don't want anything other than your guitar to leak in your guitar signal path, this is handy little device to do that without breaking the bank.

Works well but other cheaper work well too

I use both this one and a behringer GI100. The Palmer PDI-09 has some more settings and is much smaller but soundwise im not sure the Palmer is worth the extra money.

Palmer changed the way I reinforce sound

I work as a sound engineer at a 800 capacity club. When a band came in a few months ago with a couple of old vox guitar amps and their engineer asked me to DI the amps with the Radial JDX Reactors they had with them, I was very sceptical.

When they played the first cord in sound check I was converted, the sound was great, but it was exciting from a tech perspective too: no bleed in the guitar channel, no need for the amp to be loud, stage space in front of amp saved, no possibility of knocking the mike, no need to filter all the sub/bass unless for the mix. All of this means a better monitor and FOH mix for everyone, with more gain before feedback. This band kept the guitars on stage quiet and had in-ear monitoring too, which makes the sound amazing... I wish some other nameless bands would understand this too.

I saw that palmer made a similar product and it was nearly half the price (and doesn't need a power supply) I thought I would try it out.

As a test I recorded my dad's Duesenberg Starplayer TV Custom plugged straight into a Musicman 110 RD fifty combo along side a 57 close and to the center of the speaker. I felt the mellow setting sounded more like the amp in the room so I set that.

There were slight character differences, such as the 57 had more 3-6KHz, because of the Palmer EQ setting, but Palmer picked up all the details well and gave a great rendering of the vintage valve amp, the slight 100-500Hz bump in the mellow setting was very pleasant. The DI also required ~20dB less gain

The attenuator set at -15dB kept the level in the green (does not act like a power soak though). The tone switch was useful for tone shaping, should be noted there is no flat, you have to pick one of the 3 EQ curves as shown here:

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I will definitely get more of these to use on the bands that I mix, it will make mixing random bands much easier, and for those odd cafe/bar jobs it will be very useful, if only it could silence the amps too... oh well you can't force that on all guitarists!

I want a Radial too so I have different sounds to offer.

4 stars for features because I would like an EQ bypass to put my own cab emulations on. Also I would like it to attenuate the amp, but I know why at this price point.

Little box of wonders!

Brilliant product! I was looking at it for a while, as I had heard wonders of it. Does exactly as it intends to do. It really does make a difference to pre-amps etc. I use it primarily for recording my pre-amps and it's just brilliant. You can really hear a difference to the change of cab-sim types.

Classic Palmer

I've seen these being used by a fair few acts but never gave them much thought, mainly because i'm always asked to use a certain mic for bands and they never seem to be specced.

Well, i ended up doing a few gigs for some major bands recently and they had them every night. I knew exactly what sound i would be getting each gig, no matter where we were and really made things simple.

So easy to use; just plug and play, no phantom power needed, ground lift switch included, no more worrying about mics being kicked over, yet still the sound of the amps coming through.

I don't think they would work with everyone as some guitarists rely on the cabinet for a lot of the sound but in general definitely an option to consider.

Nice metal build and sound quality as you would expect from Palmer.

The solution to having your sound everywhere

I used the PDI-09 with my Fender HOT ROD Deluxe all the time. From having my own trouble-free sound at gigs, to easy home recordings and multi-layered studio recordings.

So i bought the Palmer

and tried to achieve a good metal recording tone....

I was tired of trying Custom IR's etc.. it always felt like something was missing.

When i got the palmer and tried it, it also felt like something is missing..

and you know what? the CAB is missing - that's why it just sounds ok.

If your really into recording and want something better than a plain "Demo", your definitely better of when micing a cabinet, especially when your into Metal!