Sound
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Is it worth hiring a DI box for converting an unbalanced musical keyboard into a balanced signal in the OFS?
About DI boxes - very useful to have lying around (I assume the keyboard doesn't have XLR output since that's balanced heh). I'm not sure what sort of sound setup you're having in the production you need this for, but you can't go much wrong with having a decent DI box before the mixing console, since keyboards (well, most instruments) have high-impedence signals which may cause distortion when plugging them into the board. The DI box will convert the signal to a low impedence, which means longish cable runs won't be subject to signal deterioration and you'll be able to plug it into one of the mic inputs on the board without it sounding uneven. Next step is whether you want to use active or passive (i.e. powered or not) - you'll find active ones are cheaper and generally work very well but you'll need to keep them fully charged as phantom power from the console won't power them "fully". Passive ones use transformers so a cheap one here might actually make things sound worse; since you're using it on a keyboard though, they have much gain on the input anyway so if you get a decent passive DI box, it should sound great. Essentially - yes, you will need a DI box, since usually keyboards have a too high impedence for the mixer's mic (or line) input; plugging it in directly will cause the sound to not be very well defined in either the lower or upper frequencies.
Tim Bhanubandh, May 2005
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