Countryman FET DI box...

[SSLtech]

Every week or two, I get yet another Countryman DI box on my bench.

There's never anything wrong with them, apart from the occasion where there was a wire which had been torn off one, coming from the "block" to the switch... probably torn off when the battery was being changed.

The whole thing seems to be centered around Countryman's unfathomable (to me at least) habit of not wiring the two ¼" sockets in parallel. I can't see why they do what they do... it leads to people thinking that the DI box doesn't work, because they plugged into the wrong ¼" socket... then they don't try the other socket because they're sure that the other socket shouln't be used becasue of the labelling...

Anyone else ever had this? I must have had 200 "dead countryman DI" reports, and only once an actual problem... the aforementioned broken wire.

Keith

 

[Kev]

[quote author="SSLtech"]The whole thing seems to be centered around Countryman's unfathomable (to me at least) habit of not wiring the two ¼" sockets in parallel. I can't see why they do what they do... [/quote]
:shock: :roll:

.........
so what do they do ?

 

[SSLtech]

They loop through in such a manner that if you plug into the "to amplifier" socket instead of the 'Instrument in' socket, the link is broken...

something stupid anyhow....

I hate those things... built like tanks though! :grin:

 

[Kev]

:?
... still having trouble grasping what this does for you ?

The "to amplifier" socket breaks connection in normal use :roll:
My mind must be so focused on parallel mode that I can't see how it all works.

Kev - think half normalled !

....

but it's a DI box not a patch panel ...

:sad:

brain hurts
error

blue screen of death

ring technical support for user assistance

 

[jrmintz]

Having used Countryman DIs to play bass through for at least fifteen or twenty years, I have always believed that the input configuration was designed purely to embarass and humiliate bass players. Why don't they pick on drummers, like everyone else?

:green:

Seriously, more than once I've been called to fix live tracks in post where somebody getting onstage in the dark in a hurry plugged into the wrong jack. Isn't it amazing what's NOT obvious? Try following a conductor you can't see sometime.

 

[SSLtech]

Seth! -Long time no hear... how's it goin'?

...so it's not just me then? -Countryman didn't just decide to have a laugh at my expense by supplying all of ours "wacked-out" while everyone else gets sensibly-operating units? :wink:

Kev, don't worry about mental meltdown... I can't see what it does for anyone's benefit either. :roll:

I wouldn't mind but it's nothing to do with speaker-level pad... that's a seperate switch...

Talk about session work arriving late and being in a hurry, reminds me of J.Peter Robinson, who had a gig with "Earth Wind & Fire". -A delayed flight meant that he had to rush to make the gig in time for the downbeat. -(in his own words, "I had no time to prepare and I'd never worked with them before, so I had no idea who was Mr Earth, Mr. Wind or which was Mr. Fire...") -Anyhow, in the semi-darkness, he squeezed through a doorway just as an enormously tall, rather wide and extremely black man was squeezing out. JPR nodded a friendly greeting to this man, looking upwards into two enormous black discs as he did so (JPR is about 6'2" himself..this guy was huge!!!) and as he sprinted away, he called back over his shoulder "Nice shades, by the way!"

trailing away behind him, he heard the large black guy shouting:

"That's my nose!!!!!!!!"

:shock:

:green:

keef

Keith

 

[CJ]

Man I would just snip that shorting jack wire on everyone of those darn things that came in, Keith. I bet nobody notices. They have protection diodes on the fet anyway, so it's not like major catastrophies will result with an unshorted jack. Maybe a little more noise when nobody is plugged in, but big deal.

 

[SSLtech]

Hey CJ... you gotta schematic for what's in "the block"?

It's not a shorting wire as such... it's a break contact. I've shorted past the break on a couple... whenever I've felt p*$$éd off enough!!! :wink:

Keef

 

[CJ]

Yes, I think the Hickman at Kev's place will help also.
You got mail!
cj
I wired the extra jack on my DIY version as the speaker level input. That way, you don't smoke the fets if the darn switch gets accidently set wrong or knocked out of position by some stupid bass player when he's high on weed!
:razz:
Just kidding! I love bass players. And I love sitting in after they pass out!
:razz:

 

[jrmintz]

"That's my nose!!!!!!!!"

Ouch! I was on a session for the Olsen Twins (I know, it ain't EWF, but it pays the rent). The producer's wife was the songwriter. I knew him but not her. She was very big, I thought perhaps pregnant. The drummer, who knew them both, walks in and looks at her for a second and says, "Hey! I didn't know you were pregnant!" She looks right at him and says, "I'm not, Rich, I'm just fat."

I have a bad cold and I'm not thinking real clearly, but if the jacks on the Countryman were parallel would unplugging the input still turn off the battery?

 

[SonsOfThunder]

[quote author="jrmintz"]...where somebody getting onstage in the dark in a hurry plugged into the wrong jack...[/quote] Now wouldn't it be nice if we could have all the cool features on one product?

My point: the Horizon DIs all have glow-in-the-dark printing on top. Its not the worst DI in the world, but the glowing print on top is awesome!

Peace!

 

[BYacey]

Countryman shorts the input when nothing is plugged in to keep noise down. This could be removed at the expense of hum when not plugged in. The input also switches the battery, if both jacks were wired as identical input / output you would get a nasty pop from putting 9 volts on the guitar amp input while inserting the plug.
All it takes is a quick look and being able to read "inst." and "amp". In my version I take the buffered output before the transformer and feed the "amp" output jack with this signal

 

[Scodiddly]

Just tape over the output jack, or maybe put a big arrow on the case pointing to the input jack.

The important thing is that now we're all gurus, who can smugly assert that the Countryman has a weird jack setup and that's why regular slobs don't use them correctly.

 

[BYacey]

There really isn't anything weird about this box; most audio gear has an "in" and "out". Nothing really brain - streching here.

I think some people have been poisoned by the fact that on most passive DI boxes, the input and amp out jacks are one and the same; interchangeable. "Don't matter which hole I plug... something will happen..."
This doesn't apply to the Countryman or many other active boxes.

 

[Kev]

[quote author="BYacey"]I think some people have been poisoned by the fact that on most passive DI boxes, the input and amp out jacks are one and the same; interchangeable. [/quote]
yep
that's me !