Radial JDI Passive Direct Box

This box sits at the very front of my signal chain, just before the ST-300 tuner. It splits my signal such that I route the Output to my audio interface (Steinberg UR44) as a DI signal, and the Thru to my pedal board / amp. The signal I get into my DAW is super quiet, and it does NOT suck any tone from my signal chain.

By recording both the output of my amp (through the Torpedo Live) and the DI signal from my guitar, I have lots of options when it comes to the signal chain I select for the final tracks. Obviously, the signal from the output of my amp is defined - there's very little flexibility there. But the DI signal lets me do any of the following:

Reamp the signal using whatever external signal path I wish at that time
Use virtual fx, amp and cabinet in the box. If you're anything like me, you've accumulated a number of these over time. Your choices now are only limited by the software you've acquired.

The downside of this is that, at least in Cubase, it complicates my audio editing process - I have to edit multiple tracks in the exact same manner - but IMHO it's well worth the trade off! I should add that I also record the Direct Out from the Hughes & Kettner direct to my UR44 as well, so editing is even more tedious... but I'm always trying to capture the best tone I can on every take so that when I DO get that one take right, I maximize my bang for the buck.

I highly recommend this box. I drive it using my Strat that uses EMG-SA pickups, and I drive it using my Charvel Model 6 which uses active Jackson pickups. The JDI gives me a great DI signal for both.