A Great Find!
If you’re not interested in live sound, stop reading now — you’ll only bore yourself. I know I know I have a cult following of church sound techs.
Several weeks ago I was in a pickle, needing to take a STEREO signal (2 channels) from a computer’s soundcard, and combine them into one balanced signal to go to the board (mixer channels are limited, I don’t have 2 channels to dedicate for computer audio). I talked with a Sweetwater sales rep and he didn’t think there was any product that could do work as a DI box AND also combine the channels — I poked around until we found the Radial ProAV1. This DI-Box will take stereo inputs of any typical device and combine it into a single balanced XLR line. How awesome is that? I was pretty pumped that I found something the Sweetwater guy didn’t even know existed.
A few weeks before that I was faced with a situation where we needed to replace a line combiner (mic splitter). My Sweetwater guy said that the ART Mic Splitter was the only product that would do the trick. Eat your heart out, Sweetwater guy — this morning I found the Radial JS-2 MicSplitter. Gosh I am such a stud for finding that. Boo-Ya!
Radial engineering also has guitar reamers, laptop DI boxes, any DI box for about any purpose, and even the SGI (Studio Guitar Interface). If you’re still reading this and actually understand what I’m saying, then you probably know that nothing causes more problems on a live stage than loud amps and monitors. This SGI unit will allow you to hook your guitar up to an amp that is up to 500 feet away — practialy no signal loss. This is made especially for a studio setting, but I certainly see use for a live sound setting where the guitar player needs the tone from an amp, but doesn’t want to provide the extra noise on stage. Radial says it best in their own description of this product, “Far Out.”
Seriously — I have imagined different types of boxes — but now I actually see that they have been made by Radial. So cool. Keep in mind that I have not actually used any of these products — but I’ve read about them — and it looks like they are making products that nobody else is making so I wanted to give a plug for Radial so they might be of service to you. Be on the lookout for Radial stuff. Plus their prices are not outrageous — very similar to pricing of Pro-Co DI Boxes (only Radial makes a bunch of stuff ProCo doesn’t).