Palmer PDI-09 The Junction

I've had this unit for at least 6 months now, it's not _easy_ to get a good sound out of it the way I use it, but you can depending on a million factors. But not a complicated machine.

I own 2 other cab sims and I use them all at line-level only, because nowadays I only play at low volumes. I have a Rocktron mAxe preamp and others which I plug directly into these units. It works OK this way; I don't know if they would sound better at high volume (it'd be dumb for me to buy a power amp to find out, since i'd also buy a load and i'd never use the actual volume in the end). I use these rather than the sims on the digital units because those almost all sound awful (I have the Behringer V-Amp 2 and tried the POD). I also have the Sansamp GT-2 which has a built-in cab sim, which is EQ-ed rather nicely, but unfortunately unusably fizzy.

For line-level, I definitely agree with the whole Cab sim vs Mic sim debate going on here. The PDI-09 DEFINITELY tries to sim a mic'd cab, and that's how it sounds. I have the Red Box Pro which, like that guy said, is more like a cab sim, and the Behringer Ultra-G which is somewhere in between.

The PDI is easily the mic sim with the most character I've used so far, and also easily the most natural sounding for guitar leads in the rock department. No other unit shapes the high mid-range as nicely as this one does. You can plug almost anything into this and get great leads. The Normal and Bright settings are helpful here.

But it's also the darkest sounding and will compress your sound greatly at low levels, albeit fairly naturally. I've found that it's simply IMPOSSIBLE to get that wall-of-sound rythm with this unit; I've been eq-ing it for 6 months (various EQs, I prefer my 30-band Furman), tried enhancers/exciters, it just won't. The highs are too dark and it keeps very little presence from the amp. I find that it's not as apparent when recording to a flat track, but when you try to shape up the EQ at playback or when mixing with other instrument tracks, the sound is dauntingly dark. It's difficult to EQ any presence back into it without making it unbearably harsh (even using good EQs/exciters/enhancers before and after the unit). It's not too big of a deal if you're aiming purely for a rock or 80's sound, but I'm looking for something with a slightly more expanded sound.

It goes best with a full-sounding amp since it focuses the sound a lot, and a lot more than the other sim units. My Rocktron going into this sounds like ass (the Behringer is much better here), although it can produce some sweet leads.

Overall, this unit's sound is definitely a milestone in terms of simulating a microphone, but the coloring seems very biased toward Gary Moore-ish rock recordings.

Looks reliable, dropped it a couple times, works fine.

I dealt with JAMS Audio, they were extremely helpful.

I play rock and metal, at line-level only these days. I've been playing 7 years. I would only buy this again if the price went down sharply.

I wasn't EXTREMELY impressed with this unit, but it is probably the most faithful MIC sim I've heard so far. It does sound similar to a good-quality cab mic'd with a good-quality mike (good, but not _great_), which can work for specific sounds in a mix. It definitely simulates in more ambiance than anything else.

However it just won't produce a full rythm sound so it's of limited use to me. The Behringer Ultra-G actually comes closer to this and keeps more presence from the amp, not to mention it's 5x cheaper. The Red Box Pro also has a slightly fuller sound than the PDI, but it doesn't compress nearly enough to be usable for leads (I consider it the worst of my boxes).

At the moment I'm not sure what I'd buy again. I've been impressed and disappointed by each of these units in a way or another and I haven't found the sound I'm looking for, despite EQ-ing for days on end. I'll keep the PDI for lead parts, but I think it's the low-end Ultra-G that's surprised me the most out of the pack and that I'll end up using for now (frickin' 30 bucks, and it's Behringer, talk about a kick in the nuts).

Hey DI man, you are completely wrong on all fronts and are showing your complete ignorance.

"Obviously has NO CLUE
He wants a CABINET SIMULATOR (something that doesn't actually exist except in the digital domain)
Of course the palmer, as does any simulator, simulates a mic'd speaker. What's it meant to do? Simulate a cabinet that you then mic yourself ??"

Wrong! Cabinet sims DO exist. The Hughes & Kettner Redbox is one of them. The Palmer is obviously simulating the sound of a mic'ed cab, not a cab in the room. The redbox does this. You obviously don't understand what engineers and producers are TRYING to get when they mic a cabinet. They are not going for the phased, pinched, harsh, small sound that a mic provides when placed in front a speaker cone. Producers actually strive for a big, full, open and non-peaky tone when they mic a cab. Sometimes they simply fall short. Micing a guitar cab is not necessarily what people wanted originally. We simply didn't have a better way to do it. Now we do. Palmer made the mistake of simulating old technology. Hughes & Kettner got it right

"Next time you give a product 1 mark because you bought the wrong product, think again.

The Palmer does what it should. You don't!"

You just keep being wrong. Palmer missed the point and so do you.

"It sounds as good as most other simulators. Useful in many situations but obviously never quite as good as micing an amp in a nice room with good gear."

Micing an amp in a studio perfect room with best mics available, hours spent, and a ton of knowledge and a great ear is about the only way to get a good guitar tone via micing. The Palmer sounds BETTER than most simple mic jobs simply because it's a bit less muddy. However, as I pointed out before, Palmer did a FANTASTIC job simulating all the undesired qualities and strange artifacts that one gets by not taking hours to perfect a mic job. The tone from a speaker simulator should sound like a speaker, not a mic'ed speaker.

ez as pie.
you connect cables, choose one of 3 levels of attenuation of line level, and one of 3 'voicings' of the output.

sound quality is excellent.
in blind tests (home studio) using miced cabs and palmer direct simultaneously, two tracks were recorded, and then a/b'd against each other.
the cleans were almost identical.
the distortions were more affected by room sound on the miced tracks, but all things being considered, the palmer tracks, albeit dry and distinct, seemed to record more consistently. experiments with adding room reverb with nice plugins made it tough to determine miced from direct tracks.
Micing cabinets, and having VOLUME slam a mic diaphram, will always give a thump factor that is hard to get direct, without some creative and knowledgable eq'ing..... but we all already know that. if you could crank your marshall to 10 all the time, you wouldn't need attenuators, and iso cabs, and etc. etc.
but for the guys that are trying to do recording in more controlled environs, this is the deal. price for bang for buck is high.

built like a tank, i've used this live, and the sound guys just love it.
no feedback...
solid signal....
it works.

i dealt with JAMS (a Palmer direct dealer) on this purchase... they were great.

i play rock. a wide variety of tones, i coax out of an old MB MKIIb 60 watt tube head, thru a variety of cabs.
i mostly record original music, and have experimented with iso cabs and loud mic situations for years.
i rent my current place to live, and with the landlord on the other side of me, volume is not up for discussion.
i purchased a weber mass lite, to tame my boogie, but throw the palmer in there BEFORE the weber, so i can capture the full output of my boogie, then attenuate the signal (to ANY volume i want) for monitoring.
this device works perfectly for my needs.

You should be able to figure this thing out just by looking at it.

I scrutinized the sound of the Palmer PDI-09 in as heard in two ways: (1) Listening to my cranked amp and the Palmer PDI-09 through the PA at the same time. This is how an audience in a small to medium sized venue would likely hear it. (2) Listening to a playback of tracks made from the PDI-09 and comparing those to tracks made with an SM57 microphone. This showed me how it would sound in a recording.

I think the Palmer PDI-09 is best suited for live sound reinforcement in small to mid-sized rooms. I wouldn't choose to record with it although it could be used for that with the right post processing.

The Palmer PDI-09 is most effective in situations where the audience still hears the natural (not MICed) sound of the instruments and the PA is merely being used for extra spread. For example, if you're using a small amp and can't quite be heard as much as you'd like over the unamplified drums, you could use the PDI-09 to get your sound into the PA for extra help.

The sound you???ll get in the PA from the Palmer PDI-09 is NOT like the sound you would get from a microphone. The PDI-09 gives you a sound more like having open 1x12 guitar speakers on your PA poles. It???s much more clear and present than the sound from a microphone. A microphone gives you a sound that???s like zooming out to a wider shot to include not just the speaker cone but the space of the room, too.

Without looking at a spectrum analyzer, my ears tell me the frequency curve from the Palmer PDI-09 is more of a smooth arch while the microphone signal has more drastic peaks and notches. In other words, the PDI-09 has a lot of high mids and smoothly rolls off on the treble and bass ends. This quality makes the PDI-09 sound somewhat generic but it???s a sound that very easy to work with. And it should work fairly consistently through different PA speakers in different rooms.

While the Palmer PDI-09 sounds excellent within the live context described above, I would not choose to use it in situations where I would have to mix it in with lots of other MICed instruments--like in a recording.

The nature of the PDI-09???s direct signal makes it sound over and ahead of other MICed instruments. The clear and present quality that made the PDI-09 sound beautiful alongside the unamplified drums can now sound somewhat obnoxious as it pushes the guitar sound too forward of other MICed instruments to sit well in the mix. That said, it would probably work very well in more ???electronic??? music. But I, personally, wouldn???t use it to record the true sound of, say, a garage band. Other people have made fantastic recordings with Palmer gear.

The verdict? The Palmer PDI-09 doesn't completely replace a mic. It's just a different tool. For some jobs the mic is still more appropriate. But for other jobs, the PDI-09 can beat a microphone.

Looks solid enough.

Haven't dealt with the manufacture.

Like I said, it's a tool that's perfect for some jobs and less perfect for others. As far as getting my guitar into the PA for extra help at live gigs, I love it. So much so, in fact, that I really think I may buy a second PDI-09. Then I can run myself in stereo or let another guitarist on the stage use it so that more of the band can sound better.

As easy as it can get really

Just to point out that previous reviewer who said

"I'm giving the palmer a rating of "1" because it simulates the sound of a cabinet mic'ed up...not the sound of the cabinet in a room. If I wanted the sound of a mic'ed cabinet, I would just throw a 57 in the center of the speaker cone."

Obviously has NO CLUE
He wants a CABINET SIMULATOR (something that doesn't actually exist except in the digital domain)
Of course the palmer, as does any simulator, simulates a mic'd speaker. What's it meant to do? Simulate a cabinet that you then mic yourself ??
As for it's easy to mic a cab up. Well, full marks for trying to pretend you are an expert.
Sometimes you don't WANT to mic an amp up. You just want to record silently or you want to get the job done easily OR you happen to like the way a good speaker sim sounds.

Next time you give a product 1 mark because you bought the wrong product, think again.

The Palmer does what it should. You don't!

It sounds as good as most other simulators. Useful in many situations but obviously never quite as good as micing an amp in a nice room with good gear.

As good as most simulators. The H&K Red Box is maybe a touch better in some case.

Very easy to use. You have to be an idiot to screw it up

I'm giving the palmer a rating of "1" because it simulates the sound of a cabinet mic'ed up...not the sound of the cabinet in a room. If I wanted the sound of a mic'ed cabinet, I would just throw a 57 in the center of the speaker cone.

A mic job is not hard to get, nor is it time consuming. It only takes a few seconds. It's getting a GOOD mic job that is the problem. A good mic job is one in which you can't hear the mic job. In other words, it sounds like your cabinet in a room as you listen to your cabinet...off axis. The goal with direct boxes is to turn your PA system, or studio monitors into your cabinet.

Built really well.

The people at Jams audio were very helpful. They took the thing back with no problems

I give it a "2". It's built really well, but doesn't sound the way I want. I want a cabinet simulator, not a mic job simulator

Very EZ!

This little box is amazing! I run it with my Peavey JSX, the sound is very natural, but it simulated only a openback 212, so after I set EQ a little bit, get the fat DI recording tone very easy. I use the NORMAL voice on it, and boost the 250Hz about 10db (High Q setting) on EQ, just some delay and reverb, WOW! I cant mic a cab sound like that......
A/B test with PGA-04, the original PDI-03 filter make the PDI-09 sound much better. the 04 is also good, but just another tone which I dont like.

Stupid easy, but you do need to have some kind of clue about gain staging. Works best with an amp into speaker attentuator and then into the DI box.

Using it with a Jamison combo amp and a Weber mini-MASS attentuator, into a high-quality mic pre, this is one of the best recorded sounds I've gotten, definitely the best direct sound.

It's a DI box, there isn't much that can break. The only thing I'd be even a little worried about is the plastic ground lift switch on the side, if you were using this live I suppose it could break off, although it's unlikely. Otherwise it looks pretty rugged.

No experience dealing directly with the manufacturer, but I bought mine from Mercenary Audio, they have some of the best customer service in the pro Audio business so I'm not worried.

I've been working on a making sound clips for a pickup manufacturer. After messing around with different ways of recording, using the Palmer DI with the Weber Mass was just a no brainer for this project, as it cuts out the coloration of the speaker and microphone. It's also very convenient and quiet.

This is a must have! It is indeed a product that lives up to any "hype" that surrounds it.

Any guitarist that is currently using a mic on his cab should stop it right now and try this.

If you would rather play guitar rather that fuss around trying to get a mic in just the right place, get one now.

If you like to record your amp, get one now.

I love this thing.

They used to be hard to get but they have found a distributor for the US. More on that below.

I've tried this with all three of my amps with better results than a Sure SM57 mic on the speaker.

I have a 5150 Combo that sound great clean and dirty though this, even a really low volumes.

I have a Crate v1512 that also sounds better than micing the 12" Celestion.

Lastly I have great results putting this between the DI output on my little friend, my AVT20. Sounds pretty convincing!! 4x12 sound!!

I have wanted something like this for years, as 3 of my all time favorite guitarists are Eddie VH, Alex Lifeson, and Ronnie Montrose, all of whom have said they use the PDI-03 and PDI-04. This is the same thing without the internal load box.

I don't see reliability being a problem, I have reserched this for years and haven't heard about any that have quit working.

Ok, one of my main reason I have reviewed this is because of the folks at www.palmergear.com

Jams Audio, they rule, no, I don't have ties with them!!

Mitzi called me personally for a question about shipping and were very nice to upgrade shipping times for just a few extra bucks. She emailed back promply with a question I had. I love her down home southern accent too.

If lost or stolen (dirty little SOB's) I'd whip out the card and order another.

I've tried the Behringer speaker sim, supposed to sound like miced 412's, didn't sound like it to me.

Years ago bought a Red Box Pro for a little mesa boogie studio 22 that I had a the time, sounded very "fizzy" and artifical.

Had a Tech21 tri.a.c. didn't sound all that convincing to me.

Had the original line 6 POD, sterile and bland.

If this sounds familiar to you, buy this and live happily every after, I finally can go direct!!

A "TEN" in every single category!! A first for me hear at H. C.

all you need is the right cables and your set.

First off I want to thank Ed Goforth for the previous review and recommendation of using the Junction along with the Weber MASS. I've had the MASS for some time now and I don't know if it was the cord I was using or what but it didn't sound like my Cab mik'd. The PDI-09 along with the Weber MASS is the Cats A$$. It actually sounds better than my cab ever did miked.

I'm using it right now with my Les Paul Custom Lite (tobbacco-burst beauty it is) with stock pick ups and it is UNREAL !!

My rig consists of the following: LP -> Clyde Deluxe Wah -> Boss GT-3 -> Korg DTR-1 tuner -> Soldano Decatone 100W head with -> BBE 482 Sonic Maximizer -> TC Electronics G-Major thru the effects loop. Then from the speaker out on the head I go into the PDI-09 with a speaker cable -> Weber MASS from the thru on the PDI-09 with another speaker cable, then into a Roland VS-2480 cd recorder from the balanced out on the PDI-09. Both the overdriven and the clean channels are outstanding.

Just got it today and I'm hoping to hold onto it for some time.

NA

For anyone wanting to record at peel your face-off volumes at 3am, this is a must. I also have a Line 6 POD and this is by far much better in terms of sonic tonality. I just basically built a Palmer PDI-03 for $400, hot dang, saved me $1k. thanks again Ed.