Reviews: Juicebox and More

For live group recording, the guitar amps and cabinets were positioned one floor downstairs and connected to a Retrospec Juice Box, which was upstairs. The Juice Box is a DI that, in this application, was not used for direct recording. The guitar was plugged directly into the Juice Box and then the Box’s 100+ foot-long cable plugged into the amp downstairs. This arrangement eliminated the need for 100-foot-long guitar cables running downstairs, thus eliminating the signal loss. Daking explains, “The Juice Box has got a very low impedance output. So you can drive a very long line to the amplifier and not experience any loss.” The guitar amps (there are some vintage Fenders and Voxs coupled with Marshall cabinets) were then miked and run to the Juice Box.”

For his Land of Heroes tour, Jarma is using three Gibsons: a Chet Atkins SST for the acoustic stuff, a brand-new ES-335 reissue, and a Nighthawk. “…for 80% of the show I use the Chet Atkins through a Retrospec tube direct box directly into the P.A., and that boy sounds good. Retrospec is …. the wave of the future, and they’re not giving me one either – I bought it!”

The end result is a sonic masterpiece. Plug in a bass and the Juice Box delivers a sound that is silky smooth; all the unpleasant edges on top are eliminated and the bottom end is tightened up beautifully. It made my ’70 Fender Precision sound almost like a vintage model and worked absolute wonders on my Rickenbacker 4001, a difficult-to-record instrument that delivers a notoriously flabby, weak direct signal. The effect on keys is similar if not as striking, and the added roundness is most welcome on organs and synth pads. And if you’re looking for that super-clean, in-your-face, direct Strat-sound, this is definitely the box to reach for: All of your picking transients will come through with extraordinary clarity.”

Features/In use

The Juice Box has typical DI amenities (1/4” I/O, XLR balanced output, grown lift), but includes a +/-20 dB gain switch with variable adjustment control. This [allows] the user to feed a tape deck directly with a very hot signal or step down to microphone level for a console microphone input, providing preamp-style flexibility. In the studio, the Juice Box took the harsh edge off a Yamaha digital piano with a signal gain perfectly matched to the unity spot on the console’s input level control.

Summary

…I like these flexible and unique studio tools. They work well, appear to be durably well-build, and ought to gain wide acceptance by crossing over home/professional studio and MI lines.”