Radial SGI Studio Guitar Interface Reviews

The guitar tracking room is up the stairs from the control room. This makes the signal super clear and punchy even at large distance. Don't cheap out and try to do a super long instrument cable. Get this.

I always manage to surprise people (even seasoned touring guys) with these boxes. The studio I work in is small, and we quickly run out of space when a full band is recording. But, I have access to some great spaces just down the hall. Those spaces aren't wired, but I can change that quickly with the SGIs (and Radial's CAT 5 snakes). With the amps raging at 11 in the empty auditorium 150 feet away, we can listen over the monitors in the studio with 99% perfect isolation. With he pedalboard in the studio and the combo down the hall, one touring guitarist said it was the best tone he's ever gotten out of his amp on a record—so you know the SGIs aren't hurting tone!

If you run an amp off stage don"t be a dummy and don"t try and be cheap.

I tried to do it the cheap way and it was not a very good experience. So after spending the money and getting this it was the best $... I"ve ever spent on a piece of gear.

This system can be absolutely transparent if you need it to be. And yet it can effect the signal if that is what you need and want. Very powerful!! I have used it with the bass during recording instead of a DI box ,works great. Zero noise and influence on the signal. Have yet to try it with a marshall stack, that will happen this week. I expect it will work just the way Radial says it will. If not you will be the second to know. Every piece of Radial gear I have bought from Sweetwater has performed beyond my expectations. So has Sweetwater! Why would anyone shop anywhere else?

Absolutely love my sgi boxes! There nice compact and helped me run my amp offstage !

Looking for a need due to multiple gigs requiring me to run long distances from pedal board to amp. Talked to my Sweetwater rep (Mac Hatton) and he instantly recommended the Radial SGI, I"m always willing to try anything, I will tell you now, the tone this maintains is amazing. I am running a 100" cable between the two units and I have virtually zero tone loss. You dial latency down as well... I am very impressed and will be purchasing more for the rest of my rigs. Thank you Sweetwater yet again for a flawless experience with amazing products.

This is what you want, if you dont understand what its doing you don't need it.

I am a worship leader and an important part of controlling stage noise is to keep guitar amps shielded (in a stage left side room). The Radial SGI helped us run 50' cable from pedal boards to amps while keeping strong, clean signal. This is exactly what we needed and I highly recommend!

My studio purchased the Radial SGI for recording guitars in the control room with combo amps in the live room. I tested against a 15ft cable with pedalboard and amp both in the live room. I thought this would be a worst case scenario given passive pickups of a strat and Les Paul (covering single coil test and humbucker test) would be much more particular about load impedance than a buffered pedal board. The SGI was actually a bit quieter in terms of hum and line noise than the cable with the ground lift which surprised me. There was little discernible difference in signal level hitting the amp when directly plugged in or to the pedal board when it was connected. The drag control on the SGI was a very nice feature. Somewhere just above 50% seemed to be comparable to the direct cable for both guitars in terms of high end rolloff. When drag was set to max, the SGI was noticeably brighter. This is a great option for impedance matching to get the fine details that I was most afraid of losing. The range of the drag control seems like it would cover most guitar and amplifier combinations. Typically I’ll keep a pedal board in the control room for adjustments on the fly, and with any buffered pedals I would imagine the drag control will have little to no impact. Still it is good to know that even in the most demanding situations, I have a rock solid tool.

I did notice that the SGI is sensitive to XLR adapters. I first attempted to wire through the XLR wall panel in my rooms and noticed the XLRM and XLRF ends were wired backward from the SGI, so I used an XLRM-XLRM and XLRF-XLRF adapter on each to make the connection. I get no signal flow when wired this way. I assume the phase is inverted between the cable and adapter and that is causing cancellation. Instead I used an XLR-TRS connection on my wall plate with corresponding cables. This works fine. It’s just something to note in case other customers experience this.

I am extremely happy with this engineered and packaged solution vs. the direct box / reamp DI combo that it is replacing. Per usual, Sweetwater support was excellent in guiding to the best product based on needs and shipping time is always lightning fast.

I was having some static issues with the instrument cable between my last pedal and my amp's input (also more handling noise than I expected) these two boxes basically made it to where the addition to the noise floor after my last pedal was completely eliminated. I kind of wish all guitar signals were transported as balanced signals now :)
If you've read about this device then all I'm doing is confirming that it does as advertised. I fiddled with the drag control (it was placed after a buffered pedal btw) and I'm pretty certain I like "maximum drag" which I guess is highest impedence? Makes sense I guess, it presents the clearest most crystaline highs/general signal compared to any lower setting (no volume change btw: drag or the device in general just lower noise)

These bad boys are a must if you are running sound in an environment where you have to control the amp volumes. Place your amp in a back room, run an XLR, and let the playing begin! My only thought that they could work on in the future, is to make it to where you can attach the power plug to the receiver side, instead of the transmit side. It just means theres a "wall-wart" out with your pedal board. It would just make sense to have that hidden backstage. But, it's not a deal breaker!

This is a great device for running a long cable from your pedal board to your amp....perfect for shows with a big stage or studio use when your iso booth is far from your recording interface. Easy to use and works wonderfully. Thanks to Mark Magdich for recommending! :)

A very good alternative to going wireless - check it out!

I would have given them a Fivestar rating if they could run off of nine volt power. It would be very awesome to power them off of normal power supply for a pedal board.