As an alternative to the isolation cabinet, there are guitar speaker cabinet emulating circuits or signal processors (also known as direct boxes or preamplifier-DI boxes), allowing the sound of a guitar amplifier to be fed directly into a PA system or recording equipment without the need for a speaker cabinet and microphone. Direct boxes are used more often with electric bass than with electric guitar, because the tone of a guitar amplifier and speaker is often considered to be a key element of an electric guitarist's tone. While DI boxes are used to route an electric bass signal to a mixing board, the audio engineer also often uses a mic set up in front of the bassist's speaker enclosure, to capture the bass player's preamped, equalized signal from the speaker cabinet. The engineer can then use either the DI out signal or the miked cabinet in the live or recording mix, or use a blend of the DI signal and the miked cabinet signal.