Every Sunday, we plug our acoustic guitars and electronic drums into a Direct Box.  This direct box then let's us plug the 1/4 inch cables into the XLR floor jacks because the direct box switches from a 1/4 plug to the always popular XLR plug.  In geek-speak, "line or instrument level unbalanced signals to low-impedance balanced signals."  Direct boxes run from a few dollars to a few hundred, depending on what's inside the box.   read more »