Best interface / Signal chain for recording good DI guitars?

[cptgone]

few years ago I bought an Audient EVO4. It has a 1Meg Ohms impendence input and a JFET DI instrument input

I noticed my guitar DI sounded much better than my old interface, upon looking up my old interface it had no such JFET in it

Or a BOOST / Tubescreamer pedal before the DI?

Boosts and overdrives are meant to drive amps (but can of course be used for colour). How they interact with your audio interface's pre-amps depends on the latter, I suppose.

There are pedals that (can) emulate (pre-)amps:
- you mention JFET.
AMT (Russian though, so you may have ethical objections - OTOH the cheap Ruble makes 'em cheap at Amazon) has a range of pedals that has been around for 10 years or so, that are well liked: the Legend 1 and Legend 2 Amp series (the former has a "F1" Fender - I really like it).
Downside: my F1 has a switch for either +4dB, or -10dB with somewhat outdated CAB sim (it also has an effect loop BTW).
- AMT also has pedals with real tubes, with a high enough internal voltage to make that more than a silly gimmick. E.g. the Bricks series is cheap and nano-sized, but I'm not sure if they sound as good as the old JFET range. They, too have an OD/pre-amp switch.
- Two Notes Le Preamp Series, and its successor Revolt, offer XLR balanced output.
- Lauren Audio and JHS have overdrives/preamps based on Neve pre-amps.
- there are lots of pedals emulating amps using IR, if that's your thing the new generation is well received (Strymon, UAFX, tc electronic).
- there are lots of pre-amp pedals for electro-acoustic guitar specifically .

[BertKoor]

"We" , as in The Milkmen?.

[cptgone]

In this video Brian Wampler demonstrates the use of 2 analog Amp In A Box pedals, he designed long ago to approximate Fender sound on a Marshall amp, and to use as a pre-amp / pedal platform in case his amp "crapped out" during a gig (these are available again in a limited edition, BTW). He also demonstrates 'em straight into a DAW (and explains how he uses the EQ knobs to shape the gain).

[BertKoor]

More of the same, much older: Tech-21 NYC SansAmp series.
I have their Tri-OD pedal: tweed, calif & british.
Who needs modelling & IRs, the choice works paralysing.

[cptgone]

Those are digital, though (highly well-regarded as they are).
In the vid I linked, Brian Wampler argues analog works better for the purpose. I don't know if he's right, and suspect it won't make much of a difference anyway. But he does know his stuff, and comes across as sincere.

Good point about choice paralysis. Many people in-the-know argue it can be wholesome to limit yourself to the classic amp sounds (and some modern hi-gain if that's your thing).

I don't use amps (neighbours; also: my line6 Flextone is hopelessly outdated, when it comes to getting somewhat state-of-the-art emulations for recording purposes) but I do have analog Fender, Vox, Marshall and Bogner amps-in-a-box.

What I like most about analog pedals, is that I have no FOMO using them (still, I have digital pedals as well, and like 'em very much. Even drive pedals, like the discontinued Source Audio Soundblox OFD I got for cheap, or the highly original Soundblox Multiwave Distortion which doesn't try to sound analog at all).

I don't bother with hardware cab sims anymore (I liked my Two Tones Cab a lot, but it's not stereo and I ran out of space).

Often I don't even use my amps-in-a-box pedals, I'm happy experimenting with combinations of pedals (but then again, what do I know? Also, I don't play in a band anymore, nor have I to worry about cutting through the mix, as I usually just improvise for fun. I'm also not on a quest for one specific tone).

[resynthesis]

Sansamp stuff is analog (hence ease of cloning by the usual suspects)

[cptgone]

Sansamp stuff is analog (hence ease of cloning by the usual suspects)

I stand corrected