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Karl Monetti
`Olu`olu
USA
756 Posts |
 Posted - 09/12/2005 : 12:30:36 PM
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In trying to come up with an acceptable recording for Jesse's heroic effort, i have been struggling to get a good guitar sound on my Garageband program. I had tried using several different pick-up configurations, always going into the computer with a standard 1/4 inch plug with an adapter to fit the computer line-in hole. I could get a fairly good tone, but the imput levels were so low you could hardly hear the recording when played back on a CD.
Some info indicated i needed a pre-amp to boost the signal, since neithr of my guitars have one (on one i just use a Dean Markley sound hole pickup, the other has an under-saddle fishman pickup). I tried going through a regular amp, and that certainly boosted the signal and took care of the volume problem, but the overall sound quality was a bit mushy. When i asked at the local guitar shop about a pre-amp, the planets must have been aligned properly (use whatever metaphor here that fits your own view of the world) because the guy turns out to be a gear head in general, and a Mac/Garageband-head in particular. "Have I got the deal for you?!?!?!?!" This gizmo is called the Guitar Plug (they went way out on a limb digging up this name), and it is simply a big, fat guitar plug. The male end goes into the guitar jack, and the female end goes to a USB cable which then loads directly into the computer. Suposedly this gives you incredible "bit" speed into the computer so you get very high quality input for a low price. I have tried this thing, it works great, and only took the standard 3 weeks (for me, being a non-gear-head) to figure out how to use
Actually just a phone call, and then "bring that sucker in here and i'll rap it for you" from the salesman is all it took. (fortunatly i have a laptop) A few small computer-to-gear recognition glitches and it works just great....now i can hear my mistakes not only loudly, but much more clearly as well.
So, "Guitar Plug" by DV Forge, www.jamplug.com, $39.75 (cheap). USB cable $8.00.
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Karl
Frozen North |
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Karl Monetti
`Olu`olu
USA
756 Posts |
Posted - 09/12/2005 : 2:28:53 PM
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| Just looking at the old beater guitar i have here at work and noticed the battery inside.....come to think of it, the guitar at home i tried on garageband also has a battery (fishman undersaddle pickup) so that would probably indicate there is , in fact, an on-board pre-amp. Correct? At any rate that guitar did not sound good on garageband until i used the Guitar Plug, so perhaps the existance of a pre-amp makes no difference. Oh, yeah, i recently was given an Ovation with on-board electronics (and battery) and had tried it on garageband with the same poor results. Perhaps it is the guitar cord, or the small adapter jack used to go from 1/4 to 1/8 into the computer, but at any rate, this GP works where the other combinations did not. |
Karl
Frozen North |
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chunky monkey
Ha`aha`a
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2005 : 05:04:09 AM
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Karl - this is a timely post. I have the same issue using Audition running on a Dell Pentium 4 laptop. Going through a preamp didn't change anything. Audition lets me boost the amplitude though and I'll probably get it figured out. I'm going to look into this plug. Thanks for the info.
Update - at initial reading, this is a MAC product. |
Edited by - chunky monkey on 09/13/2005 05:09:47 AM |
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Pua Kai
Ha`aha`a
USA
1007 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2005 : 05:24:48 AM
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Hi Karl...
So you plug it into the Mac where the little icon looks like inside out headphones? Next to the headphone hole?? (you think You are computer illiterate....) Gotta go see John.....
Mahalo for the post!!!
By the way, the link needs to be ammended to take off the comma at the end.
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1579 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2005 : 06:22:39 AM
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Karl, the preamp built-in to most guitars is designed to isolate the pickup from the difficult conditions in the outside world - technically it's an impedance matching buffer. The output of the preamp is still a low level signal, not a line level one, otherwise it might overload the input of a normal guitar amp.
Line level designates a signal of considerably greater amplitude, one that has been amplified by a preamp or one delivered by a high output device like a cassette player or cd player.
Chunk, the mic input on PC soundcards includes a preamp, although it is of marginal quality (high in noise and distortion compared to most external preamps). It may still provide enough gain to create a useable signal. These devices often include a setting to kick up the microphone gain (Control Panel, Sounds and Audio Devices, Audio, Sound Recording Volume, Advanced, Microphone Boost on my WinXP laptop) that may come in handy. I'm not sure what kind of preamp you were using that didn't give you enough gain, but generally a preamp through the Line In connection gives better quality.
Fran
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E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key Guitar in California - www.kaleponi.com
Slack Key on YouTube
Homebrewed Music Blog |
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Karl Monetti
`Olu`olu
USA
756 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2005 : 09:17:01 AM
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Fran,
Yeah, well, that's easy for you to say...I can't even pronounce this stuff. Sounds like you at least know what yo are doing :) The info on the pre-amp in the guitars certainly makes sense and clears up the mystery of why no volume from them.
No, this is not a mac product
Yes, I was plugging the 1/8" adapter from the 1/4" guitar cord plug directlyinto the little round hole next to the earphone hole :) (See Fran, this guy i can really understand:>). The new gizmo, however, plugs into one of them flat thingies like where you plug in a printer....aka USB plug.
I do know that when you use the Guitar Plug, the computer recognizes it and yo need to go into Midi on the sound preferences. That might mean this is a mini midi (miney mo, catch a tiger...). Anyway, quit talkin about it and go out and get one....they work. |
Karl
Frozen North |
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chunky monkey
Ha`aha`a
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2005 : 12:18:35 PM
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thanks Fran and Karl, but I'm confused
the website specificaly calls this a tool for MAC OSX - in fact almost all their stuff is for MACS.
Fran, I ran my Goodall into a Fishman preamp with the normal settings;an M-audio Fast Track into a USB connection and didn't get any bump in volume. I know how to do this now with Audition, but at the time, I tried recording initially into Audacity and couldn't hear a thing, although I did get a tiny waveform.
Karl, are you running into an Intel-chipped PC or an Apple product?
If this will work on standard USB for a Windows XP, I'll try it. |
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Fran Guidry
Ha`aha`a
USA
1579 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2005 : 12:46:22 PM
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Terry, I'm having a hard time seeing how this device would work any better than your M-Audio Fast Track (I'm assuming you still have this box).
I pulled up the manual for the Fast Track to see if I could come up with any ideas.
Did you set the Input Level Switch to Guitar? The Fishman preamp is more of a buffer than a device for increasing gain. Its output is still not up to line level, so you should treat the output of the Fishman preamp the same as a regular guitar output. The M-Audio does contain a preamp with a gain stage, so perhaps this will get you a more solid signal.
Fran
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E ho`okani pila kakou ma Kaleponi
Slack Key Guitar in California - www.kaleponi.com
Slack Key on YouTube
Homebrewed Music Blog |
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cpatch
Ahonui
USA
2187 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2005 : 2:24:12 PM
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This thing is just an analog-to-digital converter with a USB interface packed into a small adapter plug (the plug connects to your computer via a standard USB cable). Rossasaurus mentioned it back in January:
http://www.taropatch.net/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2299
It requires a driver for Windows and the company does not have a driver available at the moment. (They've announced that one will be available eventually but don't hold your breath...this is a company that has a reputation for selling inexpensive foreign-made products at high profit margins, not for customer service or in-house development.)
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Craig
My goal is to be able to play as well as people think I can. |
Edited by - cpatch on 09/14/2005 06:28:16 AM |
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Pua Kai
Ha`aha`a
USA
1007 Posts |
Posted - 09/13/2005 : 4:38:27 PM
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Hi Cpatch... I will see you at Dusty's and am really really hoping you can help me record something, though still not sure if i'll be able to get all the way through anything. At least with a CD in a CD player, listeners can skip the track when it sounds tooo bad.....
mahalo nui!!!
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chunky monkey
Ha`aha`a
USA
1022 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2005 : 05:12:20 AM
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| Thanks Fran - I've got enough Audition knowledge now to try a real recording. I'm going to bang on it this weekend and try to get something that works. Thanks to Patch for the reminder about the driver. I'm going to live with the M-audio for now. Thanks Karl for the thread. |
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Karl Monetti
`Olu`olu
USA
756 Posts |
Posted - 09/14/2005 : 10:38:32 AM
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By "not a mac product" i only meant it was not made by Mac. I am amazed that something is actually made just for mac and not PC; usually i find things the other way 'round. It works great for me.
I have a mac G4 Powerbook laptop |
Karl
Frozen North |
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