Plugging guitar into PC

Bassmansam · 29 Jun 2011 at 13:38

I recently bought a guitar to PC adaptor. It's plugged into the pink(mic) slot which i presume is the right slot? I can't get it to record in Audacity. Im not sure if its even recognised that somethings plugged in? Can anyone help?

Thanks

m3csl2004 · 29 Jun 2011 at 14:49

This will work, but I seriously recomend you buy a dedicated piece of hardware to do this (a sound card with a Hi-z input and ASIO drivers). The possibilities then become huge (Guitar Rig, Guitar Pro, Amplitube, direct DAW recording etc).

If you use windows 7 (or any windows version really), to get you up and running, make sure the default recording device is the microphone input, then make sure audacity is set to use this device (I'm not very familiar with audacity, I use adobe packages, so might not be a great help).

Bassmansam · 29 Jun 2011 at 16:37

I will look into better equipment like that when i get a bit better. I've only been playing a month so just want to record some basic stuff.

Judgeneo · 29 Jun 2011 at 16:40

I've got a guitar cable to 3.5mm plug, plugs into the line in, and works fine.

The quality isn't great, but its good enough to see how you and playing etc..
Open up the volume control panel and make sure that the volume of the line-in port is up. Also, it sounds obvious bu one mistake I've made is forgetting to turn up the volume on the gutar itself!

Bassmansam · 29 Jun 2011 at 16:46

Yeah i have the 3.5mm plug, it goes into the line in not the mic input?

It's not working through line in either

Somnambulist · 29 Jun 2011 at 19:28

Without a proper interface you'll get loads of latency, which means they'll be a noticeable delay between you playing the guitar and you hearing what you're playing coming out of the speakers; not what you want if you're recording and trying to play to a track. There's plenty of affordable ones.

Bassmansam · 29 Jun 2011 at 20:03

Somnambulist said:
Without a proper interface you'll get loads of latency, which means they'll be a noticeable delay between you playing the guitar and you hearing what you're playing coming out of the speakers; not what you want if you're recording and trying to play to a track. There's plenty of affordable ones.

Can you reccomend one, im not sure sure exactly what im looking for.

Somnambulist · 29 Jun 2011 at 21:37

The cheapest would probably be something from Line 6's studio stuff, it's been a while since I looked. Ideally a dedicated soundcard is best because it goes straight into expansion slots rather than USB or Firewire which aren't as instant, but we're talking more £ then.

Marvin · 29 Jun 2011 at 23:21

I use my Xonar Xense with my guitar, but it's so quiet with the signal un-amplified, I had to buy a headphone amp anyway (which I use between the guitar and the Xense, rather than plugging my headphones into the amp/guitar).