Audacity Forum

I've REALLY wanted to record for a while now but I just don't know how to do it. Can somebody please give me a detailed description of how to do this?

Here's my setup: Peavey Vypyr 15 amp, Floor Pod Plus effects, and a Fender Strat guitar. I have my input on my amp plugged into my effects pedal with a regular guitar cord. It's plugged into the phones on the pedal, and the other cord from the pedal into my guitar. This is how I normally play guitar. My effects pedal has a MIDI In and Out plug in, a L/MONO, RIGHT Output plug-in, and a Aux Input plug-in. I tried using the "record out" on my guitar amp into the "mic" in my computer but the quality is just terrible. It sounds like shit. Is there another way to record? My guitar amp has a "aux input" and a "headphones/record out" on it. The aux input I believe is to plug like an ipod or something into it and it comes out the amp, so I don't think that would have anything to do with this. Help?

All of the signals in your equipment chain are somewhere around "Line" level.
The Microphone input on your computer will be for "Microphone Level" signals (about 1000 x smaller than Line level), so attempting to "DI" (plug Directly In) your guitar equipment will massively overload the microphone input.

If your computer is a full size machine it may have a "Line" input that you can use. If it hasn't, or if it is a laptop computer, you will need at least a small amount of addition equipment. How good do you need the recording quality to be and what is your budget?

steve wrote:All of the signals in your equipment chain are somewhere around "Line" level.
The Microphone input on your computer will be for "Microphone Level" signals (about 1000 x smaller than Line level), so attempting to "DI" (plug Directly In) your guitar equipment will massively overload the microphone input.

If your computer is a full size machine it may have a "Line" input that you can use. If it hasn't, or if it is a laptop computer, you will need at least a small amount of addition equipment. How good do you need the recording quality to be and what is your budget?

umm, my budget would probably be like $50 or so. I don't want to spend too much I just want to be able to record good quality with my guitar. I do have a MIDI thing on my pedal would that be able to do anything good?

MIDI is machine control. It's not a sound signal.

It's a Windows Laptop, right? Some of them have provision to switch one audio input from sensitive, mono, Mic-In to high-level, stereo, Line-In. Consult your instructions. Most don't.

The cheapest, good quality way out is a UCA-202 USB sound card.

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UCA202.aspx

It's a stereo Line-In and stereo Line-Out adapter. Or something that does that job.

You can plug your equipment into most Windows Deskside machines or most Macs, but not most Windows Laptops. They're configured for Skype or other conferencing service which takes a low-level, mono microphone.

Koz

kozikowski wrote:MIDI is machine control. It's not a sound signal.

It's a Windows Laptop, right? Some of them have provision to switch one audio input from sensitive, mono, Mic-In to high-level, stereo, Line-In. Consult your instructions. Most don't.

The cheapest, good quality way out is a UCA-202 USB sound card.

http://www.behringer.com/EN/Products/UCA202.aspx

It's a stereo Line-In and stereo Line-Out adapter. Or something that does that job.

You can plug your equipment into most Windows Deskside machines or most Macs, but not most Windows Laptops. They're configured for Skype or other conferencing service which takes a low-level, mono microphone.

Koz

No it's a desktop computer. Windows 7. So, if I did buy this how would it work? What would I need to get to use this correctly? Where would I plug what in? Thanks btw for your help!

If it's a desktop computer, you should be able to find the Stereo Line-In connection. It's normally blue and it has the fan symbol with the arrow pointing in.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_level#Line_in

You don't need the USB adapter at all.

Koz