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How would I go about hooking my electric guitar up to my PC?


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I've always been a noob when it comes to all this electronic stuff I just want to be able to hook up my guitar to my PC so I can do some recordings.

It's a really old guitar with the standard input / output any idea how I could get that to fit into my soundcard?

If so what program would be good for an amp?

Thanks!

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you need a DI box (direct in box). Plug your guitar in the DI box and the DI box into your soundcard.

Guitar Rig 2 is pretty good amp, especially for clean and weird sound and it comes with a DI box if you buy it. Amplitube sounds awesome for heavy distorted sounds. I don't own any of those software amps, so my knowledge is based on what I've heard on the net (demo clips and user sounds).

Another possibility would be to buy a hardware amp emulator like Line6 Pod and plug it directly into your soundcard.

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I just get an adapter that turns a mini jack (regular line-in jack) to a 1/4" jack (guitar-sized jack) and plug simple double ended cord (mini jack on each end) into the sound input of the computer, then put the adapter on the cord and plug it into the guitar. Instant computer guitar amp that goes striaght into your line-in port!

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you need a DI box (direct in box). Plug your guitar in the DI box and the DI box into your soundcard.

Guitar Rig 2 is pretty good amp, especially for clean and weird sound and it comes with a DI box if you buy it. Amplitube sounds awesome for heavy distorted sounds. I don't own any of those software amps, so my knowledge is based on what I've heard on the net (demo clips and user sounds).

Another possibility would be to buy a hardware amp emulator like Line6 Pod and plug it directly into your soundcard.

Amplitube is complete and utter shit! I should hunt you down and fuck your ear just for suggesting it!

Guitar Rig 2 is all you need if you're going for direct-in guitar. A little mixer or a pre-amp is a necessity though, since you need to be able to accurately translate the signal to your PC.

The most important thing you have to consider when going the digital route, is that you'll need a sound interface capable of giving you very fast ASIO drivers.

Overall, getting very good guitar results is a little more expensive and difficult than the standard amateur application. Don't expect to sound good right away unless you're prepared to spend a fair chunk of money and a fair chunk of time learning.

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BEfore going haywire on software and what hardware to get (adapters is a NO-NO, especially stereo), let me ask what hardware do you "have"?

Do you have a guitar only?

Do you have an amp for the guitar?

Does the guitar have an output (1,4" jack).

Is the output (if you have one) titled DI or not?

What audiocard do you use?

If we know all this, then we can help more rather than "I have a guitar with in and out - how do I hook it up?". There're tons of ways to record a guitar, not to mention that there're also tons of ways to layer an effect over a guitar recording.

More detailed info please!

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Do you have a guitar only?

Yes.

Do you have an amp for the guitar?

Yes, but it doesn't have any outputs.

Does the guitar have an output (1,4" jack).

Yes

Is the output (if you have one) titled DI or not?

Not labled

What audiocard do you use?

Soundblaster live 5.1

Thanks guys!

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Guitar Rig 2 is pretty good amp, especially for clean and weird sound and it comes with a DI box if you buy it. Amplitube sounds awesome for heavy distorted sounds. I don't own any of those software amps, so my knowledge is based on what I've heard on the net (demo clips and user sounds).

If you don't want to splash out the money for amplitube or guitar rig, try Guitar Suite (www.simulanalog.org). That's what I use on most of my stuff nowadays, and it sounds pretty good.

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Do you have a guitar only? - Yes.

Do you have an amp for the guitar? - Yes, but it doesn't have any outputs.

Does the guitar have an output (1,4" jack). - Yes

Is the output (if you have one) titled DI or not? - Not labled

What audiocard do you use? - Soundblaster live 5.1

Okay,now this is a lot better.

You have a couple of possibilities now:

Possibility 1 - Micing:

Get a decent microphone (large membran or a simple dynamic microphone) and place itin front of the speaker. Then connect the mic with the mic in of your Creative Live. This way you record the sound of your amp and can catch some "life" from your room too.

Possibility 2 - Amp Output:

Okay here it depends... If the output is mono, then you can still connect it to your audiocard. Get a 1,4" to 3,5mm adapter (mono) and connect the mono output with the "line input" of your Creative live. Then you can record in either "pseudo stereo" or mono, while the stream is still stereo, but only one channel has a signal. Then it depends if the output sends a clean signal, then you need to process the guitar by yourself (VST plugins for example) or it is the amp sound, then you have a very harsh (dry) sound direcly from the amp.

If the output is a headphones slot however, you can get a stereo cable (1,4") and you need a 1,4" to 3,5mm plug adapter (stereo). Also... here you have the dry and already amplified sound.

Possiblility 3 - DI Box:

DI boxes are cheap. 10-20bucks, they give you a line level (which means the output of the DI box will be connected with the Line in of your Creative Live). Use this solution if you want a clean guitar and amplify the guitar "on the fly" (VST or Standalone - like mentioned in the upper threads) or you just record your stuff and add the effects later)

Possibility 4 - Line6 Guitar Port:

I love this devil. This thing is a USB powered Preamp from Line 6. It's cheap lately. The advantage here is that you can record your stuff directly via USB (not via RCA cables or something). No matter if totally clean (all amps turned off) or with an amp you like. You also have access to 12+ amps and 15+ cabinets if I'm not mistaken that you can construct how you want to. A pricey solution, but cool if you're sick of your stack and want to experiment a bit without looking for adapters or expensive VST plugins (then again, there're tons of free out there, too).

AND KEEP IN MIND:

Don#t expect too much from your Creative Live while recording. It's noisy, it's flat sounding - it's a gamer card, no production card.

The rest is up to you or the guitar player who can help you better than I could.

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well... for one thing your SBLive isn't the best choice for recording. In fact quite far from it. If you have the Live drive (the big fancy panel that goes on the front of your computer) you can get an outboard guitar multi-effects processor with SPDIF output (such as a Johnson J-Station or Behringer V-AMP Pro) and go that route. Otherwise I wouldn't even bother (SBLive = worst SNR EVER) until you get a decent sound card.

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