Guitar to computer via line input. Connecting an electric guitar
Instructions
Connect your guitar to your computer's sound card using a cable. Typically, the guitar jack interface is jack, jack interface sound card– mini-jack, or jack or XLR for more advanced models belonging to the professional and semi-professional segment. Take the appropriate cable, connect one end to , the other to sound card computer into the connector intended for . Typically, the required sound card connector differs from the others in pink.
Adjust the sound. To do this, set the corresponding switch on the instrument's deck to the position that will correspond to the desired configuration of the pickups. Adjust the sound volume (volume) and tone (tone). If there are additional switches, use them to adjust the sound of the guitar.
Adjust the sound level sent through the sound card to the playback equipment (computer speakers or more advanced). To do this, open “Start” -> “Control Panel” -> “Sound”, open the “Recording” tab, select the device you are using and click the “Properties” button. In the “Levels” tab, set the desired sound volume level. Click OK.
Turn on the audio device connected to the computer. Adjust its volume, and then you can start playing.
To give a new color to the sound of an electric guitar, use sound processors. When connecting a guitar to a computer, it is not necessary to use real gadgets - there are a large number of software emulators of popular sound effects. Download one of these applications and install it. Launch the emulator program and select the desired sound distortion. You can choose one of the ready-made options or configure it yourself.
Please note
You can start playing the electric guitar right away without making any transitions. But be careful and take your time when learning. It is important to first master the basic techniques of playing the guitar, without which you should not proceed to further study: try to learn the basic chords, play scales, and you can also start studying musical notation, which will be useful in the future.
Let's start with a description of the instrument and its main differences from an acoustic guitar. An electric guitar is an instrument that is created in the image and likeness of its acoustic sister. Every electric guitar has one or more magnetic pickups that detect vibrations in the strings and convert those vibrations into an electrical signal. The current flows through the wires to an amplifying device, from the speakers of which we hear the sound of an electric guitar.
Sources:
- program for playing guitar via computer
Guitar Rig gives users the ability to process audio in real time right on the computer, avoiding effects pedals and guitar cabinets, which are expensive. How to connect a guitar correctly and get the most realistic sound?
You will need
- - Guitar with any pickup
- - Jack-jack cable
- - High-performance sound card
Instructions
Connect one end of the cable to the guitar, and the other to the audio input of the sound card. The red jack is for microphone input, the blue jack is for line signal.
If you have a passive pickup installed, connect the jack to the blue socket; if the pickup is active, then to the red one.
Install ASIO4ALL drivers on your computer. They can be easily found on the Internet.
Open Guitar Rig.
1. Select: File→Audio and MIDI Settings
2. Select: Driver→ASIO
3. Click: ASIO Config
4. Enable your audio devices in the window that appears
5. Set the "ASIO Buffer Size" parameter to the lowest value if your sound card is powerful enough. This parameter is responsible for the signal delay; the lower the delay, the more memory is required.
Make sure you have these buttons enabled: "Power", "Input L"
There are many reasons to connect your guitar to your computer. For example:
- There is a musical instrument itself, but there is no amp or accessories for it. To get beautiful effects and high-quality sound, you will have to use special computer programs.
- You need to record your game.
But not everyone knows how to connect a guitar to a computer, especially beginners.
Acoustic guitar
First, let's learn how to attach an acoustic guitar to it. Therefore, we will consider several ways.
There are cases when both a piezo pickup and a ribbon microphone are used for an acoustic guitar. But in order to find exactly “your” sound of the instrument, you will have to experiment with different methods.
Electric guitar
Connecting an electric guitar to a computer can also be done in different ways. Here is one simple option:
How to connect an electric guitar to a computer has already become clear. But sometimes you have to connect it to a laptop. You can do it like this:
Connection problems
Sometimes beginning musicians have the following problems:
- No sound is heard or it is muffled and noisy. The wrong type of cable may be used. That is, sounds pass through the left cable side, and the program installed the right one and vice versa. To solve the problem, you need to change the software setting by changing the channel.
- Some computer programs sometimes have problems.
- There is a delay effect. The reason is that the device is not able to transform incoming sounds too quickly, immediately process them according to a given effect and output them back. That's why it lags a little. To increase processing speed, it is better to use the ASIO protocol. You can install the ASIO4ALL driver. In this way you can also speed up processing.
For any connection option, the following tips will be useful:
- Always take into account the resistance of the musical instrument and the sound card input. They must be agreed upon.
- It is very difficult to completely eliminate the delay. It can only be minimized.
- It is very good if it is possible to use a professional sound card. A built-in card is also a good option. But the signal may be weaker, plus extraneous noise will arise.
- If this card is of low quality, delays cannot be avoided.
- Using a preamp, it is easy to improve the sound level and playback quality.
- It is very convenient to buy a preamp that has built-in effects.
- Very popular computer program Guitar Rig
If you still have any questions, you can turn to a more experienced friend for help or use online tips.
Here a colleague at work who knows the “three thieves chords” asked how to connect a guitar to a computer?
I asked him: “Vitya, why do you need it?” He smiled modestly and did not answer...
Well, that's right, it's a stupid question. =)
But his question to me was not at all stupid. I was even somehow confused at first, because... for me it’s banal and familiar, but come on... It turns out it’s not for everyone.
Well, I thought about it and decided that it was worth shedding some light on this issue. I hope that beginners will find this article useful. Well, those who know how to connect a guitar to a computer may not read, because there are a lot of letters and they won’t discover anything new for themselves. ;)
Here, for example, are only two, but VERY compelling reasons why you should connect your guitar to your computer:
Well, now the most important thing is how to do this?
The algorithm is as follows:
Point 1. Is your guitar equipped?
Yes. Let's go to point 2.
No. This is where it gets more difficult. It's reasonable to assume that you have an acoustic guitar. How can this be?
Well, there is always a way out. There are even two options here.
1a. The first is to use a microphone to capture sound.
This method is good because it is implemented quite easily and quickly, because... There is usually some kind of microphone in the house. Be it a microphone from a karaoke, or from a computer headset.
Everything is simple here, connect the microphone to the computer.
Usually, the microphone jack is marked somehow.
Then you go to Start ->Control Panel ->Sounds and Audio Devices.
There you select a tab Audio, in the area Playing Sound press the button Settings.
Options ->Properties Microphone.
With this maneuver we ensured that in the panel General volume It became possible to adjust the microphone playback volume. It is worth noting that by default, this option is usually disabled.
What about the recording? Well, the process is similar here.
Go to Start ->Control Panel ->Sounds and Audio Devices. There you select a tab Audio, in the area Playing Sound press the button Settings.
The master volume control panel appears. Let's go to Options ->Properties put a check mark next to the inscription Microphone.
By doing this, we ensure that in the Recording Level panel it is now possible to adjust the level of the signal recorded from the microphone.
A little hint.
In order to call up a virtual mixer with adjustments to the recording level and volume, you don’t have to constantly go to the Control Panel, you just need to follow the path once Start ->Control Panel ->Sounds and Audio Devices and there on the tab Volume check the box next to the item: "Show icon on taskbar".
Then the mixer icon will be constantly displayed in the tray, and to call the mixer, just click on it.
Another hint.
In order to quickly switch between adjusting the playback and recording volume, go to the panel Master Volume ->Properties, in the drop-down list in the window that appears Mixer select the device we need.
If we select an input device, the recording mixer will be displayed, and if output, then the playback mixer.
Important.
I described the procedure using the standard Windows mixer, however, it can happen (and it happens much more often) that the icon calling the mixer, installed along with the drivers from your sound card, is already hanging in the tray. There really aren't any major differences, and these mixers are usually more convenient than the standard one.
The main thing to remember here is that in order to record the sound of a microphone, you need to enable the corresponding input for it in the mixer, and similarly with playback.
Here, for example, is what a mixer for Creative sound cards looks like.
Now about the disadvantages of recording a guitar with a microphone.
Well, the first thing is that in addition to the useful signal, we record many extraneous noise: computer noise, chair squeaks, sounds of a neighbor’s hammer drill, etc. This is quite natural, because... Our microphone is not a professional one with a directional pattern, but with a circular or cardioid pattern. And we record not in a prepared, quiet studio, but in an ordinary apartment. In general, not ice.
What to do? Go to point 1b of our algorithm.
There are a lot of options here from cheap pills,
Which are attached to the soundboard of the guitar with tape or glue, to expensive models made in the form and equipped with a preamplifier (preamp) with an equalizer.
Let's assume that you decide to buy yourself an inexpensive piezo tablet. This is correct, it is not expensive, and you can understand what a piezo pickup is.
In this case, everything is simple, connect your guitar to the same microphone input (see point 1a) and enjoy the good sound of your guitar.
Yes, but there is one “but”. Most likely, to connect your guitar to the microphone input of your sound card, you will need an adapter from 1.4'' jack to 1.8'' jack.
As I remember now, I bought such an adapter at the nearest department store. So, I think it won’t be a problem to find the same one. But I bought a pickup tablet about 5 years ago at the Northern Lyra store on Nevsky Prospekt for 100 rubles, or something... I don’t know how much it costs now, it’s unlikely to be much more expensive. So, the option is quite affordable and not bad.
Yes, there is one more “but”. With this connection method, you will only get sound from one speaker, because... 1.4" jack is mono. And the output from the piezo pickup is also mono. But this can then be solved quite easily in software, or you need to solder a special cable, where one core is soldered to two channels in a 1.4“ stereo jack.
If you decide to purchase a more expensive pickup, then you can connect the guitar to the computer, either exactly as described above, or as in point 2. The choice is yours.
Point 2.
So, we have at our disposal an electric guitar or an acoustic guitar with a piezo pickup.
2a. Let's assume that we only have a guitar and a wire to it. In this case, we act exactly the same as in 1b.
2b. We have a guitar and a preamp.
In this case, the connection process is not much different from previous cases, except that we will connect the guitar not to the microphone input, but to the line in one.
First, let me explain some details.
About the preamplifier, aka preamp. Serves to match the signal coming from the pickup and the linear one. In general, it slightly enhances the signal.
To understand why a preamp is needed, just try to connect the guitar directly to the line input - in this case the sound will be very quiet.
In our case, any device with an active bypass, a guitar processor, or can serve as a preamplifier.
Well, or, you can buy a special device - Direct Box, specifically designed to match the output impedance of the guitar and the line input.
A Direct Box or preamp is needed in order to obtain a higher quality signal at the sound card input, consistent in level and impedance.
In general, we turn on the guitar to the preamp or something that replaces it, and then we connect the output of the preamp to the line input of the sound card.
The procedure for turning on the line input in the mixer is done exactly the same as for the microphone input. Just in case, I took a couple of screenshots.
In general, if you turn everything on as described above, then the probability that you will hear the sound of your guitar in the speakers will be close to one. ;)
Now you can install a software guitar processor of your choice, be it: , Amplitube or , and play, play and play again...
Please note ():Acoustic guitars. Musical instrument store MusicSales.ru, Akademicheskaya metro station
Hello dear visitors! Today I want to tell you how and what to connect an electric guitar to. In this article I will share my knowledge about what options for connecting an electric guitar there are and consider each method in more detail.
As I already said in the article about, if you decide to play an electric guitar, then you will need to purchase equipment through which the electric guitar will actually sound. Many beginning guitarists here immediately have many questions: “What equipment do you need?”, “”. Such questions arose for me at the beginning of my journey. So let's figure out how to make an electric guitar sound. To hear the sound of an electric guitar, it must be connected to a sound reproduction system. To connect an electric guitar, you can use the following methods: connecting to a guitar amplifier, connecting in line, and connecting to a computer or DVD player. Let's look at each method in more detail:
Connecting an electric guitar to a guitar amplifier
A guitar amplifier is a device that consists of preamplifier, timbre unit, sound processing unit, effects unit, power amplifier and control panel, which can be mounted in one housing - these are the so-called combo amplifiers, or in separate housings. Connecting through a guitar amplifier is the most common type of connection. Almost all guitarists who play the electric guitar have a guitar amplifier at home, and sometimes even several. Read more about what an amplifier is, what they are and which one is better to choose. Also, to play the electric guitar, you will need an effects pedal or guitar processor - these are special devices that distort and give the sound certain effects. Many amplifiers come with built-in effects, but their sound quality leaves much to be desired. Some amplifiers do not have built-in effects and therefore, without the use of effects pedals (guitar processors), an electric guitar will sound clean like an acoustic guitar, and when using various effects you give the sound that same rock sound that you hear in different directions. Read more about what effects there are and which one you should choose. There are two most common options for connecting an electric guitar to an amplifier:
1. Connecting the guitar directly to the amplifier.
As you know, in this version the electric guitar is connected directly to the amplifier, from which we hear the sound of your guitar. This option is suitable if the amplifiers have some kind of built-in effect that will give your guitar a rock sound, or if you just want to play acoustic melodies. Everything is quite simple here: we connect one end of the cable to the electric guitar, connect the other end to the amplifier, turn on the amplifier and play, if necessary, using the controls that are on the front panel of the amplifier, we adjust the sound.
2. Connecting a guitar to an amplifier via an effects pedal (guitar processors).
In this embodiment, we see that the electric guitar is first connected to the effects pedal, and then only to the amplifier. Here we use an effects pedal (guitar processor), thanks to which we add various effects to the sound of the guitar. With this option, for example, it will be very convenient for you to switch from acoustic mode to the mode of some guitar effect; to do this, you just need to press the pedal (processor) with your foot.
Connecting an electric guitar to the line
The so-called connecting an electric guitar in line is connecting an electric guitar to an acoustic system through special devices. Typically this special device is . The connection diagram is as follows: first, the electric guitar is connected to an effects pedal (guitar processor), then the effects pedal (guitar processor) is connected to the mixing console, and finally, from the mixing console, the signal is sent to the speaker system through which we hear the sound of the electric guitar.
The sound of an electric guitar with this connection is significantly different from the sound through an amplifier. With this connection, the signal passes through the sound amplification path, which was initially designed to work only with a broadband signal. The sound with such a connection loses all its characteristic coloring and richness, even if you speaker system You will be using a high quality 3-way system.
This method is less common. This method is mainly used for playing at rehearsals in a musical group, since several guitars can be connected to the mixing console and they will all sound through one speaker system.
Connecting to a DVD player or computer
Connecting an electric guitar to a DVD player or computer is a fairly common connection case among beginners. So how do you connect an electric guitar to a DVD player or computer? Here you can choose two methods:
First way . The so-called direct connection. The connection diagram is as follows: an electric guitar is connected to an effects pedal (guitar processor) and then directly to a computer or DVD player.
Second way . Connection via a mixing console to the line input of a DVD player or computer.
This method is mainly used at home. When you don't have an amplifier, you can always play through your computer or DVD player. The sound quality, compared to playing through an amplifier, will of course be worse and, just like with the previous connection method, it will lose color and saturation.
This is where I will conclude this article. I think you understand that the most best way connecting an electric guitar is connecting through a guitar amplifier. Only when connected through an amplifier will you get high-quality sound.
Share the article with your friends, leave comments, ask questions. I will also be very grateful to you if you click “like” and other social buttons. networks located below the article.
Many beginning musicians, having played the allotted time on an acoustic guitar, switch to electric guitar.
And if life has not given them a rich dad, they are faced with one small problem. An electric guitar without a bunch of expensive and not very equipment is not an electric guitar at all, but a silent instrument. You have to buy a lot, recording in a studio is expensive, and fans of garage music usually don’t have much money. However, there is a way out, and we will now tell you how to connect an electric guitar to a computer. You can get any result immediately and for free. In addition, your digitized song will allow you to mock it with the help of various software - add a rhythm section and even the effect of having a tube preamp.
How to connect an electric guitar to a computer?
Yes, very simple! The cord has two ends - one into the guitar, the other into the jack-minijack adapter. And the adapter goes to the blue input. Some will say that it can work from the pink microphone input, but no. The blue input level is much higher than the pink (microphone) input. I won’t go into details, but most likely this is due to the difference in frequency and different sound sources. In our case it is an electric guitar.
We've kind of figured out how to connect an electric guitar to a computer, now it's time for the software part. Theoretically, the guitar can already sound from the speakers. Windows has its own - there volume levels are set for everything, it may happen that exactly where the guitar is plugged in is turned off, or the settings are at a minimum. Then, accordingly, the guitar will not sound on the computer. By the way, advice on volume. If you want clear sound, turn it up louder; if you want to emulate the work of a processor, turn it down. This rule is due to the fact that almost every effect has Gain (amplification).
The volume level should be set so that the slider limits the sound level, preventing it from entering the red zone. Also, for comfortable work, you will need ASIO4ALL drivers - they weigh very little and can easily be downloaded from the official website. Don't be afraid of some scary settings - everything is simple here. In addition, when you figure out how to connect an electric guitar to a computer, a prize will be waiting for you - the opportunity to play using software from the world's leading brands with a bunch of presets and all sorts of useful and pleasant little things. However, I’ll make a reservation: if you have a built-in audio card, it will not work well. Don't be upset - there will be no sound distortion, but there will be a fairly long delay due to signal processing by the card itself.
This, of course, is not fatal, you just have to play from memory what you don’t hear yet. However, it is better to go to the store and choose a good sound card. This is the only serious waste.
By the way, don’t look in the store with hungry eyes at ultra-expensive devices with ultra-pro-high-super prefixes, you don’t need them yet. A card for 10-30 bucks may also be quite suitable. Well, if you are already the happy owner of a good sound card, then go ahead - Guitar RIG!
At your service is Dynamic Tube Response tube sound emulation technology with saved presets of a bunch of excellent tube amplifiers, a built-in tuner, effects and many professional tools.
As you can see, connecting an electric guitar to a computer is quite simple. Good luck in your creativity!
