Acoustic/Electric Guitar and Feedback

I've been trying to get some useable recordings from my Taylor 414CE and I can't get it to work...
I plug straight into my MBPro via a 1/8" plug adapter but get a TON of feedback if I try and monitor off the MBPro's speakers. Is this because it is an acoustic/electric? I can turn the monitor off and record, but the quality still sounds really bad. Any suggestions?
Or do I really need some sort of USB/Midi interface like M-Audio's Fast Track or Black Box? I'm a total recording newbie, so I apologize if this particular horse has already been beaten to death.
Thanks.

plug in some headphones and monitor that way. Acoustic guitars feedback very easily. I think you are probably just too close to the speakers with your guitar. If you really don't like headphones, try facing away from the computer and maybe get a longer instrument cable so you can get a bit further away. You can always chop off the extra bits after you record if you aren't right there to hit stop.

Similar Messages

How to connect an acoustic electric guitar to macbook pro

whats to best way to use an acoustic electric guitar with garage band without a buying additional gear, macbook pro. thanks

"whats to best way to use an acoustic electric guitar with garage band without a buying additional gear"
I record acoustic/electric guitars & vocals to my MacBook Pro (Logic Pro 9) with exteremly good results........ BUT my advice would be, don't spoil a good job for a little expense!
I use a USB audio interface (see link below) that provides facilities for connecting any sort of audio signal and monitor facilities for overdubbing multitracks etc.
There are many such units available, but I would thoroughly recommend the one below.
Good luck...........happy recording!!
http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.php?ProductId=970

Acoustic-electric guitar: is line-in or usb cord better?

I want the best (reasonably priced) way to hook up an acoustic-electric guitar. Is it better to use 1/4" to 1/8" cord and plug into mic port. Or buy USB guitar cord and plug into USB port? Or it better to mic with a (cheap) USB mic?

Most acoustic-electrics have a built-in pre-amp, so the easiest and cheapest way would be to plug it into the line-in port and see if it gives you enough level.
Mind that a "USB guitar chord" is always an analog-to-digital interface - it has a processor, needs a driver etc. For more information:
http://www.bulletsandbones.com/GB/FAQPages/PlugInGuitar.html

Question about interface for recording electric guitar and vocals

Ok, I've been messing around with Garageband all day, totally stoked and I'm ready to get into it. Right now I'm using a First Act quarter inch plug to USB cord to hook up my guitar and start recording and after some messing around I got it to work.
Here's my question... to really make quality recordings, what's the best way to hook up the guitar? Is the way I'm doing it now fine with the USB cord or is some sort of interface better? Can someone recommend one that's on the cheap side? Also, I haven't tried yet, but what's the best way to record vocals? Should I invest in a USB mic? Can anyone recommend one? I have a Shure SM58 already, what's the best way to hook that up?
Really excited about this, can't wait to start cranking out some songs!
PS: When I use the USB cord, I don't see any way to control the recording level, and sometimes I get a Feedback control warning. How can I lower the level so I don't get that? Thanks!
Message was edited by: xSlamx

I have a total now of 4 interfaces - I recently purchased a FOCUSRITE SAPPHIRE 6 USB - it's amazing quality and I only paid $149 for it at my local Guitar Center. I use it with my Guitar and everything sounds fantastic - they say the preamps are really high-quality for Mics too... I recommend it. I have a firewire interface too but the Sapphire is my man baby now - don't let the USB 1.1 fool you - it works flawlessly with my Mac and my Windows 7 machine too. It also comes with a selection of software including Ableton Live Lite and 4 really nice Focusrite plug-ins too.

Electric guitars and macbook pros

Is it possible to hook up an electric guitar to a MacBook Pro? And if so, what cords would be required?

Upgrade to 10.6.7. Most likely they are running afoul of a bug where the Mac can KP if certain MCS rates are turned off.

A good channel-strip for acoustic-electric guitar?

I'm trying to record a Martin 00CXAE, going directly from the guitars built in pick-up to an Apogee Duet. Since I'm a song writer and know very little about engineering I usually just rely on the default channel-strips, usually it works out great but I just got this new Martin which sounds amazing through an amp or PA but through logic sounds very tinny and the piezo-y twang is really exaggerated. Does anyone know if there's a place I can download a channel strip engineered for direct recording of this type guitar? Or does someone have some tricks they can share?
Thanks in advance for any responses.

With such a good guitar, you really should think about investing in a good microphone and recording the sound that way.
It's very rare indeed for recording engineers to use the built-in piezo pickup of an acoustic in the studio, unless that close-up treble 'twang' is something you're especially after. THese days there are tons of good quality choices for small or large diaphragm condensers in the sub $500 bracket.
You'll also gain a ton of tonal flexibility just by factoring in mic placement and the room, two things that don't come into play with your piezo.
If you're fine with sticking with the built in pickup sound, then I would avoid using Logic's built in channel strip presets. Most of them, if not all, feature extreme compression and eq settings, IMHO.
Record your guitar, add a channel EQ, and start with a 'high-pass' to filter out rumble below 70 or 80hz, then maybe hunt around for some of the 'boxy' frequencies in the 500-1000 range and dip those a few db. Then what you do with the treble is up to you. Boost some 'air' around 12k, or add a gentle rolloff shelf after 8k to knock down some of the clacky pickup tone.
You also might want to look at some better eq plugs like those from URS, Sonnox, or Waves which can help beef up the sound in pleasant yet subtle ways...
Good luck. And get a mic whether you think you need it or not. It'll come in handy someday.

About Electric Guitar and SB-Audigy 2

hi i plug my E Guitar to line in and use EAX advance hd for guitar effect and i just have 2 Effect any on can help me to find a collection of effect ?
i create a effect and save in in custom and can axport it on audioHQ and Export it into a file and import it again if you want so can any one help me to find more effect for my e Guitar ? i export a one file and the ex of file is :
Super Metal .Aup plz help me and other's need more effect's babye .

mojtaba wrote:
hi i plug my E Guitar to line in and use EAX advance hd for guitar effect and i just have 2 Effect any on can help me to find a collection of effect ?
i create a effect and save in in custom and can axport it on audioHQ and Export it into a file and import it again if you want so can any one help me to find more effect for my e Guitar ? i export a one file and the ex of file is :
Super Metal .Aup plz help me and other's need more effect's babye .
I think you'll find the best effects for quitar from KVR (unfortunately (for you) those are VST/DX effects and not settings for EAX like you're asking).
jutapa

Electric guitar and monster istudiolink

the sound comes out of the monitor a little bit after I hit the strings.. why does this happen? thanks

it's called latency, and there's always a little in digital recording. in GB's prefs you can set for "minimal delay", also adding effects while recording can add to latency.

Is it possible to use a cable with two headphone jacks on either end and an electric guitar adapter to record in Garageband?

Hey everyone,
I got my Macbook Air (Mid 2013 model) last month and I want to record my acoustic-electric guitar on Garageband (which came with the Air).
I don't want to buy a guitar that has a USB. I have a cable with a 3.5 mm headphone jack on both ends like the one pictured here on this website http://www.bestdealaz.com/item.php?id=628 (i didn't buy it from this site though).
I connected a 6.3 mm guitar adapter (http://www.ebay.com/bhp/headphone-guitar-adapter) to this cable. Then I connected one end of the cable to my guitar and the other end to the Headphone/Microphone jack on the left side of the MBA.
I saw how other people were saying to go to System Preferences / Sound and then change audio output to audio input.
I can't do that. I tried.
Please help!
Thank you.

Hello Massimo Pascucci,
The issue that you are facing when creating an endpoint with internal loadbalancer is the limitation of not allowing same ports to be listening under a single cloud service. This reason for this is that there is a limitation of only one private IP (Also
known as the Internal load balanced IP) per cloud service.
There is also a limitation on the Internal load balancer more than one port to be published per load balancer:
You can leave your feedback by following the link below:
https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/1805c5a0-3906-4cd6-8561-9802d77e0ae5/is-it-possible-to-use-both-an-ilb-and-an-elb-listening-on-the-same-port-in-the-same-azure-cloud?forum=WAVirtualMachinesVirtualNetwork
Refer to this article for more information on Internal load balancer:
http://azure.microsoft.com/blog/2014/05/20/internal-load-balancing/
Thanks,
Syed Irfan Hussain

Fender acoustic electric and line in

i have a fender dg11e acoustic electric guitar with built in pickup. i'm looking to connect this guitar to my macs line in. When i plug straight in i get no sound though. I read some of the other forums and understand a mic may have better sound but i'd still like to get this to work. I checked the guitr and don't see a place to put a battery so i don't think the pickup needs one. do i need a preamp or something else? thanks

If the guitar doesn't have "active pickups" (doesn't take a battery):
http://www.thehangtime.com/gb/gbfaq2.html#pluginguitar
also read:
http://www.thehangtime.com/gb/gbfaq2.html#recordlinein

I want to record my guitar and voice

First post!
So I've got an acoustic-electric guitar that I've been recording in GarageBand 3 on my MacBook Pro. I record by plugging my guitar into into the audio in line using a 1/4" to 1/8" adapter.
Basically, I want to be able to record both my guitar and my voice at the same time. I already have a Memorex MKA301.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000AHSAM/ref=sr111/103-7498225-6408650?%5Fencoding=UTF8
I know that this microphone is kinda cheap so I may want to get a new one of those too.
I'm looking for some info as to what my options are and what everybody would recommend.
I'm aware that there is the M-Audio FastTrack Recording Interface for $99.95 but it seems that it got several bad reviews on the Apple Store.
Then there is also the M-Audio FireWire 410 Audio/MIDI Interface for $399.95 (but I can find it for around $250). I was kinda leaning towards this one, but wanted too hear some opinions first.
Could anyone out there give me some advice on what I should use. All I really need is something that is reasonably priced and will record well. I may want to add other instrument tracks later so that's why I was thinking about the 410.
Any information you could provide me with or any link to helpful sites or products would be greatly appreciated.
(Note: I just became a Mac person about 1 month ago, so I'm still learning)
15" MacBook Pro Mac OS X (10.4.6) 2 GHz Intel Core Duo, 1 GB SDRAM

I had a fast tracks usb and it worked great and at $99 it is well worth it. But if you plan on recording vocal and guitar you will need a XLR plug on your mic because it only has two inputs 1/4 and XLR.
Also you don't need a multichannel interface to record multiple tracks, only multiple tracks at the same time.
If your doing all the instruments yourself the fast track or fast track pro may be a good idea for now and then when you need it upgrade to a more expensive firewire interface.
And make sure whatever you get will work with your intel mac.
I just read some of the negative comments about the fast track usb. I don't think some of these people know what there doing. Comments like it only records on the left channel shows user error.

Severe static when trying to record electric guitar

I've been trying to record a clean electric guitar and every recording is just covered in heavy hissing static sound. This didn't happen when I recorded an acoustic guitar through a microphone. I have an electric guitar going into a small amp, with the amp level set on the clean channel at a very low setting, then the headphone/output is running directly into my M-Audio FastTrack USB interface, which is connected to the computer. I have adjusted the "recording level" in garage band so that the signal never gets close to the red in the individual instrument track. The "output" knob on the FastTrack is set relatively low also, about "4" out of 10. When I play back the recorded track, the master level meter never goes into the red either. Yet no matter what volume I record at I'm getting this strong crackling/hissing as if it was extremely overdriven.
Related question: When I play on the electric guitar, is it supposed to show an indication in the LCD box, as it does when I'm playing on my midi controller? It doesn't have the little indicator light showing signal, nor does the master level indicator, when I'm recording. Only the individual track level indicator shows the signal coming in. Maybe this is normal...
Any help is greatly appreciated.

OK, well I solved my own problem through trial and error. Rant: I switched to GB from ProTools on the theory that GB was supposed to "just work" and I want to be a musician, not an audio engineer. Here is how I fixed the static: one of my garage band books told me I could set the Garage Band audio preferences to "System" default, and then set my computer's audio preferences to my audio interface for the ins and outs, because I wanted to play all of computer's audio, whether in garageband or not, through my reference studio monitors. Well doing it this way results in massive static when recording a real instrument, for no apparent reason. So to fix this, you have to set Garageband's own audio in/out settings to your audio interface, NOT to the system settings. This caused the static in my recordings to completely disappear. Go figure.

How can i get the best sound from my electric guitar?

Hello,
I'm new to the Apple forums. I have come seeking some knowledge about how I can make my guitar sound really good like a metal/rock sound while at the same time not sounding unnaturally distorted but clean.
I have a Macbook Air with a Griffin iMic. I have tried some of built in presets for metal/rock but they are either too noisy (background hiss) or they arn't rock like enough. I like the metal ones but they have too much hiss and it ruins my recordings (sounds like a jumbled mess in the end...)
I'm not only new to the forums, but i'm also new to electric guitar and peddles. I'm certainly not new to guitar itself though, been playing for 7 years. What I really seek is what kind of settings I can have like a combination of the best amp model + pedals along with settings or effects to apply to it.
Thanks in advance, I hope i provided enough info.
Kris

Linkandzelda wrote:
I have a 1/8 to 1/4 adapter which i plug directly into the iMic. So theres no preamp involved, yet.
You can by pass the iMic by using the same adaptor and plugging straight into the Line in on your mac. Try it and see if there is a difference in your sound.
Regarding settings, I was able to develop one which has minimal noise levels but also some distortion. I will defiantly experiment more...
Yeah, the key is to start with as clean a sound as possible and then add in little bits. Start adding with a Chorus effect first, then maybe a slight delay. Try all of your setting with both strumming and picking, both fast and slow, as you often have to match your playing technique with how the effects are set up. Then add Fuzz/Distortion etc. Once you have done that then reverse the set up sequence by starting with the major signal modifiers like Distortion etc and add the chorus, flanger, phasers after. These sorts of strategies can change the way things sound. Don't forget a bit of reverb.
The key is to start simple with mild alterations. Also, find a few guitar sounds you like from your favorite songs where you can hear good clear guitar sounds. Maybe create a playlist in iTunes and use these as a reference to compare between what you like and what you are creating. This A-B'ing will go along way to helping you develop your 'taste'. Its great to hear things side by side.
Goggle each of the guitar effects and learn what they do, make a few simple notes as a reference. Basically educate yourself.
and invest in a M-Audio Fast track 2 as i suspect the griffin is causing the noise.
Personally I would recommend something a bit better than the M-Audio Fast Track USB. The quality of your recorded sound is dependent on the sound converters in your external devices. I am not sure there is any advantage over your built in sound card verses the Fast Track. There are other things to consider with sound cards so it pays to do some planning and research.

What do I need to connect my electric guitar to my iMac?

I've searched and searched, and I can't find a 'clear cut' answer.
I have a new 3.2Ghz iMac and use Garageband 08 and plan on purchasing iLife 09.
I just bought a beginner electric guitar and amp (the amp only has line in and headphone jack).
How do I connect my guitar to the iMac? I have heard that using the mini plug into the 'line in' on the back of the iMac isn't ideal. So what do I need to get? My local Sam Ash musicstore doesn't have helpful people, so I need you all to tell me what to buy?
Oh yeah.. I don't have much money, so I just need to be able to play my guitar using Garageband and all its effects.
Thanks!

I read that it does not boost the sound properly.
The job of that line-in port is not to boost the level, but to convert an analog signal to a digital one, and it does that in a decent manner.
And I've also read that the audio-in on the iMac can cause delays in the sound you hear, along with other strange behavior.
GB always has problems with latency (that's the term for it), and that might indeed be worse when you use the line-in since the computer has to do the conversion and run GB. But the bulk of the CPU load is in GB, especially when you put a lot of effects on the guitar, so don't hope for too much difference when you use an expensive interface.
I can try the headphone out to the audio-in on the back of the iMac, but I guess I'm worried, as I have also read (on here), that you could blow your port if you aren't careful.
You can blow your computer if you use a speaker out, headphones should be fine. Crank them up slowly and watch the signal.

Electric Guitar for Recording

Hi,
I'm using Logic Express Actually.
I'm using very cheap guitar for Recording...that's EG112 yamaha electric guitar and RBX170 with me and my recording!!:D
Erm...is it really important to get a high range Guitar for recording??like Taylor,Fender,Ibanez,Martin,Gibson and so on??
What about the lower range of Fender-Squire??Ibanez Gio??and something like Samick Fastback or Cobra??and oso china made guitar??
any expert can really give me a hand and idea on it before i make a investment??
Thanks
Ray

If the rest of the guitar is nice, and only the sound is the problem, perhaps the pickups aren't matched to the body (many inexpensive guitar manufacturers use "stock" pickups which are one size fits all). If anything, I have modified almost all of my guitars (mostly older Ibanez models), fitting in pickups that I felt matched the guitar (part research and part dumb luck - fortunately, my choices seemed to have brought out the best of those guitars).
As for recommending a pick-up, it really depends on what you want to bring out of the guitar. You don't just want to stick a pick-up in and hope for the best. Just remember that you lose high-end as you increase your pick-up output. On certain guitars, this would render it to nothing more than a 6-string baseball bat. Keep in mind the body material, shape and size when choosing a pickup. Everything plays a part in your sound.
jord

Acoustic/Electric Guitar and Feedback

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