KVR Audio

spacedad · Post by **spacedad** » Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:20 am

my friend's trying to plug his semi-acoustic guitar into the mic in on his laptop and he says it made a very loud nasty sound.

i've not done this myself,i'm not even sure what type it is exactly,
but it has a simple eq control and uses a 9v battery,so i gues it's a pickup+pre-amp.
which maybe would be better through the line-in?
except he don't have a line in.
he doesn't have a mixer either,so what could he use that was cheap?

PinothyJ · Post by **PinothyJ** » Tue Mar 20, 2007 12:10 pm

if you ever want to make a semi-acoustic sound good, NEVER record the jack. ALWAYS record it as you would record a normal acoustic guitar. What is the use of relying on a cheapish little microphone things inside the guitar when you can capture the real essence of the playing yourself. I know this doesn't asnwer you question, but only use the jack for playing live.

it sounds so dull and boring recorded that way…

spacedad · Post by **spacedad** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 9:45 am

PinothyJ wrote:if you ever want to make a semi-acoustic sound good, NEVER record the jack. ALWAYS record it as you would record a normal acoustic guitar. What is the use of relying on a cheapish little microphone things inside the guitar when you can capture the real essence of the playing yourself. I know this doesn't asnwer you question, but only use the jack for playing live.

it sounds so dull and boring recorded that way…

i've just realised the technical term for it is 'electro-acoustic',.if that makes any difference.

and i'd still like to know how to do it,anyone?

spacedad · Post by **spacedad** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 10:02 am

just saw a tip;use a DI box,maybe like this one?
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/NEW-DI-D-i-Box-Di ... dZViewItem
£14 's nice and cheap.
i've not got a laptop,but iknow you can't put a proper soundcard in them and an external soundcard might be a bit pricey.

GaryG · Post by **GaryG** » Wed Mar 21, 2007 2:21 pm

You could try the DI box but I'm a little sceptical of the quality of laptop microphone ports to be honest (generally sound noisy and flat in my experience). The loud nasty sound is almost definitely the pre-amp of the guitar overloading the mic in.

I think the fundamental problem is that your mates lappy only has a mic in; he's really going to need some kind of better audio interface to get a half decent sound.

Behringer do a simple USB one for ~£25 (with ASIO drivers I believe) though I think that only has line inputs so you'd have to check the guitar is kicking out line levels.

Obviously loads of options upwards of that price point...

Going the other way, I've seen dirt cheap interfaces on ebay that give your laptop surround sound outs in a device about the same size as a flash drive... maybe they have inputs too that would do for now...?

edit: scrap that suggestion, just had a look at one... no better than a laptops builtin card for sure.

.g

spacedad · Post by **spacedad** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 10:25 am

thanks garyg,that was helpful.it seems like a usb interface for that price is gonna be the best thing.i'll tell him to look around.

cheers.

GaryG · Post by **GaryG** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 10:24 pm

this is the one i meant: Behringer UCA202 http://www.dv247.com/invt/32730/

Though I see they also do their own 'stealth plug' for £39 too: GUITAR LINK UCG102 http://www.dv247.com/invt/38128/

spacedad · Post by **spacedad** » Sat Mar 24, 2007 10:46 pm

thanks gary,very good of you to source that for me,i'll pass it on.

semi-acoustic to mic in