Firewire-only for guitar?

pabsthooligan · Sep 25, 2007

Howdy,

Well, I just went out and bought myself an iMac, in large part because of Garageband. Now I find that when I plug my guitar into the audio-in port using a 1/4-inch adaptor, I get nothing: no sound, no response. I used the same guitar and cables with my old Audacity recorded and it worked fine, so I'm left wondering whether FireWire is the only way to record guitar.

Is there something I'm missing? I went to the System Preferences menu and set it to "line-in" - still nothing. Yes, I checked to see that my guitar volume knobs were set to high.

What's up?

Village Idiot · Sep 25, 2007

pabsthooligan said:
Howdy,

Well, I just went out and bought myself an iMac, in large part because of Garageband. Now I find that when I plug my guitar into the audio-in port using a 1/4-inch adaptor, I get nothing: no sound, no response. I used the same guitar and cables with my old Audacity recorded and it worked fine, so I'm left wondering whether FireWire is the only way to record guitar.

Is there something I'm missing? I went to the System Preferences menu and set it to "line-in" - still nothing. Yes, I checked to see that my guitar volume knobs were set to high.

What's up?

Well, if it's an electric, it doesn't put out a signal, it needs an amplifier or some other power source if it doesn't have an active pickup

pabsthooligan · Sep 25, 2007

It's a Fender strat, so no... it doesn't have active pickups. However, it worked fine with Audacity, and I wasn't using any external power source.

TenderSurrender · Sep 25, 2007

Probably on your old PC you was using the Mic input which has its own built in preamp allowing the signal to be amplified enough so software can record it.

Simple soloution(s)

Run a cable from your amp into the mac (MAKING SURE its line out and not speaker out)

Buy a small Input interface (Toneport UX1 or UX2) and run your guitar into that.

That should help a bit

~~ TS ~~

pabsthooligan · Sep 26, 2007

Thanks for the advice. Before I shell out 100 bucks for the Toneport, though, I want to find out exactly what's wrong - I'm getting nothing, zero, zip, in terms of sound from the Fender, while a friend of mine with an iBook and Garageband was recording things fine directly from a cable from his own Fender (no active pickups).

So I'm suspicious.

goobimama · Sep 26, 2007

Well, also make sure Garageband is using the line-in as the input source. By default it is "internal microphone". Then you got to make a new track with "Real instrument" and then put the monitor to ON.

metalsam · Oct 1, 2007

Yeah, try what goobimama said. From the dock: System Pref > Sound

Aptmunich · Oct 1, 2007

pabsthooligan said:
Thanks for the advice. Before I shell out 100 bucks for the Toneport, though, I want to find out exactly what's wrong - I'm getting nothing, zero, zip, in terms of sound from the Fender, while a friend of mine with an iBook and Garageband was recording things fine directly from a cable from his own Fender (no active pickups).

So I'm suspicious.

That'd be quite a trick: The iBook didn't have a Mic or a line-in

Basically a line-in port expects a powered signal, a Mic-in port will accept unpowered signals as well.

You could just grab something like griffin's iMic (around $40) and use that, but the results will probably better with something like the toneport. I'd make sure that's it's compatible with Garageband though (need 44.1 Khz inputs afaik).

If you want to make sure it's not a software issue, give audacity a spin on your Mac:

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/mac

davidgallant · Oct 1, 2007

you can also put a mic up to your guitar, one that requires power or one that doesnt, and actually get a better, warmer sound. as long as your mic isn't junk.