Yesterday I purchased an amplifier. This is not the sad bit. The amp is a perfectly innocuous amp like you would find in an antiquated, cheap, 80's stereo made in asia somewhere. So far so good.
However, the reason I bought it was it had a 1/4 in headphones jack and a 1/4 in mic jack. You see, I've had 2 problems in my musical life for a while. Firstly, whenever I try to record things, the signal is too weak, and the overall sound quality of the recording is good, but so quiet you have to turn it up massively in order to hear anything. When you turn it up, you also turn up the minor extra noise (hiss, etc.) and the damn thing sounds horrible. Secondly, I've wanted to practice my bass with headphones on instead of through my bass gear (which is awesome, but loud).
Fabulously, the two problems have been fixed by the new amp. If I plug the bass into the mic jack, and the headphones into the head phones jack (and turn the amp on, etc.) I can hear what I'm playing on the bass. And not just any old hear either. Nope, my bass now sounds like it is from an 80's pop band.
If I plug my mic into the mic jack, and the line out into my laptop, I can record things (like band practice) with a bearable audio quality. If I plug my bass into the mic jack, my headphones into the headphones jack, and the amp's line out into the laptop, I can record a bass line.
Also, if I plug the laptop into the aux in, I can play recorded songs through the amp. Sadly, I can't do that at the same time as recording a bass line.
So now I plug the bass into the mic jack, the line out into the laptop and run cables from the two headphone jacks into my headphones. That way I can play a recorded song on the laptop, hear myself playing along with it, and record the new bass line all at the same time. And all for just $80.
I just look a little mad when I do it.
Posted by carla at February 10, 2008 08:16 PM