1 reply to this topic

[Sentry]

Hiya,

Been gone from the site for a couple years, been busy and I'm now primarily a bass player. The gf still plays guitar, though, and in fact we've written a few songs and want to record them with Garageband. Towards that end, I went to an Apple seminar at my local Guitar Center and learned that plugging straight into the audio line-in jack built into the computer isn't good enough. The end quality isn't as good as it could be, and the line-in has a built-in preamp on it that A.) isn't very good and B.) is a bad idea when you want to record from an amp instead of plugging the guitar straight into the computer, because then the signal is being amped twice (and the gf wants the sound of her Marshall amp, not the simulated amps in Garageband). Also, when we're using an iMIc + both channels of the line-in we get some latency as the computer tries to handle analog to digital conversion of three different signals while running Garageband and the OS itself all at the same time.

So...... what we need is a Mac-compatible USB or FireWire Audio Interface, that has both line-level and mic-level inputs, performs the analog to digital conversion, and keeps all tracks separate for mixing in Garageband. We need at least 3 inputs; mic, line-out from guitar amp, and line-out from bass amp. And, as you might have guessed from the mention of latency caused by a slower computer, budget is an issue. Hopefully not more than $100 USD. Any suggestions?

[carol m]

These short sort out your options:

Home Recording Soundcard Wizard

All Audio Interfaces - reviews

I have a Tascam usb interface and it works fine - I think any souncard/interface would do, you just have to work out whether you want USB or not, how many inputs you will need, and cost (of course). Plus a few details you will be able to choose once you've done a bit of research.