Practice Setup On Mac?

ogrossman · #1 11-24-2009, 01:53 PM

I'm trying to figure out how to bring my bass signal into the line input on my Macintosh (fairly recent model) and mix it with music from iTunes so I can listen to both combined on headphones. Does anyone have any ideas of how to do this?

Thanks

Calebmundy · #2 11-24-2009, 01:57 PM

Yeah s'easy. Just get a 1/4" to 1/8th" female-to-male adapter for a few bucks from Radio shack-make sure you get the mono version, not the stereo. Plug it into your mic in, plug some head phones into your headphone jack. Load up Garageband with a blank track (or one of the bass tracks) under "real instrument". Make sure the "monitor channel" is on (I prefer without "feedback control" or whatever they call it-it can mess with your bass track). Pull up itunes, and mix the volumes to were you like them.

I use this all the time, except I have a firewire interface that I run through.

ogrossman · #3 11-24-2009, 02:26 PM

Cablemundy,

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I think I did what you said but it still isn't working for me. I'm getting iTunes in the headphones but not the bass. I get a response on the Garage Band real instrument bar graphs and also on the system preferences input level bar graph but it isn't getting to the headphones

ogrossman · #4 11-24-2009, 02:27 PM

But I can record the bass

ogrossman · #5 11-24-2009, 02:32 PM

Okay, I just found the "Monitor: on" setting and all is good. Now I can practice with headphones

ryco · #6 11-24-2009, 04:02 PM

Hey Calebmundy!

Works GREAT! Always wondered how to do this!

Running straight into computer, no interface.
Only could find a stereo 1/8 plug adapter, which works fine - just to one mono track.

FUN!!

Calebmundy · #7 11-25-2009, 08:57 AM

Yeah right on guys-I lost my adapter, so now I have to use the interface-I never got around to picking up another one, but with a laptop, it's a really portable practice tool.

Jimmy3711 · #8 11-25-2009, 03:28 PM

Hey All,

I came across this post as I am in a similar situation. I have a new style aluminum uni-body Macbook Pro 13.3 inch. This has a built-in microphone above the keyboard. The only jack is for headphones. There are 2 USB ports, mini-div and another type of USB port. Any suggestions to plug in with this set up? I was thinking about using M-Audio Fast Track MKII (http://www.guitarcenter.com/M-Audio-...67-i1474272.gc). Will this work for the process mentioned in this post topic using GarageBand? Any other options or ideas? Thanks!

Jason Hollar · #9 11-25-2009, 03:35 PM

If you want to spend some money for recording -- I bought the Apogee Duet -- which is frickin amazing. They make a cheaper one called "One" I think.

Of course, the Mbox/audio stuff is just fine and comes with Pro Tools light.

Good luck!

ogrossman · #10 11-29-2009, 12:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calebmundy

...Load up Garageband with a blank track (or one of the bass tracks) under "real instrument". Make sure the "monitor channel" is on (I prefer without "feedback control" or whatever they call it-it can mess with your bass track). Pull up itunes, and mix the volumes to were you like them...

This worked fine except Garage Band doesn't play nice with my Bluetooth headphones.