Home Silent Practice Rig HELP

The Bass Buddy is a nice piece of gear and is priced like it, great stuff if you can afford it. (I have no experience with one)

I personally wouldn't recommend the Vox "AmPlug" headphone amps, but some people here love them. I own one, and think it's noisy (hissy), very limited, and doesn't sound so great.

There are some multi-effect units that come with a dedicated headphone jack. (Zoom B1on and Korg Pandora are two I'm aware of). Most modern small practice amps come with a headphone jack and an "aux" (auxilary) input so you can plug in a music source to jam along to. Fender Rumbles, small Ampegs, and Acoustic practice amps all have this feature.

Lastly, you could use a small mixer ($50 - 80), and a "bass amp simulator" pedal like a SansAmp or Behringer BDI-21, plug that into the mixer and use the mixer's headphone output.

Remember that headphones are made for 'full range' response and have more treble than a bass cab...so be ready to dial back the treble when you're listening over headphones.

 

I would look at getting a DSM Omnicab Sim it has headphone , aux input and simulates the frequency response of a speaker cabninet which really helps with lots of overdrive / distortion.

 

Zoom B1on is great and cheap. I wouldn’t use it on a gig. But for practice it’s perfect.

I haven’t tried the other suggestions, which I’m sure are also great.

 

I got one of these and honestly that's basically all I've used it for, which is a bit silly for the price. Most headphone amps sound a bit cheap and too raw but the cab sim on this sounds great.

 

I would do, and have done this. You can plug a phone or computer into one channel and play to youtube, band practice recording or whatever. You can also plug in a guitarist, for example, if you have a visiting player or band member. Good for recording song demo ideas as well.
-Also it's a good idea to get used to basic mixer function if you are a musician.

 

I do this at home as well.

I went a bit more expensive with a Presonus Studiolive AR8. At some point I will use it for some quick and dirty recordings though. But it not only uses a 1/4" or 1/8" cable to get from a computer, but it can also do USB from a computer or even Bluetooth from your phone! It's a pretty cool piece of kit. I have really enjoyed it so far. It's a great practice rig.

On the cheap, look into Kz ZS6 earbuds. Get the upgraded cable and some Comply tips. I have around $70 or so dollars in the whole setup and they sound amazing for the money.

I also used the mixer in rehearsal the other night. They brought a simple PA in a box that only had two channels on the back of a speaker. We needed more channels so I did a vocals sub mix with my AR8 and used the mains out into the speaker. It worked like a champ.

By the way, Welcome to TalkBass!!!

 

I'd get a GK MB200. It has aux in and headphones out for practice and you can connect it to a cab for small gig volume.

 

I use the Ampeg SCR-DI for silent practice. Headphone out, Aux in, nice piece of gear IMO.

 

I simply run a cord from my iMac with iTunes, to my GK MB115. I then plug in my bass and a set of headphones and play silently as long as I want to. This setup works great. Most amps should have this feature. You can do this with a small practice amp as well. Good luck.

 

This isn't made anymore, but I use a TASCAM BT-1 bass trainer, you can still find them used. It's an MP3 player with tempo and pitch controls, looping, metronome, tuner, song lists, folders, effects, and filtering (recorded bass removal or enhancement) that I find useful for practice. It takes a 1/4 inch input and has mini stereo output for headphones. It's not perfect and old tech, but I'm used to its foibles. The new model is the TASCAM GB-10 for both guitar and bass (meaning it's for guitar).

 

My Ampeg Micro CL has a built in headphone input but I’ve been using my OmniCabSim Deluxe- it’s PRIMO

 

I used to plug in my headphones in the preamp and practice lol
use low impedance headphones, adjust the jack a bit and it becomes mono

 

I use a Focusrite Solo with Mark Studio 2. It works for me, I can take it anywhere (small footprint) and I use whatever headphones I'm able to get my hands on. Since it's for late/silent practice, the sound quality doesn't bother me much, I don't need studio quality for practice.

 

another option is getting those cheap smart phone interfaces for line in's and then plugging the headphones in the phone

 

I picked up a cheap iRig knockoff (?) on wish dot com, haven’t used it yet but seems legit, lots of amp sim / recording apps available..

 

I use a Cafe Walter with a pair of Sennheiser 50ohm cans. Couldn’t be happier with the sound. Awesome little rig.

 

I currently use a (discontinued) 3Leaf Enabler for my headphone duties, but the new TC Electronic SpectraDrive caught my eye and looks pretty fully featured, too.

You could also look into picking up a cheap audio interface for your computer, and use that for headphone practices.

 

Its way better than what i have used so must be legit for sure