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How to connect my bass to my PC

M

Matthew1976

Jan 13, 2014
1
0
Basingstoke
#1
HI

I'm hoping to have some advice on getting back to bass playing. I've been out of the loop for 10 years and things have probably moved on.

I'd like to play along to my favorite MP3s while recording my bass straight into my PC. Ideally I'll need to be able to hear what I'm playing without any latency. After getting audio sorted, I'll probably want to record video via my hi-def webcam.

I'm pretty confident that my Turtle Beach headphones as they have a surprisingly good bass response.

My understanding is that I could use a box that I would plug my Warwick 5string into. That then plugs into my desktop PC which is running Windows 7. I have firewire and USB 2 available but not USB 3.0.

I've seen several posts about this but the recommended products are mainly discontinued or way too expensive.

Any advice on the hardware and even the software will be greatly appreciated.
 
#4
mrbell321 said:
There's a decent chance that just a simple 1/4" to 1/8" adapter and plugging in the bass directly to the line-in on your soundcard could work just fine...
Click to expand...

LOL. Yes you can. but it requires software and lots of tweaking on PC.

OP,Recording on PC can be done. My guitarist does it. Spends every second of his spare time doing it. It is a bit of a pain, as I stated but if your willing to see it thorough then you should be good. The hardware your thinking of (usb audio interface) can be had for cheaper if you hit the used market. I'm told there are good ones out there at relatively low prices. My guitarist and myself have always just plugged direct in with a adapter like Mrbell stated. to help get it working and help with latency we've used ASIO4ALL. it's more or less a audio driver. Its not perfect but it works. For software I'd say start with Audacity or Reaper and branch out from there for recording. There are amp simulators out there, I use Amplitube, but they can get expensive.
 
#5
It's not really that much tweaking... and certainly no more than an extra interface that needs to be set up.
There's only latency if you're processing and using active monitoring. Many soundcards can directly feed out the input so that you can hear it w/o latency. Altho some can't and those are the reason I said "a decent chance" rather than "all soundcards can do it!"
 
#6
mrbell321 said:
It's not really that much tweaking... and certainly no more than an extra interface that needs to be set up.
There's only latency if you're processing and using active monitoring. Many soundcards can directly feed out the input so that you can hear it w/o latency. Altho some can't and those are the reason I said "a decent chance" rather than "all soundcards can do it!"
Click to expand...

You are correct. My problem has always been from lack of proper hardware support. I've always been on a budget so my gear has been kept at a minimum. with an interface the whole thing works a whole lot smoother. For the price of a sound card that can properly do all this I'd rather get a usb interface.

So I guess my recommendation to the OP is life will be made a lot easier if you get a usb or firewire interface. I know life would have been a lot easier. But my wife bought me a Mac a few months ago and that works perfectly w/o any additional hardware. so I'm happy with that.
 
#9
Invalid Link Removed $20

Hosa_Technology_USQ_110_TRACKLINK_GUITAR_1_4_to_USBA_847374.jpg
 

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