Phones out from small amp to audio interface/DAW sounds bad — what's wrong?

[patrick298]

Line out from small amp phones' port to audio interface to DAW useless - what am I doing wrong?​

Rather than go out to my ‘shed studio’ when it gets cold, I decided to rig up a system to record electrified metal acoustic at my desk in the living room (using Garageband). Easy I thought.

I bought a cheap 10W Gear4Music guitar amp, simple - gain, volume, treble and bass - and attached one of the many pickups I have to plug into the amp from my guitar.

Plays well through the amp, but my plan to take the signal from the phones out port into my audio interface, then into my laptop isn’t working.

I’m thinking the signal out of the dedicated phones port is strong enough for phones, but not to input into an interface. Yes, I do get a signal but so quiet it is not worth bothering.

Is that right? Should I boost the phones output signal before sending it through to the interface? I’m puzzled because the same set up works fine with my Cube in my ‘studio’.

Any ideas? It would be sad if this star in the making would have to knock it all on the head without gaining any recognition at all. Sob.

 

[TalismanRich]

I think that a headphone output should be plenty strong enough to drive an interface.

My first suspicion would be the wiring. Does the headphone output of the amp need a TS or a TRS plug? How is it wired to go into your interface? Find the specs for both and make sure that you have a hot to hot and ground to ground arrangement. You could be shunting the output directly to ground thereby bleeding off all the signal.

 

[patrick298]

Thanks for that. I do know that 1/4 jacks come in two flavours, so that's what I shall check next. Cheers.

PS Is there any mileage in me boosting the phones output signal?

Just looked up TS v TRS (and I knew about the difference) and looked up images (screenshot). Seems the lead I was using from the phones port to the interface was TS. I do have two (newly bought) leads and they are TRS, so I'll try them tomorrow. Thanks again.

 

[patrick298]

PPS My guitar tutor told me a good joke re you're point in your signature about 'talented people called musicians' v DJs:

Two film buffs are walking down the road when

First buff: 'Do you fancy going to see the new Spielberg film?'

Second buff: 'Dunno, who's the projectionist?'

 

[ecc83]

Hi Patrick, the headphone output on the amp will almost certainly be a TRS jack (1/4" or 3.5mm?) and being a mono source, wired to both tip and ring, sleeve common.

Now, if you plug that into a TRS balanced AI input you will feed the same signal to a differential amplifier and get next to zilch!
Pretty sure you need a mono, TRS* to TS cable and plug into the jack on the interface (which is?) and select "Instrument input" an unbalanced input.

*But no connection to the ring.

Dave.