Recording my semi acoustic guitar. please help

  • Thread starter Thread starter guneet narula
  • Start date Start date
G

guneet narula

New member
I have a semi acoustic guitar which i want to record on my home pc. I have a ESI maya44 sound card (24/192) with a 96khz input.

I have succesfully recorded pure acoustic music with my dynamic mic connected to the card. I use Sony soundforge as the software for recording.

But when i connect my guitar directly to any of the ports on card, nothing happens.. do i need a pre-amp here?

If you know about how this card works, or anything i am missing Please HELP!
I didn't know i was a newbie! :p
 
If your interface doesnt have built-in pre-amps you will in fact need one, but what bugs me is this, how have you been pre-amplifying the dynamic mic?
 
Exaclty!
And after doing all the research on pure acosutic recording.. it gives me excellent quality!
I believe this mic that i have (someone gave it to me as a return favour), it says "Lane LEM390 on its base, since it requires a 1.5v battery, it may have a pre-amp in it. But i am not sure. I just plugged it in and clicked the record button on soundforge.

I was hoping the same would work when i plugged in my guitar directly.
 
Im guessing, that your mic has high output and pre-amp is not entirely needed but the guitar may not have the same output, i would try a pre-amp and see what happens. BTW are you sure that your mic is a dynamic and not an electret?
 
I think its dynamic. but i have been doubting what i know about these things since yesterday! Its certainly not a condenser mic.. i never knew about electret though..

one more thing.. what can i use as a pre-amp? what if i connect my guitar to the amp i have and then take its line out to the card's line in .. would that suffice?
 
If your amp has line-level outputs yes you can do that, but if you simply take the output of the amp into the interface you may blow up your inputs, its just too much signal going on..., you can find cheap pre-amps on places like e-bay and music stores. Check the ART tube MP is one of the cheapest i know..., i was thinking that perhaps you may have a problem like impendance matching, did you ever tried a DI between the guitar and the interface?
 
The sound card that I am talking about accepts the same leads that we use to connect electric guitars and amps. Like the jacks at the end of the lead are big (like in electric guitar leads) and they fit into the ports of the sound card.
But i don't want to take any chances.. i'll find out the signal strengths of the amp's output what the sound card can take.

Thanks for the advice!!!
 
You are welcome, but listen the inputs you are talking about are called TRS (tip, ring, sleeve) TS if they are unballanced, and although they are the same as the electric guitar jacks, they have different impendances, etc... meaning they are not the same eventhough the connector is the same.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top