How to record acoustic-electric guitar into laptop?

[worldsluckiestman]

Hi all,

Am buying my first acoustic-electric guitar. I mostly want to play it unplugged, but sometimes wish to record to my laptop to review/improve my "skills". I had been doing so before by using a computer mic, but the quality is very poor, that's why I'm moving onto an acoustic-electric in the first place.


So the guitar has this output jack near the bottom that usually jacks into an amp, right? But how do I record by cable/wires directly into the laptop using this jack?

What equipment do I need? I heard I needed to connect my guitar to something called an "interface", and then connect that to my laptop. I have no idea what an interface is or does, and the type of cables needed for the job. Could you guys shed some light on this issue?

Thanks!!!

 

[edyeo123]

if u plug in an acoustic-electric guitar directly to the laptop, the sound quality sucks. i tried it before...

so as what u said, the interface is a device that records signals or sound specially for guitars. an example is the Line6 toneport.

 

[syuk90]

u can a microphone pick-up for instruments... it did give me a better deal in sounding in recording.. and sumore cheap!! haha!

 

[EugeneSmasher]

I heard that most professional musicians record using microphones. Dave Weiner records his acoustic by placing two microphones - one just ahead of the soundhole where the neck begins, and I can't remember the other one.. When you use pickups, whether they're in-built pre-amps or soundhole pickups, they tend to sacrifice some of the resonance of the guitar (especially soundhole pickups). Here's the video. Hope this helps!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmvALHhy3NI

 

[alshit]

you will need an audio interface like a line 6 toneport or something.

 

[worldsluckiestman]

What exactly does line 6 toneport do? Why is it deemed so neccessary? How much difference in volume/clarity of sound as opposed to using a better quality mic such as shure SM57 to directly capture the acoustic sound?


1. In terms of setup, so if i have an acoustic-electric guitar, I plug it into the toneport, and plug the toneport into the laptop? Is this correct?

2. You can also plug the mic into toneport and the toneport into the laptop if there are two input/output jacks in the toneport machine?

 

[PatheinRaindropMoe]

Line6 toneport is an audio interface and audio interface is an external soundcard thats specifically for instrument and mic to do recording. It is necessary coz it provide the "correct" path(preamp, analog to digital conversion, digital to analog conversion and finally to the output, which we hear via headphone/speaker) between your instrument and computer to be connected and ensure the signal from instrument to computer is in the correct format.
(above is just a super overly simplified explanation, for more info, try googling for more and detailed infos)

1) Yes, tone port connected to computer via usb, instrument to toneport via the instrument input jack on the toneport

2) for mic to tone port, you need to connect to the xlr input, not the instrument 1/4inch phone jack.

to record into the computer, the above is just part of the picture(hardware side only), you will need software that you can record into, tweak parameters etc. For toneport, it comes with ableton live lite. This is the program where you use with the hardware above, to record sound into, arranged and make it into a song. For more info on such softwares, google for "daw", digital workstation in short