Most of my practicing is done late at night or early in the AM, so I plug a set of earphones into my (starter) amp and no one hears the music but me.
Is there something I can hook up so that when I play along with a song (either on my laptop or my Ipod), the song goes through the earphones only, so I don't wake up my wife and kids ?
Bob
There are a couple of options. Some bass amps have a Tape/CD in, or something similar that will let you run the output of your music into the amp. The amp will mix that with your bass and then you can listen to it all in headphones.
My amp doesn't have that feature, so I homebrew something. I have a large set of over-the-ear headphones that I use for the amp, and I use one small in-ear type for the CD. I put the one in ear in, then put the large set from the amp over that. It does the job, just not very pretty :D
Sure, what you could try is to get a male/male extension wire so that you connect the headphone socket of your practice amp to the mic (pink) or line-in (blue) socket of your PC or laptop. Your practice amp will effectively be a pre-amp for the PC. Now you can play CD's or mp3's and your bass all through your computer. You can then use your headphones to listen to the output on your PC. This is pretty much what I do except I use a mixer instead of the practice amp.
Cheers
Paul
Thank you both.
I'll try each option.
Bob
The back of my amp has a left/right (standard audio/red and white) input.
I bought a cable that has the earphone jack (the kind that plugs into the computer and/or an iPod) on one end and has the male red/white audio jacks on the other end. (Radio Shack)
I plug the earphone jack into my iPod or computer and the other ends into the amp and then listen to the guitar and iPod music through the headphones from the amp. And then play along (or try) to the music from the iPod.
I'm in my bubble.
So I would think you just need to look at what kind of input you have in the back of your amp.
KR2
It's the rock that gives the stream its music . . . and the stream that gives the rock its roll.
I have a Hartke B200 small (starter) amp. The back has "effects loop" holes marked "Pre Amp Out" and "Amp In". The front has outputs for "Line Out" and "Phones", and inputs for "Passive" and "Active" .
None of the combinations seemed to work properly. When I plugged in my Ipod, either (1) I could not hear the bass output, or (2) if I heard the bass, the Ipod sound was very faint. I'm guessing that the bigger and more expensive amps would have the ability to mix the sounds.
(Is there an inexpensive mixer that I could use ? )
So I put on the Ipod earphones which were connected to the Ipod, and then covered them with the larger earphones running from the amp. I had 2 sets of earphones on my ears. It worked - I could hear the song AND my bass.
thanks to all for your help.
Bob
I have a similar an amp (even cheaper) that has an aux input for CD. I think it is design issue that it is not reserved only to bigger or more expensive amps: some brands/models include it and some brands/models don't.
I'd mix the iPod and amp headphones signals. There are cheap mixers, for example:
http://www.thomann.de/gb/alto_amx_80.htm
and Behringer has also very cheap gear but I'm not sure if it would solve your problem.
What do you think of this one ? If it works for what I need (I know very, very little about mixers), the price can't be beat.
http://www.zzounds.com/item--BEHMX400
Bob
KOSS makes a headphone that plugs right into the guitar's output jack. It needs a 9-volt.
Cat
"Feel what you play...play what you feel!"
