I am looking for a simple amplifer program.
I have looked at audacity, but I would have to be 'recording' to get 'playthrough'. There is supposedly a .vst plugin, but I have not found it yet.
This is for my wife to be able to have a simple amp (using my little Asus Eee900) for when she is playing her guitar and needs a bit of a boost.
On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 3:13 PM, Robert Moskowitz rgm@htt-consult.com wrote:
I am looking for a simple amplifer program.
I have looked at audacity, but I would have to be 'recording' to get 'playthrough'. There is supposedly a .vst plugin, but I have not found it yet.
This is for my wife to be able to have a simple amp (using my little Asus Eee900) for when she is playing her guitar and needs a bit of a boost.
To echo the microphone jack through your speakers, you can run this on the command line:
pactl load-module module-loopback latency_msec=1
When you're done, disable it with:
pactl unload-module $(pactl list short | grep latency_msec=1 | awk '{print $1}')
For electric guitars, there's also Guitarix (available in the repos) which simulates a tube amp and provides distortion and other effects.
-T.C.
On 07/06/2014 06:13 PM, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
I am looking for a simple amplifer program.
I have looked at audacity, but I would have to be 'recording' to get 'playthrough'. There is supposedly a .vst plugin, but I have not found it yet.
This is for my wife to be able to have a simple amp (using my little Asus Eee900) for when she is playing her guitar and needs a bit of a boost.
As a part-time musician, I would suggest that playing guitar over the typical computer speakers is going to sound terrible, if you make it work at all. (It may be difficult to make it work, because a guitar pickup, whether magnetic or acoustic, is at microphone level, and the computer sound programs would tend to resist putting a mic input out thru local speakers, due to acoustic feedback concerns.)
However, there are relatively cheap solutions that do not involve a computer at all.
The cheapest is to look for a low-powered guitar amp on Craig's List, or at local garage/yard sales. I have found two, so far, one of which is maybe 10 Watts and would work fine. I paid $10 for it. The next cheapest is to get a student amplifier from a commercial source. Looking at the catalog, "Musician's Friend" for last December (the latest one I have) on the inside back cover there is a Starcaster Guitar Amplifier, "The perfect amp for beginners with 15 watts of power." The sale price was $39.99. They claim it lists for $99 MSRP. MF stock number is H96133. I don't know if this is still available, but something like this probably is. ON the page, it says, Visit *musiciansfriend.com/dealcente *(I don't actually use the little amp for guitar, I use it as a monitor for a record player. I have a 1959 Fender Bassman that I use for gigs on electric piano and guitar. Your wife should not try to actually play a gig on a little bitty amp like I have described.)
--doug * *
On 07/06/2014 08:45 PM, Doug wrote:
On 07/06/2014 06:13 PM, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
I am looking for a simple amplifer program.
I have looked at audacity, but I would have to be 'recording' to get 'playthrough'. There is supposedly a .vst plugin, but I have not found it yet.
This is for my wife to be able to have a simple amp (using my little Asus Eee900) for when she is playing her guitar and needs a bit of a boost.
As a part-time musician, I would suggest that playing guitar over the typical computer speakers is going to sound terrible, if you make it work at all. (It may be difficult to make it work, because a guitar pickup, whether magnetic or acoustic, is at microphone level, and the computer sound programs would tend to resist putting a mic input out thru local speakers, due to acoustic feedback concerns.)
Thanks for the valuable response.
We have a real old pickup, her brother's from some 30 years ago. I have a USB sound card (Sabrent) that I was going to use for the I/O, then some small external speakers. Just something small that she could take when it was a little larger venue than a living room.
However, there are relatively cheap solutions that do not involve a computer at all.
The cheapest is to look for a low-powered guitar amp on Craig's List, or at local garage/yard sales. I have found two, so far, one of which is maybe 10 Watts and would work fine. I paid $10 for it. The next cheapest is to get a student amplifier from a commercial source. Looking at the catalog, "Musician's Friend" for last December (the latest one I have) on the inside back cover there is a Starcaster Guitar Amplifier, "The perfect amp for beginners with 15 watts of power." The sale price was $39.99. They claim it lists for $99 MSRP. MF stock number is H96133. I don't know if this is still available, but something like this probably is. ON the page, it says, Visit *musiciansfriend.com/dealcente *(I don't actually use the little amp for guitar, I use it as a monitor for a record player. I have a 1959 Fender Bassman that I use for gigs on electric piano and guitar. Your wife should not try to actually play a gig on a little bitty amp like I have described.)
Whatever I get has to be RF shielded. We live 600' from a 700' FM tower with 5 stations at max wattage. A lot of unshield stuff just does not work in our home (we fought the tower, but there is a 400' near it that was here before the community was build up).
On 07/06/2014 08:57 PM, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
On 07/06/2014 08:45 PM, Doug wrote:
On 07/06/2014 06:13 PM, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
I am looking for a simple amplifer program.
I have looked at audacity, but I would have to be 'recording' to get 'playthrough'. There is supposedly a .vst plugin, but I have not found it yet.
This is for my wife to be able to have a simple amp (using my little Asus Eee900) for when she is playing her guitar and needs a bit of a boost.
As a part-time musician, I would suggest that playing guitar over the typical computer speakers is going to sound terrible, if you make it work at all. (It may be difficult to make it work, because a guitar pickup, whether magnetic or acoustic, is at microphone level, and the computer sound programs would tend to resist putting a mic input out thru local speakers, due to acoustic feedback concerns.)
Thanks for the valuable response.
We have a real old pickup, her brother's from some 30 years ago. I have a USB sound card (Sabrent) that I was going to use for the I/O, then some small external speakers. Just something small that she could take when it was a little larger venue than a living room.
However, there are relatively cheap solutions that do not involve a computer at all.
The cheapest is to look for a low-powered guitar amp on Craig's List, or at local garage/yard sales. I have found two, so far, one of which is maybe 10 Watts and would work fine. I paid $10 for it. The next cheapest is to get a student amplifier from a commercial source. Looking at the catalog, "Musician's Friend" for last December (the latest one I have) on the inside back cover there is a Starcaster Guitar Amplifier, "The perfect amp for beginners with 15 watts of power." The sale price was $39.99. They claim it lists for $99 MSRP. MF stock number is H96133. I don't know if this is still available, but something like this probably is. ON the page, it says, Visit *musiciansfriend.com/dealcente *(I don't actually use the little amp for guitar, I use it as a monitor for a record player. I have a 1959 Fender Bassman that I use for gigs on electric piano and guitar. Your wife should not try to actually play a gig on a little bitty amp like I have described.)
Whatever I get has to be RF shielded. We live 600' from a 700' FM tower with 5 stations at max wattage. A lot of unshield stuff just does not work in our home (we fought the tower, but there is a 400' near it that was here before the community was build up).
It's possible that a small transistorized amp will be "sort of" shielded--it may be enclosed in a metal box. If you have a problem, there are a couple of simple things to try: get some snap-on ferrite shield beads. They cost about $2-3 each. put one or two around the AC poser cord right where it enters the amplifier chassis. Put one or two around the wires to the speaker(s). Put one or two around the guitar cord, just at the plug where it plugs into the amp. Put a couple at the other end of the guitar cord, where it plugs into the guitar. Unfortunately, the next things require some surgery on the inside of the amplifier. If you're not into that sort of thing, you should probably try and find somebody who is, like an electronic tech or a radio amateur. He will experiment with some small capacitors at judiciously selected point, like right at the input jack, and right where the speaker wires exit the chassis, and probably from the AC power line inputs to chassis, where the lines come into the chassis. At the speaker wires and the AC lines, I'd start with 1000pF. That's likely too big for the guitar input port, so maybe 100pF at that point--you'd have to listen and see if it louses up the treble. There are also some small ferrite toroids that could be installed on some wires inside the amp. That would involve unsoldering the wire, slipping the core over the wire, and soldering it back. Killing RFI is as much art as it is science, so some trial and error is to be expected! If you install all the suggested fixes and it works, try removing one at a time, and see if that's the sensitive point. If you see no difference, you might as well save that ferrite for some other application.
Another idea: play in the basement, if you have one!
--doug
On 07.07.2014 04:47, Doug wrote: ...
there are a couple of simple things to try: get some snap-on ferrite shield beads. They cost about $2-3 each. put one or two around the AC poser cord right where it enters the amplifier chassis.
...
Hellllooo I appreciate your audio fidelia, but you are in the wrong list man.
poma
On 07/06/2014 10:47 PM, Doug wrote:
On 07/06/2014 08:57 PM, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
On 07/06/2014 08:45 PM, Doug wrote:
On 07/06/2014 06:13 PM, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
I am looking for a simple amplifer program.
I have looked at audacity, but I would have to be 'recording' to get 'playthrough'. There is supposedly a .vst plugin, but I have not found it yet.
This is for my wife to be able to have a simple amp (using my little Asus Eee900) for when she is playing her guitar and needs a bit of a boost.
As a part-time musician, I would suggest that playing guitar over the typical computer speakers is going to sound terrible, if you make it work at all. (It may be difficult to make it work, because a guitar pickup, whether magnetic or acoustic, is at microphone level, and the computer sound programs would tend to resist putting a mic input out thru local speakers, due to acoustic feedback concerns.)
Thanks for the valuable response.
We have a real old pickup, her brother's from some 30 years ago. I have a USB sound card (Sabrent) that I was going to use for the I/O, then some small external speakers. Just something small that she could take when it was a little larger venue than a living room.
However, there are relatively cheap solutions that do not involve a computer at all.
The cheapest is to look for a low-powered guitar amp on Craig's List, or at local garage/yard sales. I have found two, so far, one of which is maybe 10 Watts and would work fine. I paid $10 for it. The next cheapest is to get a student amplifier from a commercial source. Looking at the catalog, "Musician's Friend" for last December (the latest one I have) on the inside back cover there is a Starcaster Guitar Amplifier, "The perfect amp for beginners with 15 watts of power." The sale price was $39.99. They claim it lists for $99 MSRP. MF stock number is H96133. I don't know if this is still available, but something like this probably is. ON the page, it says, Visit *musiciansfriend.com/dealcente *(I don't actually use the little amp for guitar, I use it as a monitor for a record player. I have a 1959 Fender Bassman that I use for gigs on electric piano and guitar. Your wife should not try to actually play a gig on a little bitty amp like I have described.)
Whatever I get has to be RF shielded. We live 600' from a 700' FM tower with 5 stations at max wattage. A lot of unshield stuff just does not work in our home (we fought the tower, but there is a 400' near it that was here before the community was build up).
It's possible that a small transistorized amp will be "sort of" shielded--it may be enclosed in a metal box. If you have a problem, there are a couple of simple things to try: get some snap-on ferrite shield beads. They cost about $2-3 each. put one or two around the AC poser cord right where it enters the amplifier chassis. Put one or two around the wires to the speaker(s). Put one or two around the guitar cord, just at the plug where it plugs into the amp. Put a couple at the other end of the guitar cord, where it plugs into the guitar. Unfortunately, the next things require some surgery on the inside of the amplifier. If you're not into that sort of thing, you should probably try and find somebody who is, like an electronic tech or a radio amateur. He will experiment with some small capacitors at judiciously selected point, like right at the input jack, and right where the speaker wires exit the chassis, and probably from the AC power line inputs to chassis, where the lines come into the chassis. At the speaker wires and the AC lines, I'd start with 1000pF. That's likely too big for the guitar input port, so maybe 100pF at that point--you'd have to listen and see if it louses up the treble. There are also some small ferrite toroids that could be installed on some wires inside the amp. That would involve unsoldering the wire, slipping the core over the wire, and soldering it back. Killing RFI is as much art as it is science, so some trial and error is to be expected! If you install all the suggested fixes and it works, try removing one at a time, and see if that's the sensitive point. If you see no difference, you might as well save that ferrite for some other application.
Familiar with this stuff, though haven't done it for around 50 years! My cousin was one of the orginal GE programers (multecs or however it is spelt :) ) and taught me a lot about the magic of ferrite toroids.
Another idea: play in the basement, if you have one!
We do, but the piano (Mason/Hamlin 50" Studio) is in the living room. She does not like to play down there.
thanks for the help!
On 07/06/2014 11:21 PM, poma wrote:
On 07.07.2014 04:47, Doug wrote: ...
there are a couple of simple things to try: get some snap-on ferrite shield beads. They cost about $2-3 each. put one or two around the AC poser cord right where it enters the amplifier chassis.
...
Hellllooo I appreciate your audio fidelia, but you are in the wrong list man.
So can you recommend either software that provides amplifier function on Fedora, or how to configure Audacity to do it?
It is fun to work out how to get a working amp; and I may have to take that route. It would be more interesting to use a Fedora system.
On 07/06/2014 11:21 PM, poma wrote:
On 07.07.2014 04:47, Doug wrote: ...
there are a couple of simple things to try: get some snap-on ferrite shield beads. They cost about $2-3 each. put one or two around the AC poser cord right where it enters the amplifier chassis.
...
Hellllooo I appreciate your audio fidelia, but you are in the wrong list man.
poma
Just because you have a hammer doesn't mean everything is a nail. You should always select the proper tool for the job, and this time, it's not the computer. --doug
On 07.07.2014 05:40, Robert Moskowitz wrote:
So can you recommend either software that provides amplifier function on Fedora, or how to configure Audacity to do it?
It is fun to work out how to get a working amp; and I may have to take that route. It would be more interesting to use a Fedora system.
Sorry, cannot recommend cause I don't use it. However if you insist on Audacity, there is mention of Voxengo Lampthruster, http://wiki.audacityteam.org/wiki/VST_Plug-ins
BTW, overall, regarding the sound on Linux platforms can be found here, http://linuxaudio.org/
poma
On 07.07.2014 06:01, Doug wrote:
On 07/06/2014 11:21 PM, poma wrote:
On 07.07.2014 04:47, Doug wrote: ...
there are a couple of simple things to try: get some snap-on ferrite shield beads. They cost about $2-3 each. put one or two around the AC poser cord right where it enters the amplifier chassis.
...
Hellllooo I appreciate your audio fidelia, but you are in the wrong list man.
poma
Just because you have a hammer doesn't mean everything is a nail. You should always select the proper tool for the job, and this time, it's not the computer. --doug
I sent you a fair notice, so please don't throw nonsense, you're wrong here. OK.
poma
On Jul 6, 2014, at 9:01 PM, Doug dmcgarrett@optonline.net wrote:
Just because you have a hammer doesn't mean everything is a nail. You should always select the proper tool for the job, and this time, it's not the computer.
I agree. I'm a musician myself, and I invested in the right tools for the job. Audiobox makes a pretty good USB interface/amplifier that I use with my digital piano. Couple that with a couple of (admittedly more expensive than you're probably looking to spend) monitors and the setup works fine. The inputs are LXR too, so shielded.
If I *want* to then plug that into my computer, I can. I've done that to record myself playing with pretty good effect. But if you're going to use it as just an amplifier... you're really just asking for difficulties. Computers make horrible audio equipment without external equipment.
--Russell
On 7 July 2014 00:33, T.C. Hollingsworth tchollingsworth@gmail.com wrote:
On Sun, Jul 6, 2014 at 3:13 PM, Robert Moskowitz rgm@htt-consult.com wrote:
I am looking for a simple amplifer program.
I have looked at audacity, but I would have to be 'recording' to get 'playthrough'. There is supposedly a .vst plugin, but I have not found it yet.
This is for my wife to be able to have a simple amp (using my little Asus Eee900) for when she is playing her guitar and needs a bit of a boost.
To echo the microphone jack through your speakers, you can run this on the command line:
pactl load-module module-loopback latency_msec=1
When you're done, disable it with:
pactl unload-module $(pactl list short | grep latency_msec=1 | awk '{print $1}')
For electric guitars, there's also Guitarix (available in the repos) which simulates a tube amp and provides distortion and other effects.
I never got pulse loopback running without latency, though haven't tried it for a while. This is an old version of the jack setup I use for passthrough:
http://epenguin.imalone.co.uk/2011/10/jack-for-audio-passthrough-on-fedora-1...
- it's worth noting that if you're using the same audio device for microphone and output then there may well be a mixer control that enables pass through in hardware which has the lowest latency you can achieve.
The advantage of using a Jack setup is you can run an amplifier simulator like Rakarrack or Guitarix and play into a an audio workstation like Guitarix. I normally use an amp with a USB output (lots of recent modelling amps have this: Fender Mustang, Yamaha THR, Blackstar ID:Core), you can also use one with a line level or headphone output, or a an instrument impedance box. I have used a guitar straight into a laptop microphone input and it can be made to work. http://epenguin.imalone.co.uk/2011/11/let-right-noise-in.html
As others have said, involving a computer can be a bit risky playing live, but for home and studio use it does expand the possibilities, like re-amping in software http://epenguin.imalone.co.uk/2011/12/re-amping-with-guitarix-and-ardour.htm...
excuse me poma, tho _slightly_ off topic as you say, i would like to add this:
On 07/07/2014 08:47 AM, Doug wrote: <<>>
There are also some small ferrite toroids that could be installed on some wires inside the amp. That would involve unsoldering the wire, slipping the core over the wire, and soldering it back.
in addition, a 1 turn wrap may be more effective, with checking for change in frequency range.
putting 2 to 4 wraps of ac cord around a ferrite toroid next to chassis will also help.
see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Choke_%28electronics%29 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrite_bead
On 07/09/2014 02:38 PM, poma wrote:
On 08.07.2014 16:46, g wrote:
excuse me poma, tho _slightly_ off topic as you say, i would like to add this:
...
:) at least it is a ferrite and not fedorite, you old g-fox.
lsfhif. :-D
-
Doug -
g -
Ian Malone -
poma -
Robert Moskowitz -
Russell Miller -
T.C. Hollingsworth