Need advice about guitar + mic to ipad and laptop. beginner.

TotalWar

Hello.
Ive decided to use this opportunity to try to learn to play the guitar. I did try many years ago, and indeed played guitar at a gasfest. But after a year of lessons, I got no better.

Ive got an electric guitar, an ipad, and a win 10 laptop. Ive also got a sure mic, and an irig pre.

i dont have any sort of amp.

Ive signed up for guitar tricks, and it looks good for me.

Id like to know if I need anything else. Im not sure yet, as I dont have a battery, whether the guitar will work through the irig which I bought many years ago for vocals.

I want to be able to sing and play guitar, not necessarily at the same time. Will I be able to do that with the gear Ive got whilst listening to the guitar tricks lessons.
Ive seen lots of gear review videos on the internet where you can plug stuff into something then into the ipad, sometimes analogue, sometimes using a lightning adaptor, makes like tascam, steinberg etc.

I dont want to spend to much

please move to the correct section of the forum if this isnt it.

thanks

TotalWar

Please help a beginner

spark240

Do you primarily want to use the iPad or the laptop ?

chotu495

Not familiar with your kit, but it looks doable. Watch the below youtube :

https://youtu.be/I7OkXdv7SR

So, looks like you’ll be needing the xlr to phono (to connect guitar to the xlr in on the irig).

Something like this - 

https://www.gak.co.uk/en/stagg-sac-male-xlr-to-stereo-jack-cable-1m3ft-sac1psxm/119051?gclsrc=aw.ds&&gclid=EAIaIQobChMIrcnhstfi6AIVDbDtCh0xYgACEAQYASABEgLitPD_BwE

On your ipad, you should have garageband. I’m a mac guy, so no idea what the equivalent is on a pc.

let us know how you get on, and good luck with it 

TotalWar

dear oh dear, why is it so confusing and frustrating.

ive plugged the shure 58 mic into the irig and then into the headphone socket of my ipad.  Vocallive (made by the same company as the irig) doesn't even recognise its there.
garage band responds but the level is so very low. when I plug my headphones into the irig, I can hear my voice, but there is loads of horrible unwanted noise. It wontput sound out of my blutooth speaker, nor the ipad speakers.
the Bluetooth will work if I take the mic and irig out of the loop and just sing at the ipad.


so that's hopeless.


then ive tried to plug my guitar directly into the usb of my laptop using the cable from rocksmith.

the laptop recognises its there, but doesn't send any sound either to its speakers or to the blue tooth speaker.

im downloading rocksmith again, to see ifgoing through that works.

I note that I cant use garageband on my laptop.


I just want to be able to play my guitar and have it make some noise. and maybe record vocals and guitar at some point. whats so difficult about that?


do I have to spend hundreds of pounds on amplifiers, pre amps, interfaces etc?

spark240

Dude....it’s seems you are trying loads of things before getting one to actually work....a quick search says that the Irig should work with Vocalive, so maybe just try and get that working first ?

barnstorm

My advice, for what it's worth, is that you'll have more fun and be more likely to keep at it with some kind of amp (unless you want to ditch your electric for an acoustic). A perfectly usable guitar amp will set you back tens of pounds, not hundreds. If it's essential that vocals can be amplified, too, something like the Fender Passport Mini (slightly more money – about £130 new) would work. I wouldn't bother faffing about with recording kit for now when your iPad on its own will do a job.

TTony

Starting with the small steps ...

You’ve got an iPad - which is an excellent start because that comes with GarageBand as standard, and a whole load of apps available for not much ££.

You need some sort of interface; plus guitar in one end, plug into laptop other end.  Which device you need depends on what iPad you’ve got, and therefore which connector is on it.  They start cheap and go to big ££s.



*but* that’s not going to get you very far if you’re also thinking about using your laptop.

This might kill both birds with one stone (or interface) and give you mic capability too.
https://youtu.be/bg7nYACmgEo

I don’t know - I’ve never tried it - whether the iPad will recognise that as a generic interface and hence let you use GarageBand (and all the other apps) on the iPad, or whether it’s restricted to the Presonus app referred to in the video.  Do some googling ...

The Presonus interface also comes with a reasonable DAW for your laptop.


Another option is the Apogee Jam.  That’s getting more expensive.  Depends on how much you’ve got to spend.  I’ve got an old Jam which came with both iPad connectors and a USB connector (for PC) and works fine.  It’s an old model now, but you might get lucky on eBay.  Just make sure that it’s got *all* the cables!

TheBigDipper

I've owned an iTwo for 4 years now, and it's been fine for my budget, amateur needs. Works with anything that has a USB port or a Lightening connector. In the Applesphere it works with any app that I've tried it with. MacOS, iPadOS and iOS. I use GarageBand and Multitrack DAW on the iDevices and Logic on the MacBook. If it broke, I'd buy another. It may be a budget interface, but I'm the limiting factor, not the iTwo. 

TotalWar

Thanks for all the advice.
I have decided to buy a roland cube street.
I can move on to recording at a later date.
Im loving the Guitar Tricks lessons I signed up for. Ive made more progress in 5 days with that than I made in a year of private lessons in 2003, thoroughly recommended.