How do you practice?

keir

So I'm moving in with my Mrs and her little girl (who's 5) next month, so opportunities for playing / practicing at any sort of volume are going to take a bit of a nose dive.

I'm looking for some ideas of how to do a solid bit of practicing through headphones, ideally using my board too.

I've got a Mac so could use GarageBand I suppose, but would just like to see how everyone else goes about it especially something that reacts well to using pedals.

Kemper is out of the window for now unfortunately!

sweepy

I'm lucky enough to have a Man Cave, what about those Vox modelling headphones ?

Teetonetal

I also have a mac.

I have my pedal board hooked up to my audio interface (zoom R24), then I use Suffham amps Sgear (standalone or in Reaper). all monitored through headphones. I never play through an amp at home.

Sgear is awesome, go grab the demo. Reacts really well to pedals.

keir

sweepy;1029523" said:

I'm lucky enough to have a Man Cave, what about those Vox modelling headphones ?

I would love a man cave! I think it's going to take me a while to man up her flat let alone commandeer a room for guitar gear haha!

keir

Teetonetal;1029526" said:

I also have a mac.

I have my pedal board hooked up to my audio interface (zoom R24), then I use Suffham amps Sgear (standalone or in Reaper). all monitored through headphones. I never play through an amp at home.

Sgear is awesome, go grab the demo. Reacts really well to pedals.

Cool I'll check it out. Did you pay for the full version then?

richh

If you use GarageBand, doesn't that have built in amp sims?  I don't know how good they are, but that is an option.  And there is lots of potential for creating loops in GB as well, either your own from scratch or imported audio.

BTW, the Drummer in GB is very good as well, for either practice or recording!

carlos

I have my pedalboard going into an M-Audio M-Track that is connected by USB to my PC. That way I can mix to my headphones my backing tracks, etc with my guitar sound. Also useful for recording. Cheap and simple setup. Some times I run out a signal from that to a powered speaker.

Teetonetal

keir;1029528" said:

[quote="Teetonetal;1029526"]I also have a mac.

I have my pedal board hooked up to my audio interface (zoom R24), then I use Suffham amps Sgear (standalone or in Reaper). all monitored through headphones. I never play through an amp at home.

Sgear is awesome, go grab the demo. Reacts really well to pedals.

Cool I'll check it out. Did you pay for the full version then?
[/quote]

Yes. Think it was 99usd at the time. Single best guitar thing I've ever bought. Use it everyday

digitalscream

I have a reactive dummy load for my amp. Plug the speaker output into that, then the line output from that into my audio interface and apply impulse responses (ie cab sims) to that.

If you have recording gear, it's absolutely the best way to do it - you get the best of all worlds. However, reactive loads ain't cheap. I've also got a resistive load, which sounds a bit shit by comparison but the end result still sounds better than 90% of modellers.

Failing that, I can heartily recommend a Digitech GSP1101 - it's a modeller with everything built in, and sounds fantastic.

Sporky

I have a Helix now, but before that I used a pair of Behringer GI400s into my audio interface, then headphones into the interface too. The GI400s have a 4x12 emulator in which was good enough for that sort of use. I tried using them with a dummy load as well and to be honest they sounded about the same before the amps as they did on the speaker outputs.

Limehouse_Blues

I plug my pedals into the front of a Yamaha THR10 and go with headphones. Works well. I find that using my delay pedal is a great way to practice modes. I set the delay quite long and let chords and scale runs drone in the background on a long delay while playing in an appropriate mode over the top.

xSkarloey

Once the kids came along a Roland Microcube became a lifeline for me.

I personally don't like playing through headphones, so to get tones through a small modelling amp that I like, at or sometimes below normal speaking volume, was a godsend.

I use Garageband all the time to record, but I don't have external speakers or anything. I suppose you could use it for practice, but I personally find it easier to plug into the small amp.

MtB

I've always had a modeller of some sort (Line6 bean, XT, hd500, Kemper). It's now helix & headphones or studio monitors

Drew_TNBD

digitalscream said:

I have a reactive dummy load for my amp. Plug the speaker output into that, then the line output from that into my audio interface and apply impulse responses (ie cab sims) to that.

I do this too, with the exact same dummy load.

Beexter

Tried for years playing through headphones but it was a faff. Picked up a Yamaha THR10 and haven't looked back. Best home practice solution I've come across by some margin

handsomerik

Blackstar fly 3 is great for quiet practice and very compact. You can also plug headphones out of it if you want. I used to plug my pedalboard into this.

I now generally use my helix with headphones at home. (Other more cost effective modellers with headphones are a fine solution for home practice too I would have thought.)

markblack

THR10C and headphone - works for me. Can even play at TV levels and it sounds pretty good.

Grunfeld

Tech 21 PE60 and a Digitech GNX3000

So basically a very clean amp and an old but still really good multi-fx (of which I use about 4 patches)
Been using this for years.  It's great for home practice.

Alnico

Black star ht1 head and sennheiser hd280 headphones on a long extension lead or not if you're sat right in front of it.
Works and sounds like a normal amp so my pedals are all in front of the amp (no fx loop)and the most anyone else in the room hears is the acoustic sound of the strings.
My gear is in the living room. Now we've just moved into a studio flat that's 4m x 2m it's the only room !

Works just great for me for quiet practice and plugs into the speakers on my Deville when I want to play a little louder.

Branshen

Vox DA5 with aux in from my laptop. I can practice to playback of songs or practice my soloing to any backing tracks on YouTube.

stratman3142

I sometimes play through amp sims on my computer with headphones.
A lot of the time I plug my pedal board into my Joyo American which is then plugged into the audio interface of my computer so I can listen on headphones. I like to practice with my computer so I can quickly record or play along to things.