Preamp

CiaranK

Hiya, I am going to be doing some home recording. I was looking for a preamp. I think it's a preamp. So I can plug instruments into my PC. I have adobe Audition on the PC. What would you reccomend using. I don't want something really expensive. Just for home use. Could I get something decent for 100?

Thanks,

Ciarán.

Quattroste

You could try these http://line6.com/podstudio/

other than that you could just buy a guitar to USB cable, or a USB sound card with a 1/4 inch jack input. A Preamp is not really what you're looking for.

Demeyes

What you're looking for is called an interface. It's a unit that goes into firewire or Usb ports on your PC that allows you to plug your guitar or mic leads into it. They will usually give you way nicer results than using the onboard soundcard on your computer. There are plenty on thomann.de that are within your range. Basically the more you spend the better they get and you can get more channels so you can record several things at once and have them go into separate tracks in your recording program.

CiaranK

An interface, thats it! Thanks. I'll look at some on thomann.

PMI

Hi just try and get a plug in ie: pod farm or something?!?

You can get preamps etc.. but you wont really gain anything the quality doesnt get that much better when project recording.

Put it in perpective:

I have...

Marshall JMP1
Marshall 9004
Sansamp PSA1
Mesa Studio Pre
ADA MP1
Guitar Rig 4
Amplitube
Pod Farm

I use..... wait for it.......

None of them for real recording as they all sound synthetic

I would reach for the Pod Farm Plugin quicker than any of the others

So save your dosh and get a plugin

Eoin Madsen

I feel it needs to be said: a preamp is what gets you from the output level of the instrument or mic to line level (for going into a power amp or analog/digital converter or whatever). So you are correct in that you're looking for a preamp, but it's a preamp with a digital interface, which is going be sold as just a "USB interface" or something like that.

On your kind of budget, the preamp end of what you get is basically the same simple bundle of circuits for everything. Get something as simple as possible, and don't concern yourself with sample rates (though do try for 24-bit if you can). You can always fiddle with plugins on the recorded signal when you're mixing if you want to make it sound more like a miced amp.

CiaranK

This is the one I went for in the end.

http://www.tascam.com/products/us-122mkII.html

I got it for 139 in Music Maker, they had another tascam with only 1 input and no software for 99.