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How to Plug a Guitar or Bass Into a Computer
Turn your computer around and look at the back of it. You should see a walkman-style mini headphone jack in one of the shiny steel plates back there. Actually, you should see 3 mini jacks. If you look closely, they have little etched pictures next to them. One is a picture of a mic, one is a picture of headphones, and the other some picture you don't know what it is. The one that is not mic and not headphones is the line-in jack.

Average Situation
Here's the deal: your guitar is supposed to plug into the line-in jack. But your guitar is not loud enough to play direct into a line-in. So you have to put an effects pedal with a volume control in between the PC and your guitar. That way you can give your guitar enough of a volume boost to hear it well on your PC.

Poor Situation
If you don't have an effects pedal, or something else to give your guitar a slight volume boost, then the line-in method won't work. Your guitar will be too quiet. If this is the case, you will need to plug your guitar into the mic jack instead. The guitar is too loud for a mic jack. So, you will have to turn the guitar down for it to record properly. Even then, it won't sound too good. Computer mic jacks just don't sound good. But, it works.

Ideal Situation
Ideally, here is what you want to do: get a mixer, plug your guitar into your amp, mic the amp in a sound-proof room. Turn it up really loud. Mix your effects into the signal at the mixer, and plug the mixer line out into the line in of your computer. Then ask the butler for some refreshments, you're gonna need it, Eddie!



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