The Steel Guitar Forum

I want to be able to play through my headphones and not subject my wife to sodalities of my learning on my quadmaster.. I am looking for suggestions on the most practical way to do this. I do have a Makie 1604 soundboard but I don’t want to bring it up into my den/studio because I am running out of room. I would like to continue to run my steel through my Fender Deville amp (doesn’t have a headphone plug) in addition to be able to play backing tracks. I do have a new Toshiba laptop that would probably serve as a good medium. It has been some years since I have had to play with electronics and I know a lot has changed as far as what is available. I want something practical and relatively cheep. Thanks for the crash course in modern music electronics.

V/r,
Sam

Behringer has a bunch of small mixers.. you can run all your signals into it and mix them out to your headphones.

Here's your answer, perhaps.

http://www.zzounds.com/item--LINPOCKETPOD

It will give you the sound and eq of an amp, effects, headphone out, and also let you mix in your tracks from a MP3 or CD player.


Brad

Thanks to both of you for your reply. I will look into the line6 products. I feel stupid for asking these questions considering I set up my band’s sounds for years. But that in fact was years ago.

V/r,
Sam

I run the preamp out of my Nashville 112 into the line/mic in on my computer. With the master volume all the way down, I can hear myself well, and no noise to the rest of the people--important when you share a building with 350 other people.

Hi Jonathan

thanks for the information. I tried this last night but I tink I missing something. What do I have to set up on the laptop to route the sound back out to the headphone jack?

Thanks,

Sam

Go into the volume control and make sure that the mic is unmuted. I also run without the mic boost and usually have to turn the mic volume fader up pretty high. Set it so that your loudest note (in my case, the bottom C on the C6) doesn't clip.

Thanks

I was playing with is pretty late last night. I will work on with a clearer head this evening.

Sam

And keep the volume lower (which sux) to keep that Fender high end from killing your hearing!

Have fun, Sam!

What?

To late Ron.

Almost 10 years playing in bands have already done the damage oh yes and helicopter engine noise.

But thanks.

Sam

I don’t think this is going to work. The Vista operating environment only uses speech recognition and I can’t figure e how to make the damn thing work LOL!

I think I will go with the recommendation of a Line 6 tone pod. I want to try one out first before I make the investment.

Thanks for the help

V/r,
Sam

I am officially in the modern age of in house studio software. I purchased a Line6 Tone Port UX1 last night at the local Guitar Center. After down loading the correct Gearbox installation SW for my Vista operating system, I hooked everything up and put on my Bose headphones.

What a cool machine

I know I won’t use a fraction of the features right away but it has everything I need and want. Metronome, Tuner, track playback, all the cool amps, and recording sw. and plenty on inputs.

Thanks again to all of you for your advice.

V/r,
Sam

Sam, is the software fully functional, or is it the teaser type that has crippled features requiring you to "upgrade" to a full version?

Mike

As far as I know its fully funtional. There are optional add ons you can purchase but I have no need for them right now.

What features were you wondering about?

V/r,
Sam

The best thing I've ever done in order to ensure "private" practice is to buy a set of WIRELESS headphones. Instant divorce from that unruly cord which seems to have a mind of its own when it comes to getting caught on something.

Richard Damron wrote:The best thing I've ever done in order to ensure "private" practice is to buy a set of WIRELESS headphones.

What headphones did you get? Any problem with latency?

Sam, I was just wondering if the software package was actually fully functional, or one of those "try this, and if you like it, buy the real package" kind of deals. Packages like I'm referring to often are crippled in some way, or have a time limit on how long you can use it...like not allowing you to save a file, or you can use it for 30 days then it stops working.

I've been looking at those UX boxes and like the simplicity, and was wondering how useful the software was.

Mike

I have been using this new system for about 2 weeks now. Since then I have downloaded over 30 teaching tracks for both dobro and steel. I am so impressed with the sound quality and of all the different things you can do with this little box. It was well worth the money I paid for it.
I think the most important aspect is to insure you down load the latest version of SW from the web site and not to use what is supplied with the box.

V/r,
Sam

Richard

As much as I would like to go wireless, I have fallin in love with my Bose headphones.

V/r,
Sam

Sam,
Below is a link to a photo of my "Play Station IX"
I start with the "Pod XT" to a small ($100) Samson mixer. For tracks, I go into the mixer with a Numark (Axis 9) Dj type Cd player. The CD player is around $400, but it is truly amazing. You can cue it and loop a few bars for eternity, and lock in the keywhere you want it (pitch), and vary the speed at quite a good range.

All together:
Picture file

Before I got my Stereo Steel (has a headphone jack and aux in for tracks, mp3's, metronome, or whatever you need) I did like Bo. I used a cheap small mixer and ran from my guitar to my holy grail reverb pedal then mixer. I used another channel for my tracks, mixed them then used the headphone jack on the mixer.
It may sounds like a lot of trouble but it wasn't. And the mixer was like 20 bucks. I even recorded a few things using the above setup and it was not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

While on the subject of wireless headphones how about the amp builders include bluetooth so we could use our bluetooth headphones to tune and practice?
I have a set of noise canceling bluetooth headphones I use with my I-phone that are great.
I may be way out there with the bluetooth idea, but someday some guitar player will do it. And us steel players will never get credit for the idea.

Sam, If I can find the mixer I will send it to you.


Best,
Justin

Justin

Thank you so much for your kind and generous offer for a mixer. But I do have a Makie 1601 mixer board along with enough power to melt my head phones if I choose.

For right now, this line 6 tone pod has everything I need. However, I did go to the Bose web site to see if they offer a wireless solution for the headphones.

V/r,
Sam

Justin Griffith wrote:While on the subject of wireless headphones how about the amp builders include bluetooth so we could use our bluetooth headphones to tune and practice? I have a set of noise canceling bluetooth headphones I use with my I-phone that are great...

I tried that with my stereo bluetooth headphones, and the latency made it unworkable.

One of the cool things about going into my POD XT before going into a small Behringer mixer and headphones is that I can use a nice amp model (Twin) and a 15" speaker model for a fairly realistic sound through the headphones. If I just go directly into the mixer, it's all treble and very little bass. But with the POD amp and speaker models, for the first time I have decent pedal steel tone in my headphones. I would imagine the Toneport has similar amp and speaker models.

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/product/ ... c=3SOSWXXA

If your amp has a direct out, you can plug in from there.