Never plug the guitar directly into your PC

[Jackswastedlife]

Hey people,

just felt like I should add a little warning redarding the recording of an electric guitar on a pc.
I don't think it's very clearly stated in the product-description. It says it doesn't work without the interface-cable, but there's some more important issue.
What it doesn't say is, that it most likely trashes your Hardware if you directly plug the guitar into your pc / soundcard / onboard-soundchip. Standard pc-soundchips are not made for interfacing instruments like an e-guitar. This is due to the soundcard's impendance, which is not dimensioned for recording a guitar.

Like I said, this is not an issue of the software itself, it is an issue of the pc's hardware-architecture.

So everyone, do yourself a favor and do not try it without the appropiate cable / mixer / interface / whatever.

Hope I saved the life of a few soundcards with this post :-)

Greetings and keep on rockin'

[Kyrthical]

But it still seems like a fun way of killing off a sound card.

[Jackswastedlife]

It's a metal-way of killing a soundcard, but not fun at all. You just hear some buzzing and fuzzing from your speakers and that's it :D

[Dave's not here man]

Wow guess I've been lucky because I've been 1/4" > 1/8" > soundcard for years and multiple PCs with multiple recording softwares and never once blew up or destroyed a sound card. Does your guitar shoot lightning bolts through the cable?

[Metsakurat]

Originally posted by Davesteronerism:

Wow guess I've been lucky because I've been 1/4" > 1/8" > soundcard for years and multiple PCs with multiple recording softwares and never once blew up or destroyed a sound card. Does your guitar shoot lightning bolts through the cable?

Don't be silly. It's a guitar...It shoots notes.

[^6infi]

Biggest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I've ever read...
Why else do soundcards have a jack named 'audio in'?

[Jackswastedlife]

Originally posted by Davesteronerism:

Wow guess I've been lucky because I've been 1/4" > 1/8" > soundcard for years and multiple PCs with multiple recording softwares and never once blew up or destroyed a sound card. Does your guitar shoot lightning bolts through the cable?

Yeah, then you might have hardware that does support a guitar after all. That doesn't mean everyone is as enlightened and blessed as you are...
Plug your guitar into your MIC-input on an onboard soundchip, turn your guitar to 10 and see your chipset fly...
If you don't have anything decent to add to the discussion, other than bragging, then feel free to leave the discussion and stop trying to troll other people who might blow up their hardware...

[Jackswastedlife]

Originally posted by infi:

Biggest ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ I've ever read...
Why else do soundcards have a jack named 'audio in'?

To attach an ipod, audio interface or similar, not a guitar buddy

[ObsoletePaper]

Your guitar will not ruin your sound card and/or your computer. There is no way for this to happen based on simple electronics.

[Jackswastedlife]

Originally posted by Banzai5150:

Your guitar will not ruin your sound card and/or your computer. There is no way for this to happen based on simple electronics.

You're sure about this? Then please enlight me and explain why it's impossible. I'm an electronics-engineer myself, but hey, maybe I can learn something...

[ObsoletePaper]

The impedence produced from the guitar is barely enough to produce sound through a normal jack, hence why it normally needs to be ran through a amplifier of sorts before or else you need to turn your volume up to 11 to hear anything.

edit: also, the mic in does not produce voltage to the guitar so the guitar can't do anything with it that would be dangerous.

USB only sends 5v through the port which is not enough to damage as well.

[Jackswastedlife]

Originally posted by Banzai5150:

The impedence produced from the guitar is barely enough to produce sound through a normal jack, hence why it normally needs to be ran through a amplifier of sorts before or else you need to turn your volume up to 11 to hear anything.

a standard e-guitar has about 10k-20k impendance but there're tons of differences, because it's not specified. The mic-in on an basic-onboard-sound has a low impedance with some exceptions, beacuse it's not specified too. Combine a low input-impedance and a high output impedance... basic electronics mate

Originally posted by Banzai5150:

edit: also, the mic in does not produce voltage to the guitar so the guitar can't do anything with it that would be dangerous.

USB only sends 5v through the port which is not enough to damage as well.

Who the hell is talking about USB? Does your guitar have a built-in USB? btw. I'd love to see you slamming a USB-Plug into your 3,5mm audio-jack :D

[KazeS2Tirelli]

why would you even plug your guitar directly in the soundcard? The real tone cable is a USB device, so there's no danger at all.

[Jackswastedlife]

Originally posted by 4Lonew0lf:

why would you even plug your guitar directly in the soundcard? The real tone cable is a USB device, so there's no danger at all.

Yes, that's what I'm talking about.
Just wanted to warn the one's who think: "Naah i just plug it in directly and save me some bucks" :D

[Jackswastedlife]

@Banzai: See for yourself. Found a datasheet of an onboard soundchip. It's a fairly decent one with an input impedance of 47k, but this is not the only soundchip available.
http://www.hardwaresecrets.com/datasheets/ALC888_1-0.pdf

[Dave's not here man]

Originally posted by jackswastedlife:

Originally posted by Davesteronerism:

Wow guess I've been lucky because I've been 1/4" > 1/8" > soundcard for years and multiple PCs with multiple recording softwares and never once blew up or destroyed a sound card. Does your guitar shoot lightning bolts through the cable?

Yeah, then you might have hardware that does support a guitar after all. That doesn't mean everyone is as enlightened and blessed as you are...
Plug your guitar into your MIC-input on an onboard soundchip, turn your guitar to 10 and see your chipset fly...
If you don't have anything decent to add to the discussion, other than bragging, then feel free to leave the discussion and stop trying to troll other people who might blow up their hardware...

First off, calm down this is just a discussion and I told you my real life experiences on the matter. Have you had a blow up by plugging your guitar directly in? Has anybody else here had a blowup by doing this? I'd love to hear real life experiences and you claiming to be an audio engineer means squat- this is the internet. I'm an astronaut when I'm not playing gigs in fromt of 50k people.