Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

[PFDarkside]

OK... Baby in the house, and I need to practice A. more and B. silently (unplugged with headphones)

I will preface this by saying I do have a PODxt, a small Behringer mixer, a set of computer speakers and various sources for jam tracks, etc. but to be honest a move and new baby has left my music situation a little rough. I've carved a small area out of the basement for my guitar stuff, but I haven't setup the POD/Mixer/Speakers, etc. and I'm not sure when I'll get around to organizing the basement.

In the meantime, I still would like to practice in the evening for fun and to prep for the band. I've got an app on my phone that slows down and loops anything from your itunes library, plus Youtube has a plethora of jam tracks. So... what's the easiest, cheapest and most "self-contained" way to practice?

-Irig (original) is $10 on Amazon.
-Concerns: Can you use it with other apps? (Have it generate the tones, then play over YouTube or the Slow Down app?

-Vox AmPlug and the Joyo ripoff.
-Concerns: Will 1 tone get old? I guess I'd put a 1/8" from the iphone to the AuxIn on the AmPlug

-Line 6 Pocket POD.
-Concerns: Getting pricey and complicated. Nearly the same as the big POD and Mixer setup

-Others?

Educate me!

 

[Grandturk]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Get the $100 irig. The cheaper original one squelches and squeals under high gain. Lots of noise. Worth it for the HD model. It might be less than $100 - I forget

Then you need good headphones. I'm sure there are better but I like the extreme isolation drummer's headphones. They well and sound great and won't break the bank.

After that, choose Amplitube or Jam Up and have at it. I use Jamup more than Amplitube now. But Amplitube has great fender models that beat Jamup.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

I have AKG K240, they work well with my POD.

Will the iRig HD allow me to stream YouTube and play over it with Amplitube?

 

[guitarSQUIRELL]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

I use my old Digitech RP350 with headphones and it's just fine for practicing. If I may ask, what's that app on your iPhone your talking about? I would like to look into that.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Tempo Slow.

 

[Brandenburg]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

i like guitar rig through my PC with headphones... with guitar pro,backin tracks, and pc drummer im pretty happy.. interface is a special front I/O bay hooked up to my soundcard


if i want a more mobile platform..well.. sorta.. no battery. i have a laptop with all of the above programs but my interface is the rocksmith tone cable w/ ASIO4ALL installed.. took a bit to get it configured but it does work

i also have Peavey's Reaveller and amplitube but prefer GR4...

 

[Grandturk]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Will the iRig HD allow me to stream YouTube and play over it with Amplitube?

It should - as long as it is able to still play in the background as you switch apps. I know for certain Jamup can do this so is suspect Amplitube can do it as well. I use Jamup and play along with YouTube backing tracks all the time

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Griffin Guitarconnect Cable

 

[guitarSQUIRELL]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Griffin Guitarconnect Cable

I can second what Trey says here. I have one of these as well and it works very good with GarageBand. I can't jam over anything unless its in my music library already though. Im in PFDarksides shoes as well, as I want something that will allow me to play with a youtube video while im recording my guitar or jamming. I cant do that as of now with my RP350 or my Griffin Guitarconnect. I have to convert the youtube video to an MP3 and then move it to my library and then to my music on my device library before I can record over it in GarageBand. Kind of a pain in the rear to do.

 

[Grandturk]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

I would make sure to get the connector that connects through the iPhone lightning cable rather than the microphone cable as those squelch and are noisy. I haven't had a problem since going with those type of interface.

 

[Wattage]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

i use irig with my ipad and it works great

I haven't figured out how to play over a you tube vid just using it with Garageband or Amplitube

 

[uOpt]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

I've got to be honest, I wouldn't make a big investment in iPhone (or Android) Apps. I'm not talking about money, I am talking about personal energy and time. Sure, you can get it to work quick. But from then on you are subject to random changes in the app based on some product manager's stupid ideas. And on IOS in particular you have difficulty downgrading anything if you don't like a new version. Myself I "lost" an Android app I really liked because it stopped working when Google messed with some APIs and the author got so pissed he took it off the Android Market and cut off communication. While I have been able to track down an APK (which was difficult enough and shouldn't be) that doesn't solve the problem that it doesn't work in new Androids due to the API change. And I'm not gonna debug it if it's not open source.

I would look for a pedal-size (or double pedal-sized) multieffect that has headphone out built in, that uses a traditional "save the parameters" software model and that has MIDI so that you can back them up.

Also, what you gonna do if you phone needs charging? Stop guitar playing?

 

[Grandturk]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

i use irig with my ipad and it works great

I haven't figured out how to play over a you tube vid just using it with Garageband or Amplitube

Go to settings in Amplitube and look for Background audio - set this to yes so you can switch to a different apps on your iPad and play YouTube and your guitar will still work through the amp app

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Remember, I do have a POD, mixer and auxiliary cables that I can use, I'm looking for something small and contained to practice with. I figure a little for an adapter and a little for an app I'm ok with.

The ones that don't use the Lightning connector allow you to still charge and use the device.

It looks like the original iRig does have issues with sound quality and is not supported by the latest apps. I'll look into the Griffin one and the iRig2. (I feel like the HD is a bit much for what I'm trying to do for now)

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Go to settings in Amplitube and look for Background audio - set this to yes so you can switch to a different apps on your iPad and play YouTube and your guitar will still work through the amp app

Ooh, perfect! Thanks!

 

[BluesGuyJ]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

I use Irig with ampkit, made by Peavey. YOu can move mp3s into ampkits library and play aong with them in the app, but I am not sure about streaming music and playing along with it in the app.

 

[jmh151]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

I've tried just about everything, and the Line 6 Sonicport at $99 is the best. It has just about no latency. The best apps are JamUp, Bias, Jam Up Pro, Amplitube, and Garageband and AmpKit.

With the Sonicport you can also plug the output into the effects return of an amp, disable the speaker emulation on the app and it acts as a very good preamp.

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Re: Most cost effective (cheapest) way to easily practice with headphones & iPhone

Vox Amplug Night Train was Musicians Friend SDOTD a few days ago, $20. Auxiliary input for my phone, nice and compact setup. Tone is very solid state, but what do you expect for $20 and headphones.


I also got the iRig 2, I see why you guys recommended the HD with lightning port. Processing off of a mic port seems pretty difficult. I'll probably return it.