Recording from amp to iMac

[Musicman20]

Hi

I have a TC Elec RH450 that has a lot of great outputs. I may also use my LM3 as well. I doubt I will use the Orange as really that needs a quality mic to get the full on awesome tone it produces.

The simpler the better for me, as its just for noodling and posting to band mates so we can practice our stuff at home.

Basically, I want something that allows me to plug the RH450 into the iMac, then I need a decent but easy to use program to play along with some drum loops. I just want to be able to either add basslines over some drumloops I've created or over part songs my guitarist has created.

Any ideas? Are there any free programs around? What lead do I need from RH450 - iMac?

Thanks

Gareth

[RAY AGAINST THE MACHINE]

if you're gonna pay for something,I'd just forget about using the amp,and
get a recording interface from say line 6 (toneportgx).
If you want something more adventurous ,you could go for something like
reason or logic. There are thousands of things you can do on those.

Free stuff: Audacity

[BTGAndy]

The best free (as in comes with Macs) DAW for mucking about in is probably Garageband, which I'm assuming you've got if you have an iMac. You can spend any amount on an interface, ideally though if you're taking a line from the D.I. in your head you'll want something with at least one XLR in socket. As Ray mentioned the Line 6 Toneport interfaces are good, if you wanted to foray into ProTools, the MBox 2 Mini is good value for money, it can also be used as an interface for any other DAW.

[Spoombung]

[quote name='Musicman20' post='748291' date='Feb 17 2010, 12:16 PM']Any ideas?[/quote]

[url="http://www.google.co.uk"]http://www.google.co.uk[/url]

[Musicman20]

[quote name='Spoombung' post='748905' date='Feb 17 2010, 08:30 PM'][url="http://www.google.co.uk"]http://www.google.co.uk[/url][/quote]

I just dont want to mess the whole thing up...eg the iMac...with any suspect programs. Its not my computer.

I am very much a newb when it comes to recording onto a computer.

[bigevilman]

Both Garageband and Logic are Apple-made products so they will be fine on your iMac. I'm currently running Logic Pro with my Alesis io26 and its great for recording my bass with my sansamp.

In regards to interfaces, you can pick a m-box 2 mini like andy said. They go on ebay for about £100 and often come with a copy of Pro-tools LE. I'm not sure it still comes with it, but when I first got Pro-tools 7, it came with a copy of BFD lite, a virtual drum machine which uses real audio samples. You can download midi drumbeats off the internet and BFD will play them.

Hope that helps

Joe

[wulf]

Garageband is probably on the iMac already - it is part of the iLife suite that seems to be part of the default install.

Wulf

[cheddatom]

IMO you don't need an audio interface. Take the FX send or pre-amp out or DI output and put it into the line in on your mac.

On board soundcards are in general not great, but people do wibble on about Macs and how great the hardware is. Either way, if you're just looking to mess about for fun, do this until you get frustrated with your soundcard. This is likely to happen when you want to monitor your bass through VST effects and stuff, which you won't be able to do as there will be a time lapse (latency). However, using your amp as a DI box AND studio monitor means you can mute the channel you're recording and just play along with the drum loops, listening through your amp.

[WalMan]

If you're looking for a cheap interface I have one of these - [url="http://www.zingsmusic.com/product_info.php?products_id=5178"]Rock Frog[/url] - brand new, in an unopened box I could let you have for say £40 posted.

That + GarageBand & you should be laughing

[Musicman20]

Im going to take a trip to Soundslive....but the mbox2 mini seems like a good deal. You get the program with it, as you mentioned. So, can I go direct from bass to mbox, or straight from sansamp to mbox, or more than likely, straight from RH450 to mbox?

I am upping the budget a little...and going to get some nice headphones as well.