Apartment friendly practice
Hello,
I am looking for information on how to practice amplified playing through Headphones. Does anyone have experience using an audio interface (focusrite Scarlett 2i2, Steinburg UR22mkII) with a harmonica mic( Horner Harpblaster) and studio headphones? What additional components required and how to hook these up? I've read about amp simulators (tech 21 flyrig, Joyo American Sound). I have a small tube amp(Laney Cub), but the only output is for a cabinet it says "external speaker impedance 8-12 ohms". Could that work if the head phones have the correct impedance? I am hoping to use an iPad Pro as the "computer" part of this rig if needed, but also have a windows based computer. Help! The harmonica looked like such a simple little instrument(lol).
Thank you in advance for your reply.
Cheers!
Thank you Winslow. I appreciate your thoughts. I'll check into what kind of microphone the audio interface will accept, the ones I'm looking at can handle a guitar, so hopefully a high impedance microphone.
I use a Scarlet 2i2 into an Apple laptop. I don't see why an iPad wouldn't work, tho' you may want to check with the folks at Focusrite, maker of the Scarlett. My home set-up has my laptop running into the USB input on the Scarlett (so I can run jam tracks into the Scarlett, and run audio back into GarageBand on the laptop for recording), a vocal mic into one of the Scarlett's two channels, and my harp mic into a Dano delay pedal, and from there into the 1/4" input in the other channel. Audio outputs are into both a powered monitor speaker and a set of headphones.
It works great. Up until about 9:00 p.m. I rock the house (and my neighbor's house) with the monitor speaker. After 9:00 p.m. I turn off the monitor speaker and put on the headphones. I'm still rockin', but my neighbor thinks I've gone to bed or am reading an intellectually profitable book.
UkIlene Rob,
Yes! Thank you I think what you describe is what I need to set up. Using the pedal between the audio interface and the bullet mic was the missing piece of the puzzle. It is reassuring to know that it works, as Winslow's comment reminded me of the importance of knowing how much and what kind of current is moving from device to device. The Scarlet is cross platform and will work with Win/Mac/iOS. I'm hoping to upgrade to a laptop at some point, but not quite yet, but was looking for something that would work in future configurations.
Thank you again for your comments, I a m excited to get more time working with my bullet mic!
Tracy
The Scarlett and the ipad plan will work fine. The only variable is that some ipads produce enough power for the scarlett and some don't. If yours doesn't, you'll need a camera connection kit from apple so you can supply power at the same time. I believe the ipad pro is the one that does provide enough power. You just plug that into the USB C on the ipad, then plug your headphones and mic into the Scarlett. Load up some amp software and you're good to go.
Success! Focusrite Scarlett + iPad Pro with Garage Band + Lone Wolf Harp Attack+ Bullet Mic+ headphones = appartment peace and harmony. Thanks all!
The headphone impedance on your amp is not likely to be a problem, even though headphone impedances are typically a bit higher than speaker impedances (usually 32 ohms for consumer headphones, and up to 600 for studio quality cans, but even that is not likely to be problematic - they're all intended to plug into the same low-impdance jacks).
The bigger question is whether plugging into that external speaker jack will cut off the speaker output. If it does, you should be good to go, with appropriate volume adjusment downward for the smaller speaker sizes in your headphones.
Will your focusrite take a hi-impedance input from the mic? Guitar jacks are usually fine for that purpose.
The other big question is how you can interface the Scarlett to the iPad; not sure how that works. Other may know more than I do on this.
The Laney and headphones may be the simplest solution.