[olug] Linux as a guitar amp

[A-Wal]

Well, I actually got this to work after a bit of tweaking.  It's not as 
hard as I thought it would be.  I have a SB Live 5.1 sound card with a 
Live Drive on the front, and the mic input jack on the Live Drive is the 
same size as my guitar uses.  So, I was able to plug my guitar straight 
into my Live Drive, and actually record sound like it was a mic.  I then 
installed Jack listed below, and it worked just as it says it does.  
However, I did notice a small latency like you guys said might happen.  
It's about a half-second latency from when I hit the string to when it 
plays the sound.  So, if you are playing an acoustic over it, which my 
brother actually did with his, it sounds like there is an echo.  With my 
electric guitar, it was just a half second off while you were playing.  
I did read that there is a low latency kernel you can install that 
allows the jackd daemon to run in real time as a user, but I never 
installed it to try it out.  Supposedly, the low latency kernel would 
allow for almost instantaneous throughput of the sound.  I'm sure it 
also has applications in other fields, such as video.  I did have some 
trouble with the tuner software, mainly not installing or running, and 
most of them were just a hack somebody through together to see if they 
could write a tuner.  I found that a $20 tuner device from the music 
store works far better than anything I could find on the internet, *nix 
or not.

A-Wal wrote:

> I'll be sure to let you guys know how things go.  It may be awhile 
> though.  First, I'm still learning Linux, and second, I have to learn 
> what to do with my guitar.  Hopefully things will go well.  At least I 
> know now that there's a small chance I may actually be able to do this 
> myself.  And yeah, the tiny amp I have works fine for learning scales, 
> but I'm a computer geek and wanted to use my comp. :)
>
> Daniel Pfile wrote:
>
>> I havn't hooked mine up in a long time either. The biggest problem 
>> is  latency. Unless you have a really fast computer you'll be 
>> tearing  your hair out playing through it. However, there are some apps:
>>
>> http://www.gnuitar.com/ - Guitar effects
>> http://jack-rack.sourceforge.net/ - Effects
>> http://ardour.org/ - Recording
>>
>> My advice? Spend your time learning how to play through your $10 
>> amp.  It just needs to make the sound come out. Once you decide you 
>> really  like guitar go to a pawn shop and get a line 6 pod or a 
>> behringer  vamp. I'd lean toward line 6 (I have a behringer amp with 
>> the vamp  dsp built in and it's not that good, but it's cheaper). 
>> Those two  products use special processors to simulate all kinds of 
>> amps, you  just plug it into your stereo. Line 6 also makes a thing 
>> called the  guitar port, which is windows only, but has just the dsp 
>> in it. You  control it through usb. It's about 1/3 cheaper than a 
>> standalone, but  you need windows. I still play through my little $10 
>> amp in my living  room with my big one in the office (but then again, 
>> I'm a bad  guitarist). You just need something to jam on now, you'll 
>> get better  and know your needs down the road.
>>
>> If you try gnuitar let the list know how it goes please, I could be  
>> completely wrong and linux guitar processing could have came a long way.
>>
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