Help with setting up home practice gear.

[Barks]

I want to get my practice stuff set up at home and wondered if anyone could help me.

Mostly I have been using my Tascam Bass Trainer with headphones and also run my iPod into the Tascam some of the time as I can set up playlists to work on.

Ideally it would be nice to be able to use this setup some of the time with some speakers as an alternative to headphones. Does anyone use the Tascam or iPod in this way?

If i went for some speakers does anyone know what sort of spec I should be looking for?

Or should I look at something else entirely?

I have thought about practice amps with aux input facilities for iPods etc but thought that some monitor speakers might be better for lower volume practice.

 

Any ideas would be gratefully recieved.

 

Neil

 

[Tom Capasso]

Pricing will vary greatly for any way you go. The real question to me is "how loud" and "what level of quality".

 

Many practice amps do offer that aux input jack to include a music source. You'll have to decide on the fidelity of the amp in this case. Note that there are more expensive amps that offer this as well. I use my EA iAmp500 for this sometimes.

 

You can take the line-out from your Tascam and feed it to any amp and speakers. I'm sure that the bass will be "prominent" in the mix, so you'll want speakers that can take whatever volume you'll be cranking. If your volume will be small, others here can do a better job of recommending speakers. Certainly studio monitor speakers can "take it", but I don't know what to recommend.

 

For myself, I use my amp as described above, or play the music through my computer speaker setup (and bass through my bass amp). This isn't high-quality super sound, but it works for me and avoids the issue of combining the sources when I'm listening out loud.

 

Next?

Tom

[davio]

I'd advise using a bass amp and stereo or pc for the music as Señor Capasso suggested. One way or another you'd need a way to amplify the signal from your Tascam and at that point you might as well just use a practice amp.

 

Any other suggestions?

[Joe Bloe]

At home I use:

 

Itunes on a computer fed into a mixer (via a DI box)

Bass fed into mixer (via a DI box)

Behringer UltraFex Pro (as an equalizer)

300 watt power amp (stereo)

2 15" Kustom floor monitors

 

You can mix the bass and the music as you want, and output to either the floor monitors or headphones.

[Eric VB]

Ok, the setup you want to be able to use either with headphones or speakers has:

(a) a headphone output to drive headphones, [CHECK]

(b) a line out to send to a line level signal to audio equipment.

 

Note that the line out alone is not powerful enough to drive regular speakers. At the very least you'd also need an amplifier. However, line level would work fine with powered speakers. (These are just speakers with a built-in amplifier.)

 

I have three questions for you:

(1) Do you want to use some equipment you already own, like a home stereo?

(2) What kind of budget are you looking at?

(3) Are you willing to pay more for audio equipment that might be useful outside of this application?

[Paul K]

All you need is an amp and a couple of speakers. Since you're listening to stereo iPod tunes through this setup, two speaks and a stereo amp will be much more pleasing than just one speaker or a bass amp. I use a regular stereo receiver (well, 5 channel surround reveiver but I only us the front left and right). My "studio" speakers are cheap. Just a pair of Yamaha three way home stereo speakers with a 10" woof that cost me about $100 new. Keep the iPod plugged into the bass trainer, and you won't even have to buy a mixer. Just take the line out (or the headphone out if there isn't a line out) of the bass trainer and plug it into the aux input of the receiver.

 

At home, I'm considering swapping these speakers with the sub and satalite speakers I have on the porch, so that way I can get the satelites more at ear level. The Yamaha ones are suspended from the ceiling, and they sound a fair bit better when I stand up. But they're too big to either put on my desktop or to angle down so they fire at me. My point is that it's probably more important how it's set up than which amp and speakers you end up buying.

 

Peace

Paul K

 

[Rocky McDougall]

On your Tascam you have the ability to balance the bass with the recorded music. I use mine quite often. I personally prefer running into a good Hi-Fi stereo sysem so that all of the instruments sound well. Most bass amps cannot cover these frequencies.

Rocky

[Phil W]

Yep, you got the answers above. I've occasionally run the Tascam through my bass rig as I don't have a hi-fi in my practice room/bedroom.

[Barks]

Thanks for the thoughts everyone. As ever there are quite a few good options.

 

Neil

[SteveC]

I use my Bose Companion 3 speakers. I run my computer sound through them and my bass through the "aux in" adn it works fine. Not super loud or anything, but it's just practice. All I need is my cable and bass. Pretty slick really.

[MvW]

For practicing I bought an inexspensive mixer that lets me connect a CD walkman, iPod or the output of my computer to it and I can then mix my bass signal in as I need it. This has been an ideal set up for me, particularly when just using headphones. I can also run the outputs to a practice amp or some other amplified monitors. Since I've been using this set up, I haven't used my Bass Trainer at all (hence my signature).

For just playing the iPod, you can use any powered computer speakers that have an 1/8" jack on the end - just insert into the headphone jack and adjust your volume to taste (start about halfway up on the pod).