Play back on Vista

October 8, 2007 7:11 AM

I like to plug in my guitar to my computer and play, but i just bought a new HP machine with Vista and it won't work. Anyone encounter this problem with not being able to plug in devices and play back through the microphone jack?
posted by daveed66 to computers & internet (4 comments total)

A line level signal (guitar) is different from a microphone signal. You would be much better off with a USB interface designed for guitar, such as something on this page.
posted by omnidrew at 8:00 AM on October 8, 2007

Does your computer have a different input you can use? There is often a mic in and a line in. Neither is really ideal for your guitar, unless you have some kind of pre-amp and then you usually want line-in.

Are you using some kind of software to listen to it? On my computer and many others I've had, you don't hear anything from the line-in unless you use a program that "listens" to it, like Guitar Rig, or Cubase or something.
posted by RustyBrooks at 8:17 AM on October 8, 2007

I'm running it in through a Boss Micro BR. It worked on my XP Toshiba. The new box has i mic built in with a camera. I've seperated the mics in the sound applet but that dosen't do it.
posted by daveed66 at 8:27 AM on October 8, 2007

What scenario are you using it in (i.e., what program are you using?) I believe XP just passes the microphone input through to the speakers, whereas for Vista, an applications has to actually be using it. By googling "Vista microphone passthrough", I found several blog posts about this. Here's a comment on some guy's blog that vaguely describes how to fix it. I'm not on my Vista PC right now, so I can't verify, but maybe it'll help.

If that's not it, have you made sure you have the up-to-date drivers? I was having trouble with my microphone sounding really fuzzy in Vista until I upgraded to newer drivers, which fixed it.
posted by !Jim at 11:32 PM on October 8, 2007