What's the best cable for my original iPhone, if I'm using it for live music?

December 17, 2009 10:03 AM

I want to play some iPhone music apps live on stage with my band. I'd like to plug my iPhone into an amp. However, I have the iPhone 2G (The original) which doesn't have a normal headphone-out. This output is going bad, anyway. Is there a cable to get sound from the dock connector so I could feed it to the amp?

If you play music live with an iPhone (especially the original) how do you do it? Also, have you encountered any problems? Any tips/tricks?

Also any music creation app recommendations would be nice.

Thanks in advance for your help.

posted by ejfox to Technology (6 answers total)

Best answer: There are adapters for the recessed headphone jacks on the original iPhones. But the line-out on the dock connector will probably sound better anyway, especially plugged into a PA system. There's lots of line out adapters for the dock connector. PocketDock is a nice one with a good form factor.
posted by zsazsa at 10:21 AM on December 17, 2009 [1 favorite]

Any of the Apple docking stations for the iPod should do this.
It has a line out plug.
posted by digividal at 10:51 AM on December 17, 2009

Response by poster: I should specify, I'm not going to want a dock while I'm playing live- I've tried to use the instruments like this and I find it near impossible. I'm talking specifically about a cable so I can move around and still play.

The PocketDock looks great! Think that's what I'll probably get.

I was envisioning a cable specially made for live iPhone music but maybe that's not so big a market yet. Haha.
posted by ejfox at 11:39 AM on December 17, 2009

Best answer: You can look for a dock connector to audio adapter. Monoprice has an adapter cable from dock connector to 1/8" stereo audio and another one with both 1/8" stereo audio and USB.
posted by andrewraff at 11:56 AM on December 17, 2009

I think you can still buy third-party headphone adaptors from the Apple Store. Also, be sure to switch your iPhone to airplane mode onstage, or there could be massive signal interference...
posted by sharkitect at 12:21 PM on December 17, 2009

DealExtreme sells a dock to 3.5mm RCA for quite cheap.
posted by namewithoutwords at 4:10 PM on December 17, 2009