How can I .....?

[MikeL]

Greetings,

I need some help here. I'm looking for a way to mix my guitar output with a backing track into headphones.

This is for after the family goes to sleep so I need to keep it quiet. What I've been doing is running my guitar through a Digitech RP-250 and listening through the headphone jack. That works okay but there are two problems. One is that the volume is a little weak. The second issue is that I'd like to play to a backing track. So I'm thinking there must be some piece of hardware that can take two inputs and apply some modest amplification capability and then output the mixed signal to a headphone jack. I hope that is comprehensible in spite of the horrible lack of clarity I provided. Does anybody know of an easy and modestly priced solution? Thanks in advance.

[12bar]

Greetings,

I need some help here. I'm looking for a way to mix my guitar output with a backing track into headphones.

This is for after the family goes to sleep so I need to keep it quiet.

I have this situation since 16 years...

First thing is: do you want to use a computer or not?
I use a PC and an external soundcard + guitar software and so it's easy to play everything through my PC headphones.

For an analog device I'm sure other are much better informed than me...

[MikeL]

I'll probably want to run this through a PC eventually to record a song or two but, for now, I'd prefer to have it set up as a stand alone system (i.e., computer not being necessary).

That said, I'm not opposed to running everything through a laptop if I can set it up easily (I'm not sure where an addtional soundcard comes into play). Whatever I end up with, it has to appear to be uninteresting to the destructively curious mind of my 3 year old son.

[ratfinkdan]

Hi Mike, this is what I did I got a small mixer, mine is a berringer but there are many brands out there, I think its an 8 channel mixer it has 4 single channels and 2 stereo channels. They are not very expensive. I plug my boss multi fx into 1 mono channel, plug a cd player into a stereo channel and a drum machine into the other stereo channel, you can plug your headphones in and balance all the volumes just the way you want them, very simple setup, I also run the out put from a digital recorder into it and run it to a power amp to power my studio monitors. So later if you want to get into recording, or add some studio monitors, you can add to your setup as time goes by. Been using this setup for probably 10 years without any problems like I say very simple and economical setup that will work great for you, hope that helps some. Dan

[VikingBlues]

There is also the possible use of something like the Vox AmPhones. I've not tried these, so I can't say how good / bad they are, or what sort of volume they produce.

http://www.voxamps.com/amphone/

They let you play your guitar through them and also have an aux input so you can plug an mp3 player or whatever in to hear the backing track.

Four Versions of the headphones:-
The "AC30" version.
The "Twin" version.
The "Lead" version.
The "Bass" version.

Fx wise there is chorus/delay/reverb for the guitar versions, and a compressor for the bass version.

When the power is off they can be used as conventional headphones.

[MikeL]

Thanks gentlemen,

Those headphones look pretty slick (and I need a new pair since the padding on my current phones are disintegrating, leaving sticky black rings around my ears ).

While digging around the net I found this device: http://www.roland.com/products/en/JS-5/, which looks almost perfect for my needs but it doesn't seem to be made anymore (and the new models cost more than I'm willing to spend at the moment).

I guess a trip to Guiltar Center is warranted to see what else may be out there; those visits are never cheap.