This article will talk through the required steps to connect an electric guitar to your iMac.
Why connect an electric guitar to your iMac?
Recording your electric guitar using Garageband
The main reason you might want to connect an electric guitar to your iMac, is to record yourself playing. And if you have an iMac, then there is a good chance you are using Garageband as your DAW (digital audio workstation).
Playing along to backing tracks
Many people also use Garageband and other software to play a backing track as a foundation to jam along with, or play some lead guitar. Though you can just play the backing track on your computer, and have your electric guitar plugged into an amp, but there may be some sounds and effects you want to use from Garageband on your computer, and it canbe easier to have everything coming form the same sound source, into a single set of headphones.
It is also possible to does this a lot quieter, if noise is a concern, and everything can come through your headphones without the need for any speakers or amplifiers,
Getting online guitar lessons/coaching/tuition
In the modern age it is also possible to get guitar lessons online, you so you may need your guitar hooked up to your computer so your instructoir can hear your playing directly.
How to connect an electric guitar to your iMac?
Your iMac cannect be connected directly to your iMac for two reasons. Firstly the plugs and leads are not compatible, and secondly the sound from your electric guitar needs to be converted to make it in to an audible and usable format on your iMac.
If you want to can get adapter for your guitar lead to make in plug into you iMac microphone port, and you will see that your iMac is unable to process the sound.
To fix this probem you will need an audio interface. An audio interface solves both the connectivity issues (plug and lead compatibility etc) and also convert your electric guitar playing into a signal that you iMac you detect and process.
There are a huge range of audio interfaces available for purchase. Some focus on provindg a single input, whereas other provide capacity to connect multiple different devices at once.
My personal favourite for the easiest way to connect an electric guitar to your iMac is the iRig, by IK Multimedia. The offer a range of different iRig products catering to different scenarions, but the iRig 2 is a seriously simple, but effective audion interface to get your electric guitar connected to your iMac.
A huge benefit of the iRig is that is also allows you to connect your electric guitar to your iPad, or iPhone, so you can take advantage of the iOS versions of Garageband.
