Hello all, I plug my bass into a Fender practice amp and use my macbook to play backing tracks so I can play along. Should I buy a small mixer so I can play it all through my amp? Is there another way you’d suggest I go about this? Thanks
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A lot of amps have a line in jack. I think my Joyo Monomyth pedal has a line in and XLR out so you could get that, an eq, and distortion for a decent price too.
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There are several options
You can get a mixer and connect all of the inputs into the mixer and out to the amp.
You can get a Digital Audio Interface (DAI) and connect your input directly to DAI and computer and out to the amp.
It used to be much simpler when phones has audio jack, lol.
You can also get something like this to use with your phone. It takes USB-C. Later you can use your phone camera to record your playing or covers.
https://a.co/d/49DqOw0
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I’ve got a mixer. I use mine to run the sound to my amp straight off the board but also as a DAI to my macbook. I don’t use the line in on the board or to the amp anymore though. For songster or whatever course I’m working on, I run the sound from the headphone jack on my laptop to a separate speaker so it isn’t muddy or fighting with my bass signal. When I’m recording a cover, I turn off my amp and use that speaker so the mix is something a little more normal sounding (I do a final mix with headphones on normally).
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My home stereo is 16ch 1U rack mixer into a DSP into 4ch amp into 2 way speakers. I like it. I run everything through it. I have a BT receiver, PC, radio, bass pre and sometimes my turn table and CD player too into the mixer. All the gear is 19" rack. I just love the ability of having all inputs connected and not messing around with cables all the time. And since I’m not going through a DAI it’s all stand alone and doesn’t depend on the PC. The only thing I might want to add to it would be a patch panel to connect my bigger amps more easily but to be honest I rarely do that.
Edit: That said I’m also a lunatic who has karlson K15 loaded with eminence kappa 15a and JBL 2446J on 2380A horns as speakers. Am planning on replacing the K15 with 2x beyma 15lex1600fe per side though. Kind of sick of the karlsons.
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I’d say having a simple mixer (or two or three) is totally worth it. Combining signals is something you’re going to have to do, and being able to do some of it in the analog/wiring domain is handy especially for monitoring.
I have a dead simple, $30, “MouKey” active mixer from Amazon. It runs off USB C and accepts 6 1/4 TRS inputs and outputs on another 1/4 TRS, and all it does is mix. Using it to route my FX box, MPC, and PC to my amp, and will probably grab another one to route my bass and gu**ars to the FX box in the near future so I can just leave em plugged in.
