Feb 14, 2008 12:35 pm OK the violin probably uses a piezo (pronounced Pie-A-zo) pickup to translate the string vibrations into electronic impulses. Those impulses are very very weak so plugging them directly into speakers won't produce any sound whatsoever.
You'll need 2 phases of amplification:
- preamp
- power amp
Luckily for you, you probably already have the power amp taken care of. Your computer speakers probably have an AC power plug that you have to plug into the wall, that's where computer speakers get their power for amplification.
But the preamp is what most people don't just have lying around. What you want here is something that will accept an instrument-level signal (like the signal coming out of your violin) and translate it into a Line Level signal. then you can put that line-level signal into the Line-in of your computer's sound card and use some software to route that signal out to your computer's speakers.
The preamp will probably require a gear purchase. There's currently a great deal on the ART TubeMP preamp at Musician's Friend:
www.musiciansfriend.com/p...eamp?sku=180581
For your purposes, this should suffice. There are lots of preamp options, do some shopping around and see if you find anything more appealing.
For a basic setup, you'll need to adapt the 1/4" cable that the preamp outputs into an 1/8" plug that your computer's sound card will accept.
Now grab some software to route the signal to your speaker. Kristal Audio Engine is free software that's perfectly suited for this due to their LiveIn feature, designed exactly for this purpose (playing instruments, using your computer & speakers as your amp):
www.kreatives.org/kristal/
The help and bulletin boards there at Kreatives.org can guide you through the process of getting everything set up for Kristal.
One downside to this is the inherent latency. this is the delay between the time you pluck a note on your instrument and the time it comes out of the speakers. With a stock sound card, it can be significant and annoying. You can try to use the ASIO4ALL drivers for your sound card to bring down the latency to more acceptible levels.
Good luck!
