Berhinger makes an active DI box that will boost that little ol piezo nicely. Can't remember what I paid but it's worth it. They make some really nice products at a working man's budget.
@ Vince - I'm sure there are other easy solutions, but I do like Garage Band. I use it an way to quickly record musical doodles as I'm working things up & out. For the way I use it, it works well as a simple multi-track recorder. I have preset "song" arrangements that I use as a starting place based on what I'm doing. Perhaps best of all for me, it's already paid for! Sometimes I wonder about using Ableton (the lite version). What multi-track recorder do you use?
Vince Stark said:
You need to get a preamp or a D\I box. Garage Band Is also a worthless pile of crap, unless your recording hip-hop! Save yourself the aggravation and buy a small 2, 4 or 8-track recorder. They're really good, and affordable! I actually wiped Garage Band off my Mac...
I use a Tascam US-122 a (now discontinued) audio/USB/midi interface, and so far it's worked well. BTW, A friend jokingly said when he saw my acoustic diddley bow "Where's the USB connector?" I told him it was completely wireless.
Aint no way round it... you need a pre-amp to boost that weedy signal if you want any flexibility whilst recording.
I used to run everything through a little 12 channel mixer with a compact little preamp thingy (check ebay)... worked a treat.
I bought a Tascam US-122, they are about $150 and they work great, as for using Garage Band, I use it all the time and I've done 15 track overdubs with it and never had a problem even doing classical music, I give it an 8.5
You need to get a preamp or a D\I box. Garage Band Is also a worthless pile of crap, unless your recording hip-hop! Save yourself the aggravation and buy a small 2, 4 or 8-track recorder. They're really good, and affordable! I actually wiped Garage Band off my Mac...
What I have recently done is to adjust the graphic eq settings ( I currently have 2 for guitar ), then use the overdrive setting with the level all the way down. So far, so good. (Here's a tip: turn the level setting up, and you will pick up ambient sounds, like television and radio, through the piezo, along with your picking). Hmmmmmmm.......ambient sound. Hery, maybe we can get Brian Eno in on this conversation...
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Vince Stark said:
I used to run everything through a little 12 channel mixer with a compact little preamp thingy (check ebay)... worked a treat.