Apogee Jam for Acoustics?

[SprintBob]

If you are limited by mediocre room acoustics and you are simply trying to record yourself for self critique purposes, would the Apogee Jam with an acoustic guitar plugged into it and then the Jam into an iPad offer a good solution to get a clean and accurate recording with minimal background noise? All of the examples I have seen of it in use have been with electric guitars. My iPad interface would be GarageBand. Since my Taylors have on board pre-amps, I would wonder if I could go straight to Garageband's audio recorder or have to use the amp interface (which models only electric guitar amps).

Thanks for sharing any insight or experience.

[DGFreeman]

You can plug into Jam and go straight into garage band as an Audio track. No need to use the amp sims. I always turn off GB's noise gate when using Apogee Jam, especially for acoustic as it often kills the sound of a sustained note/chord. The Jam is a great little interface that I use all the time with my iPhone, iPad and Mac. It is small, light and requires no setup. It handles the output from a Taylor guitar quite well and should serve you well. There will be no background noise as you are running directly into the DAW.

[SprintBob]

Thanks for the reply, that was very helpful.

[SprintBob]

Ordered one today from Sweetwater, will give a report next week of how well it works for me.

[FlyFast]

I use one frequently to record my Rainsong into either Garage Band or Audacity. It works great!

[The Colonel]

if i have Apogee One, can i plug in acoustic with K&K mini soundboard pickup directly, or do i need preamp?

[SprintBob]

The Apogee Jam is FANTASTIC! If you have a Jam, an Ipad (or iPhone or Mac), and Garageband, you have the tools to produce a clean recording of yourself playing with zero to minimal background noise. The Jam works very well with the Taylor electronics on all of my Taylors (both ES1 and ES2). I've not tried it with the Fishman electronics on my Rainsong but probably this evening.

Last night I did about 8 recordings with my Taylor guitars. I used the ES1/ES2 pre-amp controls on the guitar going straight into the Audio Recorder on GB. The recordings are coming out clean and you really do not have to worry about any background noise at all. In fact, I was playing along to songs I am learning in each case and you do not hear them in the recordings. If you see another post on this forum I did recently, I was having trouble with hearing my breathing trying to record using my Apogee Mic, the recordings seemed "boomy", and any background noise could also be heard. The Jam seems to have solved all of that as well as giving me a pretty balanced sound playback. While the end result is certainly not a professional recording, as a tool for learning it's awesome (and only $99).

Thanks Apogee for making it so easy for the beginner!