Is there anyone to make a 3.5mm headphone jack into an input jack?

[jimicrackcorn]

I'm trying to plug my guitar into my computer because I thought it would be fun so I thought I could just take an old 1/4 inch female jack i had laying around and wire it to a 3.5mm jack and just plug the guitar into the 1/4 inch plug and then put the 3.5mm into my computers input. Would this work or do I need a different 3.5mm for inputs?

Errr, I meant anyway in my title by the way.

 

[Nigel Goodwin]

The impedance and sensitivity of the input is wrong for a passive guitar, if it's an active guitar it stands more chance of working.

Try it and see.

However, you can get specific USB guitar adaptors at very reasonable prices, I would suggest using one of those instead.

 

[Blueteeth]

I've done it, although I just wired a 6.35mm (1/4") socket to a 3.5mm plug. My soundcards mic input was stereo, so I just wired the tip and ring together.

As Nigel rightly mentioned, the input impedance of soundcards, both mic in, and line in, is usually quite low, <10k. Guitar amps usually have a much higher impedance, up to a few Megaohms for valve amps. The result of plugging a guitar direct into the sound card will be a loss of highs - but it should work! And can be fun if you use Native instruments guitar rig 3, or 'amplitube'.

If you want to make a 'buffer', to convert the impedance (high Z to low Z) I'm sure people around here would be willing to assist. Usually a single transistor circuit is enough, like the tillman preamp.

 

[jimicrackcorn]

Ehh I can only get buzzing I'm new to all this stuff so I'm probably doing something wrong.

 

[#12]

A buzz is better than nothing. You probly got a wire wrong. Can you do photos for upload to this site?

 

[jimicrackcorn]

Here are some pictures, the quality sucks but it shouldn't be too hard to figure out.

**broken link removed**
This one is the quarter inch jack. I'm guessing the white wire is signal and the bare one is ground.

**broken link removed**
This is the right channel of the headphone wires

**broken link removed**
and this is the left

What I did was put the red and blue wires from the headphone jack into the white signal wire since it only outputs in mono. I just put the two plain copper wires into the ground from the quarter inch jack. Not sure if I'm doin it right or not.

 

[#12]

Picture 1 = true. bare is ground, therefore the other one (white) must be signal.
Then it gets crazy. It looks like you are trying to drive headphones with a guitar, and that will never work. I can't see any jacks or plugs in any of the pictures. That is what is stopping me.

 

[jimicrackcorn]

The blue and the red and the two copper ones are going to a 3.5mm jack. Will it not work the way it's wired?

 

[#12]

I can't see how it's wired. I can't see that there are any jacks in the photos, and I have a 6 month old, 24 inch flat screen.

 

[jimicrackcorn]

ok let me try again.

**broken link removed**
here is the quarter inch jack that I would be plugging my guitar into... you follow the grey wire to...

**broken link removed**
Here. The grey wire is on top. So I have the signal wire and the red and blue wires from the 3.5mm tied together, they're the wires on the bottom. The copper wires in the middle are tied to the ground wire that comes from the quarter inch jack and all that leads

**broken link removed**
here. This is the 3.5mm connector that has the red, blue and copper wires.

So this is just a regular headphone jack and I just tore the wires out of the speakers. Do I need to rewire the 3.5mm jack to make this work or will it work this way, with the red and blue wires?

 

[#12]

Now I'm getting the picture

Your theory seems correct, but the buzz says you are wrong, and electrons never lie. Time to get out an ohm meter and trace the continuity from the white wire to the tip and ring of the 3.5 connector. Do you have a meter?

It is a very common failure for the wires to lose contact in a molded plastic end.

 

[aalauzier]

If you are using wire from an old pair of headphones, you probably have insulated wire, which is a problem for soldering. you need to GENTLY scrape off the enamel coating to get a good contact for the solder. If you push too hard when scraping, the wire may break, so be careful. Another method that you can try is burning it off, the scraping the soot off of the wires. A Guitar output is in Mono, so if you get a Stereo 1/4" jack, and have both signal wires from the headphone jack going to the one tab on the jack, then you should get a good stereo output into your computer. You can also get DIY audio Connectors from you local electronics shop like Radioshack, where you just unscrew a plastic cover and solder you own wire to the terminals which is usually more reliable than using an old headphone cable.

 

[audioguru]

Headphones do not use shielded audio cable. So the bare copper wire in the cable might not be an important shield. Without a shield then there will be buzzing or a loud hum.

 

[jimicrackcorn]

I don't have a multimeter soo should I put electrical tape over the wires to shield them or would that not work?

 

[audioguru]

Electical tape is an insulator and does not block interference signals picked up from the electricity mains that is all around us.
A shielded audio cable has a conductive shield covering the sensitive signal wire. The shield blocks interference (mains hum or buzzing).

 

[jimicrackcorn]

I see... so does the mean that all hope is lost?

 

[aalauzier]

Not at all, if you do hear buzzing, it could be interference or a bad solder connection, so try using your own wire, you can use any type of shielded wire, you can either by some with a foil shield inside, or use some like from an RCA cable, which has an outer shielding of wire that is also the ground wire.

 

[audioguru]

If you do not use common shielded audio cable then all hope is lost.
Shielded audio cables are shipped with millions of audio devices. In North America they usually have an RCA plug on each end.

The Dollar Store and RadioShack have very poor quality shielded cables. $1.00 at The Dollar Store and $7.00 at RadioShack for exactly the same cheap Chinese one.

 

[jimicrackcorn]

Ok well I have some rca cables. So I need to use the wires from those on the 3.5mm jack? I already removed the old wires and marks where the left, right and ground go.

 

[jimicrackcorn]

Ok well I have some rca cables. So I need to use the wires from those on the 3.5mm jack? I already removed the old wires and marked where the left, right and ground go.