Using a pickup with an acoustic guitar in Garageband with a macbook Air; what gives????

That doesn't make sense to me. If you plug something into the line-in port (that's what you did, right?), GB has no why of knowing what it is that you plugged in - a microphone, a pickup, a line-out from a pre-amp, whatever. It just takes the analog input and digitizes it, and then you can run the signal to any real instrument or guitar track. So what works for "acoustic guitar" (or any of the real instrument presets) should also work as the input signal for an electric guitar track.

Another thing: are you sure you are really recording through the line-in, or is it just the internal mic picking up the acoustic guitar's sound?

It seems to me, whe you install and use a pickup on an acoustic guitar, it is now an electric guitar. This is because the audio is picked up by the pickup and electrically connected to the amp, which in this case is the mac running Garageband.

Garageband is using this same logic. If you tell garageband you have an accoustic guitar that mean the guitar has no pickup and Garageband must use the microphone to get the sound from the acoustic guitar.

So .....

1. if you have an acoustic guitar with no pickup tell Garageband it is an acoustic guitar and garageband will get the sound through the mic.

2. If you have an acoustic guitar with a pickup and want to use the pickup, then tell garageband it is an electric guitar and garageband with get the sound from the pickup.

sargeek1975 wrote:

Why won't garageband recognize the line in, when that's how everyone says to hook it up?

http://www.bulletsandbones.com/GB/GBFAQ.html#recordlinein

(Let the page FULLY load. The link to your answer is at the top of your screen)

It looks like the headphones jack only accepts input from some headset models, it's not a real line-in. Sorry.

I tried the same with my guitar, no luck. One thing I noticed, is that line in actually works but only for the guitar tuner that comes with garageband. So when I strum, tuner picks up the sound and works just fine, but it doesnt record anysound and the line in meter doesnt show any sound detection. Its frustrating.

Some Macbooks have 1/8" jacks that serve as either input OR output jacks (you can choose which from within the System Preferences). However, the Macbook Air isn't one of them - its 1/8" jack is output ONLY.

Any efforts you've made thus far to record your guitar have been picked up solely by the MBA's built-in microphone which, though sufficient for video chatting, isn't any good for music recording.

You need to get a USB interface for your system. If you're recoridng with microphones (i.e. using XLR cables) then you need something along the lines of this:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/USBDualPrePS?utm_source=Google&utm_medium =PPC&utm_campaign=none&gclid=CLv_-equ6bMCFU-d4AodYCwA1Q

If you want to simply plug your guitar's 1/4" cord into your computer in order to, for example, record using Garagebad, then you need somethig like this:

http://guitartousb.com/behringer-ucg102-guitar-to-usb-interface/

If someone reads this and is making the choice between the two above interfaces, Art and Behringer go with the Art it has two channels with either XLR or 1/4" input.

Actually, the ART only has two XLR inputs; everything else (on the back) is output.