Quote Originally Posted by JohnnyE View Post
Hope you don't mind my asking in this thread... But I'm hoping the guitarist subscribers can help me here.

I've played most of my life, self taught jamming over CDs, but really, never improved in 30 years.

I'm going to have a go at the trinity college rock guitar exams.

I need a way to play, with the option of headphones for quiet practice, a mix of audio track and myself on electric guitar. For the digital exams, I have to record and submit 3 performances and so I need to be able to record the mix to MP4 video. The submission doesn't have to be any more than a smartphone recording mind you, so the real issue is a way to blend me and a track to headphones.

Where on earth do I start?! I only have a selection of pedals (boss mostly) and a marshall valve amp.

I was wondering if a boss multi effects unit would be a good starting point. I see they have aux in and headphone out.

Any advice from fellow players will be much appreciated.

I have a Boss GT-001 - it's ideal for live recordings over backing tracks. You don't need to use the aux in.

So: for this my setup is:

1. set the output of whatever you use to play the backing track to the GT-001.
2. modify the settings of the Boss unit so "loop" mode is on (it's off by default). This sends the backing track + guitar to the USB as output.
3. set the guitar level so it's mixed nicely with respect to the backing track, using the sensitivity setting on the Boss, and for fine tuning, the guitar volume control.
4. connect the headphones and put 'em on
5. Select your desired patch on the GT-001
6. start a webcam recorder app, with the audio input setting assigned as the GT-001
7. hit 'record', start the backing track, widdle away. You'll hear your guitar over the backing track through the headphones, and the webcam recorder will get the same audio via USB.