Guitar through PC to produce quality sound at low volumes?

[breeza]

Hi,

I have not used my electric guitar at home in some time because my amp is way too loud for the wife to cope with

I am looking for a flexible/upgradeable solution that sounds good at low volumes. My current idea is to connect my guitar to my PC and use something like Guitar Rig to play in real time.

I have a decent enough PC:
Asus P4C800-E Deluxe "Canterwood" (Socket 478) Motherboard
Intel Pentium 4 "Northwood" 2.8GHz (800FSB) with HT
Corsair 1GB DDR XMS3200LLPT TwinX (2x512MB) CAS2
Western Digital Caviar 160GB Special Edition 8MB Cache
Nvidia 6800GT Graphics Card

Will this bundle be a good solution for connecting guitar to PC resulting in low enough latency not to notice any lag in live play?

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/d2/page/shop/flypage/product_id/3999

If this is what I need is Dolphin the place I should be buying from?

Thanks in advance

Breeza

[breeza]

Got my finger over the buy option. £140 inc p&p.

Also thinking of adding an M-Audio Keystation 49e. Never played keyboards before so opting for a cheap £69 experimental purchase.

http://www.dolphinmusic.co.uk/d2/page/shop/flypage/product_id/3943/category_id/227a6dc532b32c4b73f9594d1e341ed5

Does this all sound OK?

[MrM]

No software plugin is as quick as hardware ; latency.
So for that reason a POD would be better.
Also, a POD gives you real knobs to tweak, just like a regular amp or effect pedal.
You can also use a POD with just headphones, or connect it to your home stereo. And you could use it as an outboard FX for your PC.

At least all the above is what I do in my house :)

I can play with lots and lots of sustain, and still at a very reasonable low level of sound. It keeps my neighbours happy...

[PCSF]

I think your solution of audiophile and audio buddy preamp,
is an excellent choice. Along with your powerful computer, I don't see any problems with latency.
A friend of mine is using a 900 Mhz computer with Guitar Rig,
audiophile 2496, and Behringer UB1204Pro mixer, and I think is very happy playing guitar to his headphones.

[breeza]

I have been doing some web research on a solution and I am now wondering if I could use a Guitar Port as the DI device instead of the soundcard & preamp.

The latest Guitar Port does have ASIO drivers which you can use for DI outside of the Guitar Port software but will the latency be acceptable for use with other amp simulator software I choose to use?

This would be a cheaper solution to the soundcard/preamp route, give me access to the line6 simulations and allow me to connect using a laptop!

[NeilNense]

ill second the POD, im im in that same boat for noise. i bought mine secondhand of ebay. The pod has some awesome sustain. Its also got the sickets reverb ive ever heard on a digital pedal.

[Mindwarper]

I'll second the pod and add a variaxe with whammy bar :)

[mcockbain]

Second the POD too, I dont have one myself, i have a HD 147 but the outputs are excellent - Line 6 really seems to know what they are doing with pre-amp emulation and speaker simulation. I have used a POD and they are really simple to use. Problem with guitar port is that if you want to use the sounds live you will need to take a computer out with you.

Regards