How to Make a Guitar Foot Pedal Work With a Computer

Make a guitar foot pedal work with your computer so you can play your favorite effects without an amp. Play along with software that provides electronic recordings or metronomes, and make recordings of your own. Musical instruments can interface with sound mixers to create multiple layer recordings. Plug an electric guitar, bass guitar or acoustic guitar (with a pick-up) into your computer to play along to music software with your effects pedal.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• USB guitar cable
• Guitar cord
• Guitar music software (optional)

1. Connect your guitar to the foot pedal. Plug one end of a standard 1/4-inch guitar cord into the guitar, and the other end into the pedal's input. If you're playing an acoustic guitar, plug the pick-up cable jack into the pedal.

2. Plug the foot pedal into the computer. Plug the USB guitar cable's 1/4-inch jack into the pedal's output. Plug the type-A connector into an open USB port on the computer.

3. Turn on the pedal. Click on the taskbar's volume icon to adjust the sound level for your computer speakers.

4. Use music software to play with digital effects, make recordings, overdub, play along with recorded music files or create sheet music notation as you play. USB cables are often sold in packages with software disks, or codes for software downloads.