Recording with Line Inputs

Many electronic instruments or other electronic sound sources, such as a smartphone, will have a line level output. Yes, the headphone output is line level. If you want to record this, the proper way is to plug it into a line level input.

Remember lesson 23 where we explained that a preamp’s job is to boost a weak signal, and bring it up to line level for the converters to have a proper strength signal? Well, if the signal is already at line level, then it does not need to go into a preamp.

Most electronic instruments will have a line level output. This will usually be a 1/4” jack with a balanced output. If you don’t know what that means, check out lesson 11 on Analog Audio Cables. Sometimes the line out will be an XLR jack. Most of the time, a line output will be balanced, but not always, sometimes it might be an unbalanced output.

Let’s look at this electronic piano. It has a headphone output, and a 1/4” balanced line output. So if I want to record the sound from this piano, I would get a balanced 1/4” cable and plug it into this output on the keyboard, and into the line input on my recording interface. It’s that easy.