I tried taking lessons. I tried reading guitar tabs online. The only thing that worked was Rocksmith.
Music has long struck me as a kind of magic. In terms of my life essentials, it ranks only just below oxygen, food, water, shelter and love. For 11 years I have been attempting to conjure some of that magic myself by learning to play guitar.
8 awesome covers of video game music. 14 September 2015, 17:46 Updated: 6. The Legend of Zelda on classical guitar. A moment of relaxation courtesy of.
Yet for most of those years I practiced fitfully, and at some point I stopped improving. When my progress plateaued, so did my enthusiasm. Despite the pleasure I derive from watching a person with a six-string plugged into an amplifier, plucking and strumming to elicit beautiful noise, I seemed destined to never fully master this iconic instrument.
But then I discovered a video game that rekindled my obsession. It’s called Rocksmith, and it is designed specifically to teach people to play guitar. Earlier games, namely Guitar Hero and Rock Band, had shown that tens of millions of people could become hooked on playing fake, simplified instruments while fake, simplified musical scores scrolled down their televisions. After clocking in several jam sessions, many players even began to sound competent. But that expertise evaporated the second the game shut off.
Laurent Detoc, the North America president of Ubisoft, a game development studio, hated the gulf that separated actual and simulated musicianship. In 2011 he told the San Francisco Business Times, “I just could not believe the amount of waste that had gone in people spending so much time with plastic guitars.” His company had assigned some designers to figuring out how to make playing real guitars just as fun for gamers as jamming on a plastic replica. What they came up with is, to my mind, the purest demonstration of the power of gamification — using the principles of game play to make actual learning feel addictive. Case in point: I’ve learned to play more songs in two and a half years with Rocksmith than in the previous eight years of lackluster progress combined.
Jerry Cantrell, lead guitarist/vocalist of Alice in Chains, playing RocksmithMy attempts to learn guitar followed a path familiar to many teenage rock enthusiasts. They began with an acoustic guitar my parents gave me in 2004, for my sixteenth birthday, and weekly lessons with a tutor. My teacher — a bookish, chubby, middle-aged man who looked nothing like Jimi Hendrix — was prescriptive in his instruction. He told me that my left thumb must remain pointing skyward against the back of the neck, regardless of the notes or chord shape required. This dictum puzzled and infuriated me, as none of the popular musicians I’d seen in music videos were so staid in their playing; rather, they were fluid and catlike. I wanted to be like them.
Learning to read music was an unwelcome chore, too, especially when my setlist consisted of nursery rhymes to be wrung out one note at a time. I wanted to learn guitar because an expert player sounded and looked cool, yet there wasn’t much that was cool about my tutor’s dry approach. So I quit lessons.
Many of my favorite songs — from bands such as Tool, Led Zeppelin, Metallica and Rage Against The Machine — sounded thin and bloodless when ineptly fretted on an acoustic guitar. Eventually, my wallet lined with money saved from my first job as a dishwasher at a Sizzler restaurant, I acquired the desired technological upgrade: an electric guitar — a handsome, dark blue copy of the classic Fender Stratocaster — and a 30-watt amp.
Like millions of guitarists before me, I began trying to play by reading free online guitar tablature, which show where notes and chords are positioned on the fretboard, and how to play them. For a time I thrived on this self-directed learning. I’d sit in front of a computer screen for hours, mp3s blasting as I glanced between tab and neck, teaching my fingers how to grip the wood, earning the knowledge note by note. On weekends I’d jam with my more talented friends, hoping that I’d absorb their superior abilities through osmosis.
So it went for several pleasant years.
And then I became frustrated. I didn’t know how to improve my skill set, and I lost motivation. The instrument sat untouched for months at a time. Years, even. My guitar became a piece of home decor.
It would take something special to lift me from this funk. In August 2012 I discovered a video game disc marked Rocksmith, which came with what looked like a regular guitar cable. Most people haven’t heard of the game — it’s sold a few million copies worldwide, but unless you were browsing in a store or happened upon a review, you wouldn’t know it existed. The graphics look nice enough, but there’s nothing astonishing about the game’s mechanics. But I don’t care.
Here’s why: learning guitar is fucking hard. There’s a reason that millions of people start studying it but few stick with it. The learning curve is steep, and it can take years before you sound anything but incompetent. To have a game with an intelligent, intuitive design that supports and motivates this difficult act is one of the most extraordinary achievements in the history of video game design.
The idea behind Rocksmith is simple: to improve on Guitar Hero and Rock Band by plugging actual guitars into a gaming console. The technological insight that made it possible was Ubisoft’s ‘real tone’ cable. The cable plugs into the guitar to capture audio from the instrument, converts the signal from analog to digital, and sends the result to Rocksmith through a USB connection. Rocksmith then detects the notes within the instrument’s signal in real time, and displays that data on the screen as a ‘hit’ or ‘miss.’
The software leans heavily on the work of Ubisoft’s ‘note-trackers,’ such as Brian McCune. On McCune’s first day in the San Francisco office, in November 2010, he played an early build of the game for seven hours. McCune powered up the game, plugged the real tone cable into an electric guitar jack, and selected ‘Are You Gonna Go My Way,’ the catchy 1993 hit single by Lenny Kravitz. The song’s lead riff is played high on the guitar neck, a feat that demands ample string-bending dexterity. At the time McCune felt competent as a musician, but mediocre as a guitarist. “This thing took me to the next level,” he says. “It was unreal.”
He noticed how Rocksmith’s ‘dynamic difficulty’ feature intuitively offered him a sparse stream of notes that scrolled gently down the screen. As McCune successfully matched the notes and chords as they appeared, the notes came faster, before the game ultimately revealed the full mechanics of a song. “I could tell, from day one — this thing really works,” says McCune. “I was so excited at the implications of this technology, and how so many people were going to be given the avenue to achieve something they’ve always wanted, but didn’t know how to get there.” He remembers thinking on that first day: “This is my job? Are you serious? This is fantastic!”
He describes the role he was hired for as “the detailed analysis and transcription of music.” “We transcribe every note and nuance of any guitar or bass that appears on the recording. That’s step one,” he says. “The next step beyond that is to break down the performance into small iterations of each musical phrase.” In effect, this means that for every five seconds of music, the note-trackers prescribe at least one note for the player to attempt to fret on the guitar; if the player succeeds, more notes are introduced seamlessly. McCune, a bearded 31-year-old, is uniquely suited to this specialized role — he had spent many years arranging music for competitive high school marching bands, in addition to playing throughout the United States and at Carnegie Hall in New York City as a classically trained percussionist, orchestrator and composer.
McCune and his team of note-trackers listen carefully to each song and laboriously transcribe the individual notes and chords into Ubisoft’s custom-built software program. They slow down songs, isolate specific frequency ranges and look up live footage to see where on the fretboard the musicians are playing. “We’re hearing everything at once,” he says. “It requires a lot of meticulous, fatiguing, nuanced slowing-down of musical sections.”
After tracking all the notes, the next step — the most time-consuming — is to work on each song’s dynamic difficulty levels. “It’s this interesting style of adaptive learning: we want to make sure we’re introducing to players the path of least resistance to learning a music phrase,” he says. “It’s kind of like a giant puzzle: you have to unearth all the information, and then showcase an intelligent way to present the information to someone who’s never seen it before.”
Rocksmith is a video game, but its goal is to solve a real-world problem. There’s a name for this process: gamification, a word coined in 2002 by British computer programmer Nick Pelling when marketing his consultancy, which helped hardware manufacturers “evolve their electronic devices into entertainment platforms.” It wasn’t until 2010, however, that the term was popularized as the application of game mechanics and rewards to less obviously game-like contexts.
The smartphone exercise app Zombies, Run! — which encourages reluctant joggers to imagine that they’re being chased by zombies using audio prompts — is a fine example of this premise. So too is Minecraft, the enormously popular sandbox exploration game which offers precious few instructions to new players, instead encouraging free thought, experimentation, problem-solving and asking for help. When I wrote about Minecraft’s popularity among young children in 2012, one Australian parent — who enjoyed hosting a private server and playing alongside his twin 11-year-olds and their friends — told me, “It’s almost education-by-stealth, in the guise of a video game. It’s like hiding cauliflower in mashed potato.”
The phrase itself has long been problematic. Hardcore gamers and those within the traditional development industry tend to sneer at the concept. “Gamification is bullshit,” wrote author and game designer Ian Bogost in 2011, defining it as “marketing bullshit, invented by consultants as a means to capture the wild, coveted beast that is videogames and to domesticate it for use in the grey, hopeless wasteland of big business, where bullshit already reigns anyway.” Bogost suggested ‘exploitationware’ as a more accurate description of the use of gamification: to make the sale as easy as possible.
Such concerns are legitimate, yet Rocksmith doesn’t feel at all like exploitation. “With Rocksmith, you play it, then turn off your console, and it’s still there,” argues Elliott Rudner, a 31-year-old based in Toronto who runs a popular fan site, The Riff Repeater. “If your saved game gets wiped out, what did you really lose? You lost the game progress, but you still have that ability to play guitar.”
Paul CrossWhen Paul Cross, the director of design for Rocksmith, joins my Skype call with McCune at Ubisoft’s San Francisco studio, I ask what gamification means to him. After a pause, he replies, “It’s just finding ways to keep people engaged with the subject matter.” Later, Cross added, “a nicer way of saying it might be that we ‘learning-guitarified’ Guitar Hero.”
A key feature of Rocksmith is receiving immediate feedback on your playing: if you hit enough notes in a row, the song will get more difficult, but if you’re struggling, the game will take it easy on you until you catch up. After each song, a male voice-over — known among fans as ‘Rocksmith guy’ — issues statements ranging from “Could be better” to “You’re gonna be a superstar!” Rocksmith guy never tells you that you suck, or that you should give up guitar and try the triangle, instead. This positive reinforcement is mildly motivating; it’s reassuring to see and hear that you’ve done well.
Cross says that between the original release and an updated version, Rocksmith 2014, the games have sold over three million copies combined, and that new users made up about 70 percent of the 2014 audience. “With Rocksmith 2014,” he says, “We had more of an approach of, ‘Let’s make great tools; what do we need to do to empower our main users — the people who just wanted to learn songs, and that’s it?’”
I fall into this category: in the two and a half years since these games entered my life, I have rarely ventured beyond the first item on the menu, ‘Learn A Song.’ (It’s worth noting, however, that ‘Session Mode’ lets players jam with a virtual band, and the ‘Guitarcade’ contains mini-games to practice specific techniques. There’s also ‘Multiplayer’, which requires an additional ‘real tone’ cable to play with a friend.)
New guitarists are also encouraged to sign up for Rocksmith2014’s 60-day challenge, which asks them to invest at least an hour into the guitar each day while sharing their progress with fellow players online. The game has attracted a large, supportive community through Ubisoft’s forums, the game’s Facebook page (498,000 fans), an active subreddit (11,600 subscribers) and a weekly livestream that features the developers performing the new releases on Twitch.TV. A typical Reddit post, titled “Started in December, this is the result 4 months later,” shows a photograph of a television screen on which a player has achieved a 100 percent rating on a Bullet For My Valentine song after playing it 49 times. “For 4 months in, you’re doing a great job,” replied another Redditor. “Stick to it!”
Ask Paul Cross to name a particularly special moment since he began working on these titles in 2009 and he’ll bring up Audrey Shida, an 11-year-old who lives in Japan. “It’s still mind-blowing, seeing her progress, and go from someone whose guitar is longer than her — and she can play the bloomin’ thing!” he laughs.
Audrey Shida and her sister, KateAudrey lives with her American-born mother, Heather, and Japanese father in a town an hour away from Nagasaki. She has been playing Rocksmith since she was eight, starting with no musical knowledge. After encouraging her to spend a half-hour playing each day before school, and longer on weekends, her parents began filming her progress and uploading it to YouTube.
In July 2014, Audrey became a viral sensation, after one video showed her achieving 97 percent on the Slayer track ‘War Ensemble,’ while her younger sister Kate gave a spirited attempt at roaring, thrash metal-style vocals right beside her. It’s extraordinary to watch Audrey — then aged 10 — perform such a technical, difficult piece of music with apparent nonchalance, while at times doubling over in laughter at the antics of her younger sister. The juxtaposition of brutally aggressive masculinity and the girls’ amusement makes it one of the most adorable videos I’ve ever seen.
When I connect with Audrey via Skype in late March, she’s on a short spring break ahead of starting sixth grade in April. Audrey’s father is an amateur acoustic guitarist, and he thought the game might be a fun challenge for the whole family. “I kinda gave up,” Heather laughs. “It got embarrassing, so I stopped.” Audrey’s dad tried, too, with more luck. He soon convinced Audrey to do the weekly challenge on the forum. “That was a lot of fun, because the people in the forums were so nice,” Heather recalls. “They really helped her feel really good about trying harder every week, and made her feel very welcome. They could have been a whole bunch of jerks,” she says. “But they weren’t!”
Heather explains that the family lives in a rural part of Japan. “We have rice fields everywhere, volcanic mountains on one side, and no one around,” she says. “Which is good; they can be really loud, they can jump and scream and no one cares, but it would be really hard for us to have Audrey learn guitar. We have to travel over an hour each way to town. We’d probably do that once a week…” Audrey interrupts: “Man, that would suck!” Her mother agrees. “But here, you can do Rocksmith every day, and get new music every week,” Heather says, smiling at her eldest child. “A friend of mine has a daughter who is learning guitar the classical way. It’s just so strict: ‘Keep doing that over and over; no, you can’t learn a song yet, you have to do all this other stuff first…’ It’s been great just watching Audrey enjoy playing guitar to a song that she likes, and really having fun with it.”
There’s the keyword that’s often associated with gamification: fun. Making a game out of a task that’s often tedious, or difficult, or both. In many respects, learning guitar is a perfect candidate for this treatment, as it’s a popular global hobby that many people pick up, but few master. Marty Schwartz knows a bit about this. He’s been a guitar teacher for over two decades, and is now one of the most popular online tutors. His free YouTube lessons have accumulated an astounding 468million combined views in the last seven years, and he has established a prominent business around lessons at guitarjamz.com. A couple of years ago, Ubisoft approached the San Diego-based musician to promote Rocksmith 2014. They invited him to a presentation in San Francisco, where they loaded up ‘Session Mode,’ handed him a guitar, invited him to pick a scale and start jamming with a virtual band.
He liked what he saw and heard, and immediately saw its potential as a practice tool. Schwartz, 40, signed a yearlong contract worth $20,000 to promote the game in a seriesofvideos; the contract has since lapsed, yet he still has only kind words for Ubisoft’s creation. “I could trash the game right now if I wanted to,” he says with a smirk. “But I’m just being honest: I think it’s awesome, and a great tool for learning guitar.”
Ubisoft has always been careful to market the game as complementary to formal lessons, rather than a replacement. Naturally, they were keen to underscore that stance during their early discussions with Schwartz, too. “They didn’t want to go, ‘Hey, we’ve created this thing that’s going to replace you — you want to promote it?’” he says. “But as a guitar teacher, I’d never want someone not to try something — even another guitar teacher. If you want to learn flamenco guitar on the side, I can’t do that, so let me find someone who can. With Rocksmith, you can set your own pace, on your own time, and nobody is judging you. It’s just another tool in the toolbox.”
After the interview with Cross and McCune I powered up Rocksmith 2014 and spent the next two hours learning new tracks and playing old favorites, while alternating between guitar and bass in a variety of tunings and musical styles. Memorable moments included nailing the walking bassline of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘Manic Depression’ and the groovy middle eight of ‘Bombtrack’ by Rage Against The Machine; powering through the muscular riffs that conclude Muse’s ‘Knights Of Cydonia’ and the majestic chord progression of ‘Cherub Rock’ by The Smashing Pumpkins; noodling the timeless lead lick of Franz Ferdinand’s ‘Take Me Out’ and the eerie, descending riff in ‘My Own Summer (Shove It)’ by Deftones.
Rare is the gaming experience that meshes education and enjoyment so seamlessly and effortlessly. It doesn’t even feel like I’m playing a video game, because the controller is a guitar, and playing it has never felt like a waste of time.
There aren’t many video games whose first menu item offers players the chance to learn a song by playing a real musical instrument. There aren’t many games that allow both budding and established musicians the chance to become actual guitar heroes — in their own lounge rooms, at least. In fact, there’s only one.
One of your most frequently asked questions is how do you record a guitar on a PC, Laptop, iPad or Mac. How do you record the best, most engaging guitar sound?
In this post, I’ll start with five standard methods to record your electric guitar and then move on to how to record your acoustic guitar four different ways.
But before we start. To get your perfect guitar recording, you will need to experiment, listen, tweak, and try again.
There is no single way to get a great guitar sound. However, there are some standard ways to record your guitar, so don’t be afraid to try them all, and keep experimenting until you get the guitar sound that really moves you!
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1: Record direct from your guitar into instrument input on audio interface
What you’ll need:
- audio interface with instrument input (… eg Focusrite Scarlett Solo)
- guitar lead (… learn more about audio cables)
- recording software (… read more on music making software)
- plus an electric guitar or bass (obviously!)
Connect the audio interface up to your computer (or using a powered camera connection kit, to your iPad). Make sure you follow the instructions with your audio interface. Then simply connect your guitar direct to the instrument input on the interface.
You may not like the sound – in fact you almost certainly won’t! However, what you do is enhance the dry signal from your guitar with various plug-ins. These will allow you to get a really decent guitar sound by adding distortion, delay, chorus etc. or by simulating amps.
The great thing about this is you can keep tweaking and changing the sound of your guitar after you have recorded.
There are literally hundreds of fantastic fx and amp simulators to choose from. Start with Garageband for free, and work your way up. My particular favourite is Guitar Rig from Native Instruments.
2: Record direct from your guitar via guitar-usb interface
What you’ll need:
Other than your guitar, you just need a guitar-usb interface. These are devices designed as a one-stop solution, so you can record your guitar directly on your computer with one purchase.
This is a good budget solution, quick and easy. But, if you also want to record vocals, and other instruments, either now or in the future, then you might want to purchase an audio interface or USB mixer for that extra versatility.
3. Connect your guitar to an amp simulator, then from the amp simulator to the instrument input
![Guitar Guitar](/uploads/1/2/3/7/123725471/540939475.jpg)
What you’ll need:
As well as the above (ie audio interface, lead and recording software) you will also need an amp simulator such as the Behringer TM300 Tube Amp Modeler. Or, you could try running your guitar through any of your effects pedals. Then connect the output from the pedal into the instrument input of your audio interface.
This can give you a good guitar recording, and many people love this solution. It works well if you already have pedals that you love. The big disadvantage is you cannot tweak the guitar sound so much after recording. The advantage of the ‘dry signal’ in method 1 is you have infinite possibilities after recording.
4. Connect your guitar into your amp, then connect your amp’s line output to the line input of your audio interface
What you’ll need:
- guitar/bass
- guitar lead
- guitar amp
- appropriate cable to connect your amp to the line input (depends on model of amp and interface. You can read more about audio cables here)
- audio interface
- recording software
This is a good way to record your guitar if you love the sound of your amp, but you don’t want to go to all the expense and trouble to mic up the speaker. You simply connect your guitar to your amp as usual, then take the line out of the amp into your interface, and you are ready to record in the software of your choice.
When you follow this method, you have three volumes to tweak and control: your guitar, your amp and your interface. So you will have to take some time to tweak all the settings until you get the sound you are looking for.
Top tip: start with the volumes low and gradually increase them. Saves the risk of blowing anything!
5. Record the sound of your amp with a microphone
What you’ll need:
- Guitar/Bass
- Amp
- EITHER XLR dynamic mic, XLR lead and audio interface with XLR mic input OR Dynamic USB Mic
- Recording Software
This is the old standby approach, because you get to record the actual sound you’re used to hearing from your amp. And if you love that sound, then this might just be the best way to record your guitar.
The best mic for this approach is a dynamic mic. If you use an XLR mic, such as the Shure SM58, then you need an XLR lead to connect the mic up to the microphone input of your audio interface. For this to work you will need an audio interface with XLR microphone input. Starting from scratch? Then you could buy a complete recording studio package with interface, mic, software, XLR lead and headphones.
Another option is to use a dynamic USB microphone such as the Samson Q2U. (And the benefit of this one is it is dual format so it doubles up as an XLR mic too).
You will need to experiment with mic placement, and again the various volumes of the guitar, amp and gain control on the mic input.
How To Record Acoustic Guitar (4 Ways)
1: Record with a large-diaphragm condenser microphone and audio interface
What you’ll need:
- A good large-diaphragm condenser mic
- XLR lead (more information about audio cables)
- An audio interface with XLR mic input and phantom power
- A microphone stand
A large-diaphragm condenser mic is a great way to capture the depth of a guitar’s tone. You can position the mic in a number of ways. Each position accents certain aspects of the instrument’s sound. You will have to experiment quite a bit to figure out exactly where to put the mic to get the sound you want.
Start by placing the mic about 3 feet away from the instrument and point it directly at the sound hole. At this distance you will capture the rich sound from the sound hole, and the attack of the strings. However, you may find that you get some ‘booming’ and so subtly adjust the mic so it points slightly more toward the neck.
Also remember the room plays a role in the sound you end up recording. So once you have become familiar with your new recording equipment, consider whether you need to think about acoustic treatment.
2. Record direct from your acoustic guitar output into instrument input on audio interface
What you’ll need:
- audio interface with instrument input (… eg the BEHRINGER UMC22 audio interface)
- guitar lead (… learn more about audio cables)
- recording software (… read more on music making software)
- plus an acoustic guitar with 1/4″ output)
If your acoustic guitar is an ‘electro-acoustic’ and also has a 1/4″ output, then you can record direct from your guitar by connecting it to the instrument input on an audio interface.
The disadvantage is the signal you record will be quite ‘dry’ and probably won’t sound the same as the way you hear it when you play. Nor will you capture the sound of your fingers attacking the on the fingerboard.
However, the advantage is you don’t have to worry so much about the acoustic difficulties of your recording space.
3. A combination of 1 and 2 – record using a condenser microphone AND the 1/4″ output of your guitar
For this method you will need the same equipment as method 1 above:
- audio interface (must be at least 2-channel have instrument input AND XLR input, for example the Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface)
- large-diaphragm condenser mic
- XLR lead
- mic stand
- electro-acoustic guitar with 1/4″ output
- 1/4-inch guitar lead to connect to the instrument input of the interface
You will require an interface that has BOTH an XLR mic input and instrument input. And it must be at least 2-channel, so you can record both signals at once. The beauty of this method is you capture a nice clean signal direct from your guitar, which you can combine with the tone coming direct from the sound hole, plus you will pick up the sound of the fingerboard.
4. (A good budget option) record your guitar with a USB microphone
What you’ll need:
- A good quality USB Condenser Microphone
- A microphone stand
- Acoustic Guitar
If you are on a tight budget, then purchasing an audio interface, microphone, cables etc might be too much. In which case you could purchase a good quality USB microphone. The beauty of this is that you do not need any other equipment, it’s all built into the microphone.
So no need for an audio interface etc. The advantage of this is the price, and you should get a decent recording. The disadvantage is it is not quite so versatile. However, a USB mic is a useful bit of kit to own, even if you go on purchase an interface and XLR mic in future.
There are a range of ways to do this. Depending on your budget, you could purchase a simple computer guitar cable. Or better, a dedicated guitar recording interface. Here are quick links to the different ways you can record your guitar:The All-In-One Solution
If this is your first step in recording on your computer, then one of the most cost effective ways to get a complete solution is to go for a complete studio in a box. You get everything you need to record the guitar direct, or to mic up your amp. Plus you can easily overlay vocals with the included microphone, and you get all the software you need. Read our full reviews of the best all-in-one recording software and equipment bundles on the market. Our top pick for guitar is the Scarlett 2i2 Studio.
There are several ways of recording your guitar directly onto the hard drive of your computer. If you play an electric guitar, then the simplest way is to connect the headphone/line out from your amp to the line in of your soundcard. All you need to do this is a simple Computer Guitar Adaptor which has a standard jack input for your guitar lead on one end, and a mini-jack on the other. You can try out how this sounds by using the built-in Windows sound recorder software although better still download Audacity which is free and easy to use recording software. It’s also possible to buy a guitar cable with 1/4″ jack on one end and 1/8″ mini-jack on the other.You can also experiment by plugging your electric guitar directly into the mic-in socket on your sound card (or the mic in on your laptop). This will work but it may not give the high quality performance needed for a more professional sound. In general, electric guitars need a high impedance input, but although most computer soundcard’s mic inputs have a high impedance, it is not as high as a normal guitar input. This lower impedance can result in quality problems.
To help you find your way around generally if the sockets on your sound card are colour coded then the microphone will be pink, the standard single channel line-out or headphone will be green, and line-in will be blue. If you are using a laptop then usually there is a mic input next to the headphone socket.
If you have a standard generic sound card, then you may find that the above solution gets you going but the recording quality is not too good. Ordinary sound cards are better at sound output than recording and will often produce noisy low-quality recordings. You may also find that many laptops and macs do not have any line-in socket at all, and that the microphone socket, if available, is quite noisy. If this is the case or you want to make a huge improvement, then there a whole range of specially designed USB solutions for recording your guitar on your computer. The price range is huge so there should be something that suits your budget.
USB Audio Interfaces For Recording Guitar
Although the computer guitar cable is a simple and cheap solution, there are a whole range of dedicated devices which will offer massive improvements in quality. For the guitarist with a slightly bigger budget seeking a higher quality solution, there are a tremendous range of USB devices which have been specifically designed from the ground up to with your recording needs in mind. All of these eliminate the need to use your existing sound card for recording and provide a dedicated external solution with all the hardware and software you need to record your guitar. We are big fans of these dedicated devices, they are easy to use and install, have special inputs for guitar, usually come with a great software package and will massively improve the quality of your recordings.If you need more information before reading on then we have a whole article that explains exactly what an audio interface is for complete beginners.
If you are right at the budget end, and just looking for a simple connection, then you can buy guitar-USB linking cables which will easily and cheaply enable you to connect your guitar (electric or electro-acoustic) directly to your computer. You’ll then be able to record, add effects etc and you will get much better results than just going straight to the generic line-in on your computer.
However, many guitarists also want to be able to record vocals, so prefer to look for a device which will successfully record both guitar and mic. Fortunately there are plenty of dedicated interfaces available especially designed for guitar and microphone to USB recording and there is something to suit every budget.
All the USB audio interfaces that have guitar and mic input can be used to record guitar alongside a dynamic vocal mic. (Look for devices which also have on-board phantom power if you want to use a condenser mic too or instead – see below). These all-in-one devices offer great value because you need very little additional equipment to get started – just the device, a guitar cable, a decent microphone and then a pair of headphones or powered speakers and you’re away. The idea is they are all the computer hardware a guitarist needs to record guitar and vocals and most come with software too.
If you want to build a small guitar recording studio around a studio condenser mic, you’ll need to spend a bit more and be sure to purchase a device with phantom power. The condenser mic will also cost more than a dynamic mic. For studio recording, if you can stretch your budget this far you will get a good result .
Don’t forget, these USB Audio interfaces bypass your built-in sound card to give a great result, but you will need to listen to them through headphones or powered speakers (monitors) , as the sound will no longer come out of your existing computer speakers. Newbies often plug them in, start recording, then contact us because they can’t hear anything! The added benefit of buying one of these USB audio interfaces for recording your guitar and/or vocals is you can also set it up as your default audio output device (or sound card) so it gives your whole audio set-up on your computer a complete upgrade. Great for YouTube video and general music playback
Spending a bit more
We have looked at a couple of real budget solutions. What do you get if you spend more? Well you may want more inputs and outputs, more expensive devices often have a larger number of microphone inputs for example so you may have to consider how many things you want to record at once. And of course high end devices will have better analogue to digital conversion for a more pristine result. The old ‘you get what you pay for’ is true. On the other hand, if this is your first time out then you will find many of the sub £100 devices offer fantastic value and will get you up and running. Plus they have a great resale potential on eBay or Gumtree when you are ready to upgrade.
Using a Microphone to Record Your Guitar
Another option is to use a microphone to record the output of your amp (in the case of electric guitarists), or your acoustic guitar. A dynamic microphone is usually the first choice if you want to record your amp. Although choice of mic does depend on the sound you want to get. For real ease, choose a USB mic then you don’t have to worry about any other equipment. Our editor’s pic is the Audio-Technica AT2020USB+. The Audio-Technica ATR2100-USB Cardioid Dynamic USB/XLR Microphone is also particularly good choice because you can use it either as a USB or a standard mic with XLR output, and you can monitor what you’re doing with the headphones it comes with. Any of the devices we have already looked at that take a microphone as well will be just as good for this recording scenario. If you want to record your acoustic guitar then you should buy a condenser mic and an audio interface with phantom power – or consider a USB condenser mic such as the ever popular and newly improved Samson C01U Pro Studio Condenser USB Microphone.More information about recording using a microphone can be found in our sister article on connecting a microphone to your computer.
Listening to the results
With all the above guitar recording solutions you can monitor your results using headphones , but sooner or later it is likely you will want to play your masterpieces to your friends and family. Again, dedicated speakers will greatly enhance your music making experience, and there are speakers at a range of price points which will work well whichever route you opt for.Guitar Recording Software
Once you are getting a satisfactory recording from your guitar, then you will probably want to think about the best software for recording and then adding backing tracks, effects etc. There is lots of fantastic music making software around, some of it free or very low cost. Take a look at our article where we look at some entry level recording software. Most come with huge libraries of loops and riffs to help you create complete performances behind your killer guitar tracks.If your main aim is to improve your playing then we think that it’s really worth giving guitar tuition software a go. Especially as you can get a whole course for the price of a couple of lessons. So much easier than just working through books.
Our Suggestions To Buy Now So You Can Easily Record Guitar
Budget Guitar-USB cables – choose if you are on a very tight budget and want to start recording your guitarBehringer Guitar Link UCG102 – Plug in your guitar and turn your PC or Mac computer into a guitar amp and recording system without the need for any other hardware
Line 6 POD Studio UX1 Guitar Audio Interface – A convenient low noise and low latency interface for the electric guitarist and bassist with a suite of 18 guitar amps, 24 guitar cabs, 5 bass amps and 5 bass cabs, 29 essential stompbox and studio effects and 6 mic preamps
Top End Guitar-USB Interface for Mac, iPad and iPhone
If you have a Mac or are recording on iPad, then the Apogee Jam 96K is an absolutely superb high quality guitar interface. You can connect via USB, lightning or 30-pin connector. All the cables are included. It has been designed to work with Garageband and Logic, but you can use it with any recording software, at home or on the go.
USB Audio Interfaces With Guitar And Mic Input
USB Audio Interfaces With Guitar And Mic Input – the next step up and the heart of a home recording studio setup. These interfaces will allow you to record a microphone as well as guitar, and all come with fantastic entry-level recording software to get you started. They are all from trusted brands who offer good customer after-care if you need extra help or advice.Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 2 In/2 Out USB Recording Audio Interface. High quality mic preamps, excellent digital performance and rugged metal case
M-Audio M-Track 2-Channel Portable USB Audio and MIDI Interface. Has combo inputs with phantom power for recording vocals, guitars, bass, and more, convenient and mobile to accommodate any audio source.
Presonus AudioBox iTwo 2-Channel Audio Interface A popular choice for mobile musicians and guitarists, the 2-channel AudioBox iTwo is compact USB interface, ruggedly built, and works with virtually any PC or Mac or iOS recording software, and comes with good software suite to get you started.
Behringer U-PHORIA UMC204HD Audio Interface 2×4 USB 2.0 audio/midi interface for recording microphones, guitars and instruments with 24-bit/192 khz resolution for professional audio quality. Comes with a whole suite of recording software packages.