hi.

basically lately i have been coming up with some cool new stuff, what is THE easiest quickest and cheapest way to record my guitar.

dont need to record anything else, i just need it good enough quality to be able to play along to.

thanks.

__________________

the easiest would probably a hand-held voice recorder/dictation thing, or an old boombox with a built in mic and record button. got anything like that?

an alternative to actually recording it, would be to tab it out in something free like powertab.

if you want to get started recording on the computer, it's pretty easy. you can either use a microphone or plug directly into your soundcard.

look at the jacks on your soundcard and find the mic-in and line-in. if you use line in, it's good to go from your amps 'preamp out'. you might need a jack adapter to go down to 1/8th inch. once you have your stuff plugged in, go to your sound properties in the OS and select the input, then look at the levels to make sure you're getting a signal.

from there, all you need is a program to record the signal. your operating system might have one (ie windows sound recorder). if not you can download a free one like audacity (it's a single track recorder/wave editor with effects and eq). select your soundcard input for the program to use and you're all set.

once you get the hang of it, you can upgrade your soundcard and start using a multitrack host, and get into vst's (virtual instruments and effects) ... and with that the possibilities are endless.

^That's the quickest and easiest way to do it without spending any money at all.

__________________

Get a USB mic for aboue $25 and use Audacity to edit.

awesome, thanks for all of the info - I'll try it this weekend.

__________________

One thing about Audacity, Say I record a rhythm track, then I try to record a lead track over it. There is a slight delay in the second track.. maybe just from the time it takes the sound to travel from the amp into the mic and onto the program? but i was wondering that if I were to plug directly into the sound card, would that prevent this slight delay and would the tracks line up perfectly?

__________________

^ you could try it. it could be the usb, or it could be your processor/ram/drivers or some kind of software problem etc. you'd have to experiment to figure out where the latency is coming from i think.

but ... it's really annoying to record in layers like that in a single track. you should just get a multitracking program. if there's still a sync problem, it will be a lot easier to fix, along with many other perks. take it to the next level! haha

I use a Line 6 UX-1 and some pirated audio software(Cakewalk & Cubase) to do my band's preproduction and whatnot. It has a mic and instrument input. It also has Line Ins and Line Outs so I can hook it up to my PA for additional mic inputs.

It comes with Gearbox, which is a pretty cool amp/effect modelling program.

New it's about $130 and comes with Gearbox and Live Lite, which is shitty, but it should work for your basic needs. And of course you'll need a decent computer.

__________________

+1

I also own the toneport ux 1. Great little piece of equipment. It comes as xdx said with gearbox wich you can expand with the metal shop etc. You can also use other programs with your toneport. I personally use amplitube 2 all the time. It has some great clean settings. And it looks nicer, but that doesn't really matter

__________________

haha yeah man, i hear ya. I'm not looking for any serious recording, i just wanted to jam out a couple leads over a rhythm track just to see what kind of ideas i come up with and just play around.

__________________