How To Capture Fleeting Guitar Inspiration Using A Portable MP3 Recorder
Being able to record a digital MP3 of guitar playing is an awesome capability.
There's no shortage of ways to do this. You can
use your desktop Personal Computer to record your guitar. You can use any one of a large number of portable studio recorder on the market at the guitar stores. You can use your laptop and make a digital recording with that. The list is long. This article is about using the smallest of recording devices to record your guitar. The advantage of this being that because it is small, the recorder will always be around when you need it the most to capture a fleeting, but important guitar riff, or other musical idea.
It's understood that there are a lot of guitar recording devices on the market. Portable studios they are often called. These are quality devices with a lot of features for recording music. One issue with these recorders is that they are often quite large. The idea of the portable recorder is to have a certain minimum amount of sound quality, but the main thing is to be extremely portable, something that's very easy to take along, and have with you all the time to be sure to capture that special musical idea right when it comes to you, and before it's forgotten.
There are a number of uses for a small, portable digital recorder for a guitar player. And, as with any other good tool, when you have one and begin to use it in your daily routine, chances are you'll end up finding many more great uses for it as time goes by. Here are are few practical uses to get you started:
- Practice Tool You can keep a portable digital recorder around when you do your practice sessions, both solo practice and with the group. When you record yourself practice some new song that's being worked on, and then later play back and listen to that playing, you're bound to find some aspects of your playing that you hadn't been aware of as you were playing it. If you've ever listened to yourself playing, you've experienced this. Anyway, this type of recording is a great way to get feedback on parts of a song piece you want to do some extra practice on, or maybe there is a part that you decide you will want to play a little bit differently. Or omit a certain part altogether... These are the types of things you can learn by using the portable recorder during practice.
- Idea Grabber Ideas and inspiration for guitar solos, riffs, harmonies, and other song parts come when we least expect. You're not always near your home computer or laptop, to be able to record them. This is another moment when a pocket size,
portable digital recorder will save the day. Get that lick saved and digitized, to be used later. Free up your mind to go on with what you were working on, without worrying about losing that important riff that just came to you.
Here are some features you can look for when you are selecting a portable digital recorder that you want to buy. Not all the recorders on the market have all these features so it's a good idea to check them out carefully before you buy.
- Small and Portable This is what it's all about. The idea is to be able to have the recorder in your pocket, or guitar case, always on hand for that moment you least expect when you really need to record an important guitar solo or riff idea.
- Record In MP3 Format This is the best format to be able to record in. Most accepted and popular, most appropriate for sharing, etc. A lot of portable recorders record in other formats and offer software for converting the file. And this extra step tends to be a hassle. Best to look for the recorders that record direct to mp3.
- USB Connectivity This one almost goes without saying, but make sure the device you use will allow you to connect to a personal computer using the usb interface. This makes for easy and fast transfer of the mp3 files.
There are plenty of small devices around that are capable of recording an MP3 of guitar playing. These include phones, small, portable mp3 players, even cameras, etc. Chances are you already have some device that will do the recording chores talked about in this article. The idea is to have a dedicated device that is always with you when you are playing your guitar. The best place to keep it would be in your guitar case or gig bag where you keep all your other important guitar playing equipment.
