Instruments

Traditionally, electric guitars are associated with being loud. Plug one into a big tube amp, crank up the volume and let rip! But there are many reasons why you might want to play through headphones; keeping the noise to a minimum – neighbors, not wanting to wake the children, playing late at night, etc. So…

The traditional way to get sound out of an electric guitar for almost a century has been to plug it into a dedicated guitar amplifier. Most of the time when I play at home these days, I don’t bother. With the technology available today, there is no need to plug your electric guitar into an…

As a guitar player with a home studio, I have connected my guitar to my PC many times over the years. I have done this for both recording and for practice. It did take me a while, however, to work out how exactly to connect to guitar to a computer, and what the best method…

Digital pianos are amazing devices, providing an instrument that sounds and feels incredibly similar to an acoustic piano with greater reliability and ease of maintenance. The prices cover such a range however, it can be very difficult to decide how much you should spend on a digital piano. As a general rule, you should spend…

A lot of home studios, including mine, contain a MIDI keyboard. Music gear can get expensive, and it’s great when you can use a piece of equipment for multiple purposes. So can that MIDI keyboard you use exclusively for recording be used as a regular keyboard? MIDI keyboards can be used as regular keyboards if…

MIDI keyboards have been a part of my home studio since I first started home recording in the late 1990s. Whenever I have worked with MIDI a MIDI keyboard has proved its worth many times over, making creating MIDI parts so much easier. As a general rule, it is worth having a MIDI keyboard in…

All the guitar amps I have bought in the last few years have been separate amp heads. This is to benefit from the versatility that a separate amp head and speaker cab gives me. However, unlike a combo amp, an amp head makes no sound on its own. As a general rule, you cannot play…

Recording most instruments these days is relatively easy in a home studio. One common exception is recording drums; this is still fairly difficult to do at home, for reasons of space, noise and the specialist knowledge required to get a good sound. Fortunately, there are several options available for us to create great drum tracks…

When amp sims (guitar amplifier simulator software) first came on the market, the sounds they produced did not really sound anything like a real guitar amp. These days that is no longer true; amp sims are capable of producing excellent guitar sounds, and provide a genuine alternative to using a real amplifier. Team up an…

We’ve all heard that killer rock guitar riff that just sounds huge. Electric guitars can give such a powerful sound in a mix, adding waves of emotion and really bringing a track to life. However, creating such a sound is not just a case of recording a few overdriven guitar parts and you’re done. If…