Need advice on guitar recording unit, Friend's BDay Gift

[lilBrobec]

Hey all! I've been playing music for years (piano and bass primarily) and have recently gotten into editing, mastering my recordings and just taking taking joy in the art of it all. I've been posting in very product specific forums and just stumbled across this one i think it's awesome.


Question is:

My friend's birthday is coming up, he loves playing guitar and we've been playing together for years, let alone grew up together, and I want to buy him some sort of recording device.
I'm thinking portable, recordable on the hardware itself, as well as live recording features to record via usb onto his computer. I myself have used Tascam us-144 we don't need multi-track recording this is for his own personal use. I realise you can't record on this hardware unit but its well rounded otherwise for recording on his comp, though there's no outlet for his amp to be used at the same time, which would be a nice feature.
I've looked at devices like Tascam Dr-07 But I have no idea whether units like this alow live recording to his computer, otherwise it would be perfect.



SO thanks for reading my rant, I've been putting alot of thought into it and any suggestions are more then appreciated

(please redirect me if I'm posting in the wrong neighborhood)

 

[Creamyapples1]

A DI with a "thru" feature would allow the signal to pass to his amp and the recording interface at the same time. They're on the cheaper side of expensive. That, along with whatever recording stuff you have your eye on would be a pretty good present imo. You're a heck of a friend!

 

[ggunn]

For a portable general purpose digital recorder, take a look at the Roland Edirol R-09. I've got one and I love it.

 

[lilBrobec]

thank you both very much for the reply.


1. So while browsing online, what specifications will be listed as having "thru recording" features. (or is this feature referred to as "thru" just like you said?) Any suggetions of such a recorder anyone may know of offhand, I've been trying to search...


2. Are majority of these portable guitar recording devices capable of live recording on the comp, Or will i have to record to the unit, save, and upload to my comp? -This is what I would like to avoid.

Thanks! Now I'm off to enjoy my saturday night, hope you all are doing the same! :-D

 

[ggunn]

2. Are majority of these portable guitar recording devices capable of live recording on the comp, Or will i have to record to the unit, save, and upload to my comp? -This is what I would like to avoid.

The R-09 has an analog line out which can be routed to a computer, but its strength is that it records digitally to a flash memory card which can be removed from the unit and read from a card reader into an editing program. It's a remote recorder, battery powered, so it can be used anywhere without having to lug a computer around. It generates .wav files which can be imported into just about any audio editing software. It also has a USB connection, but I've never tried using it as a real time data streamer, so I dunno if you can do that.

If all you want to do is to record directly onto a computer, you can do that with software and (if a PC) a sound card or (if a Mac) the computer's analog input. Additionally, there are plenty of microphones out there which have a USB port to digitally connect to a computer, but you'll need to get software that will accept the data from the mic. Some software that will do that is free - Garage Band for the Mac, for example, will work, I am pretty sure.

If you want to get a little more elaborate and get him into multitrack digital recording, there's this:
http://pro-audio.musiciansfriend.com/product/Digidesign-Mbox-2-Mini-?sku=700498