It used to be that when you started playing guitar (or electric guitar, anyway), you’d get what manufacturers euphemistically call a starter pack: a cheap guitar, a cheaper amplifier, and a gig back that would fall apart in three months. Because the starter pack is so inexpensive however, it makes a great choice for anyone (or the parents of anyone) just starting out on the instrument – if you decide to stop playing guitar after a couple of months, you haven’t lost quite as much money.
Anyway, we suspect that in the future, manufacturers might start replacing the amp with something like this collaboration between Behringer and Native Instruments: called the Guitar Link UCG102, it’s a USB device that translates the signals from your guitar into digital audio on your computer, using three amp models from Native Instruments and an included version of the free Audacity multi-track recording program to record your riffs and licks into a replayable format. While the Guitar Link certainly isn’t the hottest recording technology out there, we do think it’s a good way to get your feet wet in the world of digital audio.Permanent Link

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