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Old 11-09-2014, 09:12 AM
ZoneIII ZoneIII is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2014
Posts: 10
Default Apologies for a dumb newbie question.

I'm just getting back into playing guitar. I've had a Guild 12-string that sat in the closet since the 1970s which I completely restored a few years ago and I recently bought an Eastman 20D. I suck as a player but it's fun and I want to get down to practicing and learning more seriously in the coming months. I wanted to give this background so anyone who responds keeps it simple.

I've had some fun recording my guitar and my harmonica and I've really had fun dubbing over songs by others to be a virtual member of the band. With harmonica, which I can play pretty well, I got pretty good results by recording through my harp mic into a little Cube 30 amplifier and have the output go to my PC. I use the free Audacity program and add my part to existing songs while wearing headphones. I only mention this because I want to be able to do something similar with my acoustic guitars.

I don't have any recording equipment. My guitars don't have pickups and I really would prefer not to get them. Instead, decent microphones would probably be my choice. But what I really need to get advice about is what equipment I should get to record my guitar. I don't want to get fancy and expensive because I suck as a guitar player and I can't justify spending a lot. A few hundred bucks would be fine.

A guitar player friend of mine recommended a Zoom H4 recorder. He doesn't own one himself but he says that people he knows who do have them like them. Reviews I've read are mixed but most people seem to like this device. They also make an H5 and H6 version and those are within my spending range. I would be willing to by a decent but not insanely expensive mic too, if necessary.

I would also like to record myself soloing but I mentioned the overdubbing because that's a feature I want. For example, I would like to add myself playing harp over my guitar playing, etc.

With those limitations in mind, I would like to get some recommendations for how I should go. Please keep it simple and not too technical because I am totally new to this and I don't understand some of the technical stuff I've read that I found. I'm not a serious player and I have no illusions about every being very good. I just want enjoy myself with my limited skills.

Winter is almost here and I will have a lot of time in the coming months to have fun with this stuff.

BTW, I would be willing to buy new audio software too if it's not too expensive. Audacity seems to have done what I need it to do so far, though.

Last edited by ZoneIII; 11-09-2014 at 11:32 AM.
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