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I love to play guitar and I spend a lot of time computing, so the minute I got my latest guitar I needed to hook it up to my computer. That little process got me thinking about how many guitar players out there could benefit from a detailed instruction plan for connecting their guitars to their home computers. I t sound like it should be something that is simple to achieve but believe me there can be some complications. I will endeavour to cover the main things that can go wrong below and make the whole process very straight forward for you.

Making the Guitar Connect To Your Computer

Getting the right device to connect your guitar and your computer is obviously the first step we need to take. Nearly all guitars use a 1/4″ plug. Most computers will be using a 1/8″ plug. Therefore, the key thing to address to make the two objects make sweet music together is the purchase of a plug that will act as a converter. With a converter, we can then make a connection.

You will need to pay a visit to your favourite guitar dude or duet “is that even a word”. At your favourite music shops. Ask that very cool muso type person to get you a female guitar plug to connect to your guitars cable. If you don’t already have a cable you will need to purchase one and make sure that the cable will connect between your 1/4″ guitar plug and the computer sound card plug which is 1/8″.Your connector needs to have a male exit on the back end of it’s plug, but most music shop people will know this. If you start talking and using the language I have outlined and you get a blank look on the face go your music shop assistant, leave and find a shop that gets guitars properly and modern technology.

Other Ways to Skin This Cat

I use to talk to friends overseas on Skype quite a bit and when I tried a USB plug in headset, I found the sound quality amazing. My hunch was that USB plug options for my guitar may be better then the standard connection, and it turned out I was right. Many modules will enable you to connect the 1/4″ connector directly into your computer with a USB cable. Just like my headphone and speaker kit, the USB cable for guitar is more expensive then other plugs, but the sound quality difference is enormous.

A Love Affair with Apple Mac

If you are a guitar player that can afford to upgrade your current computer, moving from a PC to an Apple Mac will have you falling in love overnight. My wife is a professional photographer and had been using the Mac for a while with fantastic results. It really is the answer for most creative and artistic types. I dumbly had no real idea about how fantastic the standard Apple software Garage Band was for Guitar. Garage Band allows you to record your music and has hundreds of amazing built in features.

Therefore, I went from bragging to a friend about my brilliant USB connection discovery, which is still a great way to go on a budget, to having him laugh at me and suggest I buy a Mac. Funny thing is that my wife had been raving about all the great thing a Mac could do as a photographer for months.

Online Courses

I would only describe myself as a keen amateur guitarist and getting the guitar plugged into the computer meant that I was searching all things guitar online for weeks. Whilst on my journey of discovery I also found a fantastic online training course that improved my playing by about 200 percent.

I first looked at online guitar courses about three years ago and only found typed eBooks and instruction manuals that really did nothing for me. If you look at your options online now there as many very sophisticated guitar e courses available, the teachers all are professionals of note.

My next Guitar article will come from the many pages of notes that I made whilst researching how to buy an electric guitar.