When I started at Cookes 7 years ago (wow is it really that long?) recording was primarily done on digital 'portastudios' by the likes of Boss & Tascam, usually with a built in CD burner to transfer your compositions from the onboard Hard Drive, which was quite small by today's standards. Because of this, some of the smaller units could be augmented with SD cards (the Boss BR600 boasted an impressive for the time 1GB SD card included in the box). USB connectivity became the norm and the units became smaller with less inbuilt storage relying instead on being used more like an audio notepad to take down ideas before being put onto PC for editing.
Now the audio interface is king, with cheap laptops providing portable solutions that have gargantuan amounts of space to record onto. Focusrite have a great range of USB & FireWire interfaces to cater for even the most demanding recording needs, offering professional quality units at a very reasonable price. Studio quality microphones are now even more affordable with people like Audio Technica giving us the great AT range from £89 and now even offering the AT2020USB, a mic with built in audio interface that plug in directly via USB all for £149.
So the possibilities are (almost) endless limited by only your imagination or the ability to get that killer riff recorded for prosperity.
Steven @ Cookes
guitars@cookes.co.uk
