Reaper. On Android phone or tablet n-track. That is not free, but worth every Dollar/Euro/Yen/Krügerrand/whatever. (They do not take British Pounds. Why? ))

 

Another vote for Reaper. Light weight, great performance (unmatched, maybe?) ridiculous value, if you pay for your DAW (or don't),very customizable. Can be tricky to learn, depending on where you're coming from.. But every DAW has a learning curve.

I use it for Midi, but recorded audio is where it really shines. Pretty satisfied Reaper user.

 

Then there's also Roland Zentracker
FREE FEATURES
Easy recording, editing, and mixing for Android and iOS devices
Unlimited audio tracks
Intuitive, touch-friendly controls
Two track effects and two sends per channel
Mixer with 16 audio effects
Audio editing with reverse, time-stretch, and more
Timeline automation
Track freeze
Save and share with Google Drive and Microsoft OneDrive
Over 200 included audio loops
https://www.roland.com/global/products/rc_zentracker/

 

if you're dying to spend time f*cking around with your computer, by all means go down the vst/daw on a thumbdrive route. If you want to get some fast tracks down, as in be in creative in the moment, a hardware recorder like the Boss Micro br-80 will do what you need, it has amp sims, pedal sims, reverbs etc, you can create and modify your own chains, you can do muliti-track recording etc. it will play backing tracks that you can play over for practice or testing fx. It will act as a usb interface for recording your guitar or vocals into a daw. it runs on 2 AA batteries or your bog standard Boss 9v guitar pedal power supply. Fits in your pocket or guitar bag or case.

I've owned a bunch of recording devices from Roland,boss, zoom.yamaha, line6 and a lot of laptops with Reaper,ableton,logic.bitwig, acid, etc. - for fast capture of ideas, nothing beats a hardware recorder.

at least thats what I've found. over the years. But I prefer playing guitar to playing with plugins...
nothing wrong with plugins, they can be fun, but they tend to get in the way of creativity and capturing an idea. Once you've got some music made, plugins can be great for massaging things and mixing.

you want really fast and simple try TC Electronics WireTap pedal comes with an app for your phone to transfer files around. put it at the beginning of your chain and you have a dry copy of whatever you play that you can reamp and add fx to your hearts content. I liked it so much I bought an extra...



If you've got your heart set on using a computer, I'd have to agree Reaper is the daw to do it fast and portable. There's lots of way to skin a guitar as pappy used to say. at some point you'll probably want to have more than one trick in your bag of handy ways to make a song. keep some of these ideas in mind. Every road leads to a different place if you let it..

 

It's not a DAW, but it is a great VST host - Gig Performer.
You connect your plugins using virtual wires and you can record whatever you want dry/wet, mono/stereo, multitrack, all MIDI, anything.

 

Hey Faust .. read this, don't read this, doesn't matter to me. I get so many TLDR (too long didn't read) .. which .. sends me to the moon with infuriation. But you ask for help, I rarely ever post here so .. here goes.

I have played guitar for 45 years. I was in a group that had albums for sale at K-Mart. I have played on tours that have crossed oceans. *AND* I have been recording guitar on to a Personal Computer since 1992. So .. this is what I have learned.

I found a dirty little secret that most of these people here will not admit or do not know. But consider the source of this information. My knowledge on this topic you ask about is not extensive. It is *VAST*.

Here's what I found out, the dirty little secret:

Use Two Computers

*WHAT?!*

Straight up, it makes ALL .. THE .. DIFFERENCE .. in the world. You're gonna need two interfaces. I use an AXE I/O for IK Multimedia and a Focusrite 2x2 stereo.

YOU NEED THIS PROGRAM: YAMAHA VST

I'll repeat that for those that are dense or read too slow:

YOU NEED THIS PROGRAM: YAMAHA VST

End of story. Accept no substitutes. That software was designed to interface with some $13,000 hardware Yamaha is trying to sell you and you don't need that shit. What you do need is two computers.

I found out .. Reaper .. Cubase .. Ableton ... whatever you choose (and, for what it's worth, I use Reaper. Consider my experience through THIRTY-TWO YEARS of recording guitar on to a Personal Computer. Reaper is fine. For those who say Cubase, yeah, well .. I paid $1700 in about 1996 and the program arrived on ONE .. FLOPPY .. DISK. $1700 for a Parallel Port dongle and one floppy disk. AND .. I never did figure out how to work the program. It's German, it's obtuse and overly complex. You don't need that if you are a guitarist trying to get tracks. Just use REAPER. Trust me on this.)

But what I found out, the dirty little secret is: if you've got seven tracks of drums bass vocals .. when you load up your guitar and start adding VSTs in to the track ... it is degraded. And it works that way in EVERY DAW. Think about it, this is common sense. The more tracks you add, the more effects you add to that track, the more that REAPER has to downgrade the fidelity to handle it all.

So, whadda ya do for the most killer possible VST guitar sound on this day in history in technology?

Use two computers.

Have no programs running on the "Guitar Computer". Launch the program I told you: YAMAHA VST

Now, you can load all ya want .. I control my effects in Amplitube with an FBV Express Mark II MIDI foot controller. You can assign it to turn off .. or turn on any effect .. it has a wah pedal, it has a volume pedal .. you wanna turn off that flange, do it with your feet. You are basically controlling one computer WITH YOUR FEET

.. and the *SECOND* computer .. is recording everything you play. Flawlessly. Run it in stereo out of the first interface and in to the second computer. And then Reaper is not taxed hardly at all. It just records a normal stereo sound. Minimal processing.

Set the sample rate on the GUITAR COMPUTER at 192000 and 24-bit .. the highest possible, pretty much, for normal folk. Set REAPER at the same settings: Record it in to REAPER at 192khz 24-bit

THE .. SOUND .. IS .. PHENOMENAL

Trust me on this.

This is the best way to get a *KILLER* guitar sound at the edge of August 2024.

 

..

Since this is an obscure little post on some little known forum .. in a subsection of that forum .. AND .. on the second page of the main post .. there might be 15 people that see this .. but probably not.

Let me ADD to what I wrote above: I am trying out a new way to STRETCH THE FIDELITY even farther. I did this track as a "DEMONSTRATION" of this new technique. It's going after COMPLETELY LIVE PERFORMANCE .. no editing ... not post processing. Exactly like a LIVE recording.

And here's how you do it:

Use *THREE* computers

Computer 1: ONLY your killer guitar sound coming out of it from Yamaha VST program. This computer does NOTHING ELSE but make your guitar sound

Computer 2: Your backing tracks. In the case of this demonstration song, I used Superior Drummer playing MIDI track .. live. No prerecorded drums. Just loading a MIDI track I wrote so the DRUMS ARE BEING PLAYED LIVE. It's not a recording. It's MIDI playing the drums live. That's the ONLY thing coming out of Computer 2.

Computer 3: Optical Recording Master Track at 192,000 and 24-bit. It's job is only to record. I ran the two computers I just explained playing LIVE .. one guitar .. one a MIDI track of Superior Drummer playing live .. and then mixed the two ... and came out of the mixer IN DIGITAL OPTICAL FORMAT ... to record on the third computer this "LIVE" performance

Here is an example of the guitar and drum sound you can get when doing this new way I am working on for MAXIMUM FIDELITY POSSIBLE. This is only a "proof of concept" track of a song I wrote in five minutes. It's just a demonstration:

Yeah, it's a big file. Because it's a wave file. *NO COMPRESSION EVER* Ever ever. Get away from compressors and EQs. That's why your home recorded tracks sound like dogshit. Compressors and EQs IN THE DIGITAL REALM. That shit was NOT meant for the Digital Realm. There is no program that does it right. Just .. don't .. compress. ANYTHING. Don't squash it down to an MP3 .. that's compression, it'll fuck it up. I mean, it'll sound OK in MP3 format but we're talking about:

How to get MAXIMUM FIDELITY with the current state of technology and VST programs for guitar on the edge of August 2024.

And here's where we are at this point in time in technology:

I don't think this EXTREME measures for MAX FIDELITY is applicable for all people. Because of this: it's a live recording. There is no way to edit things. In addition to that, because it is a live performance that you are recording, you can't "punch in" and fix a mistake. So, I don't think this is a real and applicable thing for most people .. using three computers to record a tune. But, I wanted to try and /*PUSH*\ the envelope as far as I could to see where we are today, this day, the current state of technology and the MAX FIDELITY you can achieve.

This wave file is over a hundred megabytes and the song is less than three minutes long. So, you'll have to deal with a big file size because to hear the state of technology today .. MAX .. I didn't compress SHIT. Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

It is pure.

Try to play it on the best speakers you possibly can .. and then .. crank it so you can hear the fidelity.

And use a good WAVE player .. don't use that stupid Windows shit. If you are going to take the time to hear this, in it's entirety without any compression, then use a good WAVE file player. It's 192,000 24-bit.

QUATUM MAX for what we can do today in our own houses:

The song is called "Psychotica"

It's the second part of a trilogy of songs, the main part being "Narcotica".

It's a concept album of what is going on with the pharmaceutical companies and their control of your mind through .. DOPE ... DRUGS ... PILLS they prescribe. In the concept, they have control of the insurance companies .. and the doctors .. the doctors they control diagnose you with something only their drugs can cure. You can't go to any other doctor .. because .. it's not covered by your insurance. Which they own.

NARCOTICA

This is the part of the concept called: Psychotica

Yeah I like Genesis and Floyd.

BUT I play a 1984 Gibson Flying V Custom Designer Series .. and .. I was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio. I graduated Cleveland State. I'm as Cleveland as it gets. Do you want me to apologize for that? OK, download that tune and crank it on great speakers. Then you'll feel Cleveland in 2024.

There is a reason God put the asshole right next to the pussy.

So, don't rag on Cleveland dudes. We were just born there. And our birthright is .. The Rock & Roll Capital of the Known Galactic Universe.

Download "Psychotica" and you'll hear that concept.

.. OR ..

Just ignore everything I wrote because it's too long, didn't read. It's Null & Void because you can't be bothered to educate yourself.

Yeah, Cleveland Rocks.

And it shall not die.

As long as I live.

JB

..

 

Last edited: Jul 30, 2024

Idk what professor "3 computer" Von YappenReiter is talking about (that info is objectively false) but any DAW will do. I personally prefer Reaper(I cut my teeth on 1 and 2 inch 16 track, tascam portastudios , then cubase, then pro tools, then samplitude/Sequoia then Reaper) because of the payment model, the flexibility, the near endless capabilities, the enormous library of included plugins, learning resources, the fact that you can make it look however you want....but any will do. Reaper is my suggestion though

 

Portable DAW (or "live" host) is easy to find.
BUT most plugins will NOT work "portable", because they use protections and system files.

 

I am a amplitube user. I dont even bother with the DAW sometimes. I frequently use the build it 8 track recorder in standalone to tinker on ideas and tracks and then export them when i think something is good. works fine for me.

 

Wait, wait, wait.

In my experience, it's not advisable to adopt the same approach in every situation:
- for LIVE performances/recordings you have to go hardware: no sw/pc will ever compete with (and nowdays it's also pretty cheap);
- for (almost) any other applications, PC/software may be reasonable.

My 2 cents.