Up until recently, I used a lot of cheaper Behringer mixers and USB interfaces. I’ve used a lot of things over the years.

Plugging your guitar into the computer can be a bit of a challenge. Note that if someone has the paid version of Guitar Rig 5 Pro, you might not be able to use their patch if it utilized amp and pedal models not available in the free version. While it comes with a lot of patches to make you sound like different artists, or different songs, or even different styles, you can also google around and find patches online to download that other people have made for free. It is kind of complicated if you are unfamiliar with VST plugins or just getting started, so I made a how-to video to show step-by-step how to install and actually use Guitar Rig 5 player. You could set it up on your computer as a stand-alone application, or as a VST plugin inside Reaper, Audacity, Ableton, etc. There’s a pro version as well, but the PLayer version is free. TH3 is one I played with for a while that I likes a lot, however the one I settled on that fit my needs best was Guitar Rig 5 Player. There are a lot of good VST plugins that allow you to make your guitar sound like it is going through any amp head, cabinet, effects pedal, etc.

The issue is external equipment… When you are cheap or broke, you likely don’t have one of every amp or pedal ever made to use when recording guitar. On its own, you can record some nice quality music. Reaper is a full-featured DAW (Digital Audio Workspace) complete with pitch correction, MIDI and tons of other great features and plugins. Reaper’s free version doesn’t have limitation in functionality, but does have a nag screen that pops up for 10 seconds when you start and you can’t use it commercially. I already used Reaper for recording for the last 10+ years, so I finally paid for the full license (only like $60). Some time ago, I got interested in modeling different amps and effects when recording guitar.

Use guitar rig 5