Record Your Jams With Guitarbud for the iPhone and iPod Touch

[Michael Essany]

If you're a guitarist looking for an easier way to record your jam sessions, look no further than your iPhone or iPod touch. Made possible by the new GuitarBud connector, you can simply plug your axe into an iPhone, for example, and record directly from any audio recording app that you may presently have.

The device comes to us from Paul Reed Smith Signature Cables, an outfit with a long history of building "advanced, uncompromising" guitar related products. Tapping into both the popularity and the ubiquity of Apple's mobile devices, the Guitarbud doesn't come with a corresponding dedicated app. Instead, the makers advise even using the iPhone's built-in voice recorder to capture musical inspirations as they come to you.

This powerful, portable guitarist’s interface, is designed specifically for musicians by Bond Music Research in conjunction with PRS Guitars

In promoting the Guitarbud, PRS is also pushing the fact that it's never been easier to share your riffs or entire songs with friends or colleagues. After you capture your jam, you can quickly email the audio file to anyone - likely a great arrangement for friends or band members working on music from a distance.

While there's no shortage of cool accessories or apps that help modify iPhones and iPods into new and previously unimagined tools, Guitarbud is one of the first devices of its kind that makes our trusty mobile device a helpful musician's tool of the trade.

The Guitarbud can be purchased for $29.95 from Musician's Friend.

[StealthBravo]

Thats awesome.

[lolcats1]

great idea, and i'm sure that 30$ is worth it to the musicians around here.

as for the quality of the recording, i'm pretty sure recording with just the iphone's default mic would make for a pretty "kvlt" and "tvre" sound.

would certainly put "pure f*cking Armageddon" down a few notches.

[Ichwohneinloche]

...you can simply plug your axe into an phone, for example, and record...

Wouldn't it be "a phone" or "an iPhone"? But looks pretty sweet might have to get it.

[Michael Essany]

Thanks for the catch!

[lost786]

thanx for sharing

[Maarten16]

you think it will work with an electronic drum set??

[loop4444]

im so buying this!

[skyhighrocks]

I bought this about a month ago and it has not worked right yet. i've tried every setting imaginable but there's something wrong with it. I contacted PRS and they told me there are glitches with it and they are trying to get it figured out. I get massive feedback when using the PRS app, and when trying to use it with 4 Track or even recorder, it starts the ipod playing music on its own....weird.

[ESG23]

i need one of those

[Brandonii]

Being a guitarist in a band, and a studio owner, I think I may have to get this.

Actually after looking at this farther. I am not

as you can see by the picture, it is just simply, a cord.
I can EASILY (and i already have the cables to do this) build this my self in 30 seconds.
Go to radio shack and buy a 1/8 headphone extender and a 1/8 to 1/4 adapter and you are all set.

[vampr]

I concur with ^ assessment!

[Luppin]

This is actually really neat. As an active musician it'd be awesome to be able to record riffs on the fly, but unless you have an amp with amp-modeling built into the line-out jack, this'll sound pretty lousy unless the prs app includes some of it's own. I actually experimented with tracking guitars with the iPhone's built-in mic a week or so ago (The mic has actually been compared to the Shure SM57) but I couldn't really get a good quality recording out of so I just dropped some cash on a recording set-up. There's actually a handful of people who have made (arguably) studio-quality recordings with just their iPhone such as: [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKITWfS41zw]YouTube - The 88 - The Making of Love Is The Thing[/ame]

[riotmode]

I've been working on a guitar multi-effects app for the iPhone OS for some time, and have been waiting for something like this to come along to make it useful. However, it does have its shortcomings.

As has already been pointed out, it is simply a breakout/splitter cable. There's no impedance matching and the quality of cable used means that you get inductive cross-talk at high volumes. I've given the cable a thorough review and addressed its shortcomings on my blog if you are interested...

Having said all that, the iPhone and iPod Touch are powerful devices and can do plenty of DSP in real-time so expect to see more apps coming to the market to make use of this.

Oh, and check out my app, RiotFX, if you buy the cable :-)

[reanimationxp]

I've been working on a guitar multi-effects app for the iPhone OS for some time

I was just going to say.. now we need an FX Pedal app! Way to be ahead of the curve man