Low cost guitar recording

To do that you'd want to mic up your amps speakers, so the first step is getting some quality microphones (a Shure SM57 is an obvious low-cost choice, but you may want to consider ribbon or condenser mics). You can do it with a single mic, but I'd suggest at least two or three to get the ideal tone from your amp (one close and slightly off-axis, one close and more to the side and one further away - you could also try puting a mic at the back of the amp). Basically the closer the mic to the center axis of the speaker the more brilliance there will be in the tone, but the less 'natural' it will sound, by having various mics you can balance the sound you want. Another thing to appreciate is the sound of your amp that you are use to while playing is different to what the mics will pick up due to their proximity to the speaker, so you may have to tweek your EQ settings to get what you are looking for.

 

All these mics should feed into either a mixer and then into a microphone i/p of a PC audio interface, or into multiple channels of the PC audio interface to record them individually. Recording them individually gives you more flexibility to mix them at your leasure after recording the killer lick.

 

Absolutely agree. Also if you record the guitar without effects (ie non-expressive effects - if you are using wah or swell peddle then obviously you need to record with those inline) you can also add effects (distortion, phase, flange, echo etc) via instrument plugins afterwards too.

 

I use a cheap version of Cubase that came with the interface I use (Lexicon Omega)

 

http://www.zzounds.com/item--LEXOMEGA $174 for interface and recording software. I paid a little over $200 4 years ago when it was new. There may be better versions of the same thing now.

 

But even these cheap version of Cubase and Cakewalk blow Audacity and other basic versions out of the water. Virtual instruments, onboard effects, really all you need until you're good enough to need to do everything in a pro studio.