Looking to improve your guitar skills? Want to make sure you’re doing more than just repeatedly strumming the same few chords one after the other? Then you could make use of some tech that can help you not only get a better sound but enjoy more complete and complex practice sessions. Here, we’re going to look at the guitar tech that’s going to make a big difference in how you jam. Outside of a new guitar, these are some of the investments you should most be thinking about.

For the real beginner

If you are literally right at the start of your guitar journey, then you might not want to fork out for a full guitar before you’re certain whether or not you have any aptitude for the instrument in the first place. Instead, you might want to get some practice in before you make that investment (which can be pretty sizable, as any musician can tell you.) To that end, you should look at some of the portable guitar practice gadgets on the market that can help you emulate the feeling of the instrument, but without the cost. What’s more, these devices are much smaller than the average guitar, so they also work as a way for any musician to quickly get some practice in even when they’re not at home or in the studio.

A better and easier tuner

If you want to make sure that you’re sounding right, then you should make sure that your guitar is tuned, first and foremost. There are plenty of different tuners that work in a variety of ways, usually with you holding the device up to the guitar, playing a note, and seeing what the device says. However, if you want to make things much more convenient, you can make use of a clip-on tuner that just sits on the end of the headstock and gives a bright and readable display as to what note it’s picking up from you.

Make it much easier to record

If you’re looking to record your practice sessions to listen back and to pick up on where you nail it and where some bad habits start to shine through, then you want to make sure that you’re able to record your sound. However, traditionally, setting up an audio interface can be pretty tricky. Nowadays, however, there are recording studio bundles that can make it a lot easier to hook your instrument up to a PC or other digital device so you can record yourself. The condenser microphone in the example given might not exactly give the highest studio-quality sound, but it can definitely help as a relatively affordable way to listen back to yourself when practicing.

Much better than a metronome

Practicing learning the melody and fingering by yourself is all well and good, but if you’re going to be playing the song in a different context, such as live or with a backing track, then you want to make sure that you’re able to play to the beat and rhythm of the song outside of yourself. Metronomes are great for counting time, but percussion is what really dictates the pace of the track. To that end, a drum machine for beginners can play a key role in making sure that you’re practicing to the right beat. What’s more, they’re great composition tools if you want to write a riff and to practice with different drumbeats, which you can edit to be as simple or as complex as you need.

Practice your sound

Good guitar isn’t just about how well you can play, it’s also about the sound that you can produce. Effects pedals tend to do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to applying different sounds to your guitar, but they aren’t the only option, especially for those of you that are looking to save space. There are effects attachments, such as the e-bow, that simply clip onto your guitar and work as a bow on other stringed instruments that can help you emulate the sound of a violin or a cello. Combine that with effects pedals and amps and you can come up with some pretty fascinating sounds.

All of the tech can help you get something new or enjoy more precision in your practice sessions. Of course, what’s most important is how you use them. Any piece of kit is only as good as your ability to implement it, so be sure to take your time to learn them.