Inspiration for the next great riff, chorus, or entire song could hit at any time. When the lightning strike of creativity happens, you need something like this Pocketstudio to bottle it and sell it to the adoring masses.

Ain’t technology grand? Recording equipment as sophisticated as this Tascam used to require a major studio budget. Now you can just order one from a website for a few hundred dollars. Heck, the Beatles didn’t even have access to multitrack recording systems, so what’s your excuse?

This particular Pocketstudio model supports six or eight tracks, depending on the exact model you want to buy. It’s also got a high-quality condenser microphone, so your song doodles will sound crystal clear. The mic is even stereo!

The system records onto the cheap and plentiful SD card. Most of us have more than a few of these just lying around, and you can fit a lot of recorded material onto them. You can hook the device to a computer with a USB port and copy recordings over without having to take the cards out too. What’s even cooler is that you can connect external mics using the two quarter-inch inputs, so you can record from any compatible line-level device or instrument.

This system has been designed to be as easy to operate as a tape recorder. It’s no replacement for a full-featured studio recording system, but that’s not the point. It provides a way for working or budding musicians to develop their own music efficiently and collaborate easily with others.

A fantastic tool in the arsenal of any muso.