Technology for songwriters? Yes. With the Internet and emergence of cheaper recording technology, record labels don’t hold all the clout. It could be said technology has become the “Great Equalizer” for musicians.

This article will focus on products and online tools to help musicians be creative and capture their inspiration. There are plenty of other great technology tools out there for booking gigs, maintaining club contacts, instrument repair, and so forth. This article, however, will strictly stay within the confines of those tools that help songwriters be productive and creative. Affiliate links are provided to many of the products mentioned, so you can click through and compare prices.

From computers to websites to all-in-one recording studios, there are more products to review than could be fit in a simple top ten. However, these are some favorites:

10. Mac-Mini
Ever since Engadget posted this great article on Turning Your Mac-Mini Into A Recording Studio, the magic combination of the Mini and GarageBand has taken off like gangbusters. Add the growing popularity of podcasting into the mix, and you have the recipe for one powerful and widely used platform for recording and producing audio. Apple recently announced their new Mac minis, complete with Intel processing and additional storage and inputs. What are you waiting for? Get recording.

9. USB and Firewire Audio Interfaces

Offerings by M-Audio, Edirol, and others has made it stupid simple to hook your existing recording equipment up to a PC or Mac, and record your creations directly to disk.

There is a wealth of options available at Musicians Friend.

8. Clip-On Tuner
These tuners are great! I prefer the Intellitouch PT-1, which I use personally. It is silent, folds back inconspciously behind the head of your guitar when not in use. The display works great in low light or the bright outdoors. The best thing about clip-on tuners is they never get lost. You are almost guaranteed to find it clipped onto one of your guitars. Intellitouch PT-1 at The Instrument Store (via Amazon.com).

There are other flavors of clip on tuners around the web. Musician’s Friend has a wide selection, as does Zzounds.

7. Griffin iTalk for iPods
I spoke at length already about the tremendous advantages of the Griffin iTalk in this article on capturing song ideas. I still believe this is one of the most practical tools for a songwriter in the iPod era.

I won’t rewrite what was already stated in the above mentioned article. But I will say that Griffin has been very active in getting new iTalk adapters out for the latest iPods. You can usually find them at the most reasonable price on Amazon.com.

6. Online rhyming dictionary and Online thesaurus
Rhymer
This is a great straightforward rhyming dictionary. There is alot of ads and cross-promotion that tends to clutter the search results - but hey - it’s a free service and they need to make a buck.

Rhyme Zone
The hands down favorite by me for an online rhyming dictionary. The crucial key for RhymeZone is how it breaks down the rhymes into sets of one, two, and three syllable results. This helps many to look at a possible multi-syllable solutions. This can work well in the re-writing process.

There are a million Thesaurus’ out there. My personal favorite is also the most obvious - Thesaurus.com.

5. Mini DAWs and Tascam Portastudios
The revolution in DAW, or “palmtop” recording has been nothing short of … well … revolutionary. With many products under $300, there is almost no excuse to get those great songwriting ideas down for all prosperity.

The products are smarter too. One problem with the all-in-one style “portastudios” in the past was having to figure out all the cascading menus. Years of testing and real-world application has enabled Tascam and others to provide more user-friendly interfaces and - yes - less of the dreaded cascading menu hell.

Tascam and Fostex make some of the best and most affordable all-in-one digital recording consoles. But lately companies like Korg, Line 6, Edirol, and M-Audio have been making multi-track recording devices smaller and with wider varieties of storage. Guitar players should check out the GNX series of products by Digitech.

4. USB Microphone
Although I haven’t heard too much from anyone anywhere on their practical uses for the USB microphone - it seems like something songwriters could really take advantage of in their quest for capturing inspiration.

The most popular one to date is the Blue Snowball Microphone. You basicall just plug-and-play your Snowball with your PC or Mac with no added software. The Snowball’s 3-pattern switch allows you to choose from cardioid, cardioid with -10dB pad, and omnidirectional. The dual-capsule design allows the Snowball to handle anything you can throw at it, from soft vocals to loud garage bands.

3. Robotic Guitar Tuner
Unfortunately, technology is not there yet allowing touring musicians to bring a robot along to take care of all their guitar-tech needs. Until then products like the Robotic Guitar Tuner will have to do. According to the site:

“All you do is hold the String Master robotic guitar tuner on each tuning peg and pluck the string. String Master listens to the sound and its powerful gear motor actually turns the peg for you until that string is tuned to perfect pitch.”

No robotic voice though. I was kind of bummed about that. It would have been great if it said something like, “YOU’RE GUITAR IS IN TUNE” in traditional vocoder style. But I digress.

2. Looping pedals
Looping pedals allow you to put down a chord progression and then work out melodies, counter-melodies, harmonies, basslines, and so forth - in real time. Many songwriters like this because building a song in this way allows you to stay in touch with the vibe of the song and allows them to make more emotional responses to the music they are creating.

With the rapid expansion of looping, there is more gear and technique and artists than could possibly be covered here. You can find out more at the premiere looping website, and email discussion list at the Loopers-Delight website.

There is a wide variety of loopers available at Musicians Friend.

1. Line 6 Variax Modeling Guitars
Some songwriters state when they go to a another songwriter’s house and pick up their friend’s guitar they suddenly get struck with inspiration. Articles in the past have pointed out how simply picking up another guitar (or a different instrument entirely) can help overcome the dreaded writer’s block.

This is why the Line 6 modeling guitars are so perfect. Start turning the rotary knob and mess around. With the ability to sound approximately close to any other guitar you like, creativity is spurred and writer’s block is gone.

The latest electric Variax comes with “10 factory preset sound model algorithms with 5 variations each, based on classic electric solidbody and semi-hollowbody/hollowbody models, acoustic Dreadnoughts, resonators, banjos and electric sitar.”

The acoustic Variax (yes, I said acoustic) models banjos, classic Martins, and more.

Variax guitars (both acoustic and electric) on Musicians Friend.com.

Conclusion

There are tons of other great gadgets for songwriters. These will undoubtedly be covered in future Blogging Muses articles. In the meantime, stop by your local music store and try out some of the items listed above.

Are there any gadgets we should have covered? If so, let Blogging Muses know in the comments below.