Do you rely on hastily scribbled notation or tab when four- or six-string inspiration hits? Or maybe you sit in front of your smartphone and hit record. Or even just try and remember, only to completely forget by the time you reach the rehearsal room. Denmark's TC Electronic has now come up with the Wiretap Riff Recorder, a new way to capture and catalog your killer riffs that's always at your feet.
Inspiration can be a fickle beast. Any distraction, any at all, can see your killer idea disappear in an instant. Even breaking away mid-noodle to grab a pencil or hook up your guitar to a smartphone using a special interface can be enough to forget where your magic fingers were flying. The Wiretap Riff Recorder relies on something that's almost second nature to electric guitar players – pushing down on a footswitch.
The Riff Recorder can store more than 8 hours of 24-bit/44.1 kHz uncompressed audio on the pedal, with players simply hitting the footswitch to start recording and then again to stop. The stomp also has true bypass so that your all-important tone doesn't get colored.
In addition to the footswitch, there are three more buttons up top. One plays the most recent riff through your cabled up amp while the other two allow for scrolling through recordings.
For a more organized approach, players can pair the pedal with the free iOS/Android app over Bluetooth to send song ideas to a smart device for sorting and cataloging. And if you forget your Wiretap stomp, don't panic. The app sports a voice recorder with built-in peak meter for making recordings on the move, and then adding them to your riff arsenal.
The Wiretap Riff Recorder will be available from the end of June for a suggested retail price of US$99.99. The video below introduces the stomp.
Product page: Wiretap Riff Recorder
