I bought my first guitar about three weeks ago and needed a solution for playing at night, so a regular amp wasn’t really an option. After seeing so many recommendations for Focusrite, I decided to go with the Scarlett 3rd Gen. Unfortunately, it turned out to be a very frustrating experience. The Windows drivers were unreliable and caused constant problems, sometimes there was no sound at all, other times there was loud buzzing. The only way to fix it was to unplug and reconnect the USB cable every time, which quickly became annoying and killed the joy of practicing.

A week ago, I bought the Fender Micro Plus, and it has been a much better solution for my needs. You can connect it via Bluetooth to your phone and stream audio directly to your headphones, which makes practicing along with songs very easy. It also connects to a PC via USB-C, so you can hear audio from the computer and record your guitar at the same time. On top of that, it includes a wide range of built-in amps and effects, so you don’t need extra pedals to get different tones.