guitar
Latest
Happy Chrono Trigger Music Day
Ah, video game music day ... the one day every week where we can go back in time and relive our favorite tunes from the games of yesteryear. Hey ... going back in time. That gives me an idea ...Please enjoy the following guitar selections from everyone's favorite time-traveling Super Nintendo RPG, Chrono Trigger.Previous video game music days
Music Thing: VW's free guitar deal
Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment: So, VW is giving away a free guitar with (almost) every car sold betweeen October and December as part of a slightly baffling promotion of the iPod-friendly auxillary input in their new car audio system. Yeah, I'm a little confused, too.The guitar is made by First Act, an interesting company who got rich selling children's guitars in Wal-Mart. They're very marketing savvy - with a large custom shop churning out one-offs for bands like the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Franz Ferdinand. The firm was founded by one Bernard Chiu, who made a fortune selling air humidifiers in the '90s.The VW GarageMaster guitar looks ok, if you can excuse the clunky-looking VW logo control knobs. And the cheesy VW gang sign on the headstock. In a world of identical Fender/Gibson clones, it's nice to see a guitar that's part Hagstrom, part Rickenbacker, part Burns, with a scratchplate to match the colour of your car and a VW logo at the 12th fret.The only real innovation in the VW guitar is a built in active analog amp modelling circuit, which I'm guessing works a little like a SansAmp pedal. It means you can plug the guitar straight into your VW car stereo and... well, I'm not exactly sure how you're supposed to play in your car, but that's the idea. Of course, if you like the guitar but don't want to buy the car, expect these things to be all over eBay in a few weeks, and cluttering up lofts for years to come.
It's official: Guitar Hero II heading to Xbox 360
As rumored and expected, Guitar Hero II is officially making the jump to the Xbox 360. RedOctane and Activision announced today at X06 that the rumors were true -- the power of the guitar shall no longer be confined to a single console.With the newly announced X-plorer guitar controller designed for the 360 (we wanna know, is it wireless?), the hard drive and Xbox Live Marketplace, this game is a match made in heaven for this system. Future downloadable songs, new bass and rhythm tracks, the mind just reels.Will we be able to one day jam with Drum Hero, Guitar Hero, Microphone Hero, and Keyboard Hero, and everyone on their own wireless instrument? Dare to dream.
Happy Final Fantasy music day
Why do we play games? To escape, of course -- to free ourselves from our earthly shackles and enjoy a world of pure fantasy, if just for a moment. To that end, please enjoy this quick escape through the music of the Final Fantasy series on guitar, piano and, er, recorder.Check out our previous Friday music features.
Leet hax0r stuffs a Kaoss Pad into his Les Paul
If you're a Radiohead or Muse aficionado, you've probably considered matching some of their Korg Kaoss Pad-generated sounds with your own guitar prowess. The Kaoss Pad generates all sorts of space age effects that can be naturally controlled through the touch-sensitive pad, and works fine right out of the box, but guitar hackin' Phil wasn't appeased. He found the effort to reach away from his guitar and fiddle with the Kaoss to be too immense, so instead he drilled a hole into his Epiphone Les Paul and mounted the touch pad right next to the bridge for ultimate access. The pad connects to the processing part of the Kaoss via a serial connection, but Phil did mount the box's "hold" button on the guitar for locking in effects. If none of this is making any sense to you, peep the YouTube video after the break and watch Phil shred on his new hacked-up axe.[Via Hack-A-Day]
Missed Gitaroo Man? It lives again!!! First review
There are two kinds of people in the world: those that have played Gitaroo Man and those that have not. Chances are, you're in the latter group. IGN has posted up one of the very first reviews of this music game, and it's all swell. The game features some sharp visuals, complemented by its zany uber-Japanese style. Mix in a soundtrack that covers everything from "happy sunshine flower time" Jpop to "I want to kill myself while wearing leather" grunge, and everything in-between, and Gitaroo Man has the makings of a game that everyone must own. IGN simply states the game is "one of the finest games the genre has ever produced." The game received a mighty 8.8.If there are any flaws, it has to be that there's nothing really new for veterans of the original. But, more likely than not, you may have missed this original title when it came out on the PS2. Don't miss it again.(And for you DS owners, don't forget to pick up Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan!, one of Inis' other music games.)
FretLight plugin for GarageBand
The FretLight plugin for GarageBand is one of those Mac releases that will get a small number of Mac users very excited. This plugin allows you to use a FretLight guitar, which lights up showing you what to play interactively, with GarageBand to make teaching the guitar a snap.Thanks, Lloyd.
Music Thing: Boutique effects pedals
Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment: About a year ago, I wrote about boutique synthesizers -- fantastically obscure boxes hand-made by freaks (normally Scandinavian). Compared with synths, effects pedals are relatively simple -- sometimes just a handful of components, a switch and a couple of knobs in a steel box -- so there are loads of people experimenting and making great-looking but expensive pedals for guitarists. Most of the pedals mentioned here are in the $350-$500 range. Sure, that would buy you a dozen Chinese-made Behringer pedals, but would that make you happy? Zvex RingtoneDisappointingly, Zachary Vex's new Ringtone pedal won't make your vintage strat sound like the Crazy Frog. Instead, it's a 8-step sequencer driving a ring modulator -- the early sound effect used to make the voice of the Daleks, and built into the Commodore 64's SID sound effects chip. It's pretty hard to understand what the Ringtone does, or why it's cool, without watching Zachary's wonderful demo video. Like all boutique pedals, the Ringtone is crazy expensive at $349, but that gets you a hand-made, hand-painted pedal. After the break: Kitsch Brazilian pedals, butch American pedals, clever English pedals, and a fuzzbox with a joystick...
Music Thing: The Tritare
Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment: One of the first columns I ever wrote for Engadget was about Triple Neck Guitars, which are normally played by heavy metal guitarists with curly perms and an enthusiasm for lengthy solos. Now, straight outta the Mathematics department of a Canadian university, comes the Tritare: A guitar with three necks, but only six strings. Last week, at the Acoustical Society of America's 151st meeting in Providence, RI, Sophie Léger of the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, Université de Moncton, Canada, presented a paper on "A New Family of Stringed Musical Instruments". She's one of the inventors of the Tritare. It has triple-ended strings - one string goes up the fretted neck, and the other two resonate on the second, and third, fretless necks (which the guitar is standing on in this picture). You play it roughly like a normal guitar, with the two necks down to your right. Obviously, the interesting bit is the sound, and this page contains several samples, which are amazing. Presumably they're uneffected, but sound alternately like bells or reverb-covered 'Paris Texas' slide guitar. The Canadial professors are trying to market the Tritare as a product -- there's a homepage at Tritare.com, but absent are prices or availability. They're also experimenting with networks of strings, which at the moment are more at the clanking and atonal end of things. Of course, if three necks doesn't sound hardcore enough, you could always build a double body guitar.
BlueBox intros miJam iPod toys
If it wasn't yet clear to you that the age of the DIY mashup is upon us, a new set of toys from a company called BlueBox -- which let even iPod-toting tweens "enhance" their tunes by dropping beats and sound effects -- should remove any lingering doubts. The three members of the new miJam series, which all attach to standard headpone jacks - a guitar, mixing board, and electronic drumsticks -- bear little resemblance to their non-toy counterparts, as all of the effects are triggered by buttons instead of real drumming or thrashing. Even the mixer sounds like it would be a letdown for budding DJ's, delivering canned scratches that will in no way prepare them for the beat-matching they'll being doing in a few years on their Numarks. Still, kids are pretty easily entertained, so the flashing lights and loud noises should probably hold their interest for a few minutes longer than your average gimmicky accessory. Like so many other pre-release products we bring you, we have no idea when these are coming out nor how much they'll sell for.
Oppo X31M guitar-ish shaped DAP
To be honest, we didn't really see it at first glance, but apparently this new X31M player from Oppo is shaped like a musical instrument of the guitar variety. Funny, no? We're not sure on capacity, but the player does support the usual MP3 and WMA files, promises 11 hours of battery and can play FM radio. There's an OLED display, USB 2.0 connection, and, uh, a headphone jack. These China-bound good times can be yours for some undetermined price, at some undetermined point in time.[Via DAPreview]
PS2 impressions: Guitar Hero II
Red Octane's Guitar Hero II is on show and we tried out the co-op mode. It's an improvement on Guitar Hero's multiplayer modes, as it assigns different parts to both players; we took the bass part to another player's lead, and made some beautiful music.Inevitably the bass line has less sparkle than the lead, so this allows less skilled players to accompany those more proficient. The single-player mode caters to the harder end of the spectrum with three-finger chords -- a Red Octane employee hinted at four finger chords too. Before you run away in terror, remember it takes just as many fingers to play a real guitar.
Preview of new Guitar Hero II co-op mode
In case you missed it on Friday, IGN posted a pre-E3 hands-on preview of Guitar Hero II's new co-op mode. It's a departure from the first game's multiplayer mode in that the two players have to depend on each other a lot more to pass each song and thereby make beautiful music together.While the old multiplayer option will still be around in the sequel, the new mode mixes distinct lead guitar and bass or rhythm parts where each player affects the other in various ways, whether by failing if either performance slips (as in DDR), sharing the same Rock Meter (with mistakes from either player resetting the score multiplier), and needing to both go vertical at the same time to activate the shared Star Power. Thankfully, different difficulty levels can be assigned to each player.The Joystiq team out in L.A. will probably find something to do until they get their sweaty paws on a guitar controller or two on the E3 show floor (maybe one of those wacky press conferences will help pass the time), but we're sure the wait to try the latest build of this rockin' series will be worth it. The seven songs available at E3 are listed below.[Thanks, murph]
Music Thing: The USB Lightsnake and other ways to connect your axe
Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment: Connecting a guitar to a USB socket is one of those technical questions that nobody has ever asked, but lots of people have tried to answer. The latest, and possibly neatest, solution is the SoundTech Lightsnake, a simple 10-foot guitar cable with a quarter-inch jack on one end and a USB plug on the other. Plug it into a USB socket and it will glow green (mmm… retro!), and it promises to pump your guitar neatly into GarageBand or whatever. There’s a big cultural barrier between the two ends of the cable. Quarter-inch jacks are indestructible, ancient and roadworthy. They were introduced in 1878, for use in telephone exchanges, and they’re still in almost any piece of musical equipment you’d ever want to use, from a Les Paul to a Moog Modular. They never break, and if they do happen to fray, can be mended by anyone who knows which end of a soldering iron to hold. With no tools, a combination of sharp teeth and nimble fingers can make a workable repair. Meanwhile the new-fangled USB plug, introduced in 1995, has no place in rock’n’roll. It’s invariably plastic, and was literally designed by a committee. Neutrik does produce a nickel-housed USB socket that could almost fit on a guitar amp, but would be unlikely to survive attack from a flying bottle of beer. In the last year, USB/Guitar hybrids have been everywhere. The GuitarPlug does the same job as the Lightsnake, without the attached cable or the glowing LED. Towards the end of 2005 there was a rash of USB guitars, released by many, bought by few, culminating in the Behringer iAxe, a $149 guitar with a built-in USB socket and a bundle of free software. I’m sure it sounds great.
Konami: Here's our Rev game
Shingo Mukaitouge, the driving force behind the Guitar Freaks and Drum Mania games, is producing Konami's first Revolution game Elebits. The focus of the game, according to Japanese mag Famitsu where the information appears, is for the player to acquire Elebits, small creatures that are the game world's energy source. Finding these creatures will apparently be no simple matter as the player will have to meticulously hunt for each Elebit, causing the game world to evolve with each captured creature. Not much else can be gleamed from the piece at this time, but the game is expected to be at E3.
On eBay: the first game mag, Sega Genesis guitar
GameSetWatch has discovered a couple of interesting video game related items on eBay including a magazine from 1970 with the cover-text "Game Computer" (the first magazine to put "computer" and "game" onto the front cover?) and an electric guitar made out of a Sega Genesis. There's not much else to say about the magazine: it either is or isn't the first magazine to mention computer games. Unfortunately we have no idea how to verify this. The Sega Genesis guitar is a little more straightforward. The modder has merely replaced the body of the guitar with a Sega Genesis and called it good. And yes, the guitar does work, although the same can't be said for the Genesis. Now all we need to see is a guitarist using the guitar to play some Michael Jackson riffs as a tribute to Sonic 3!
Guitar Hero hack - a sequencer is born
Here's a class project that you probably wish you'd managed to get credit for. By interfacing the Guitar Hero peripheral with a sequencing program, these students at the University of California have managed to turn the five-button guitar into something approaching a real musical instrument. From novelty sound effects to an almost orchestral piece, it's an impressive start which could spark off a whole series of musical Guitar Hero hacks.[Via /.]
Music Thing: Messe Oddities
Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment:Human ingenuity has no limits. Walking through the vast halls of the Frankfurt Messe exhibition centre last week, I saw pretty much every musical instrument imaginable, and several things that I’d never imagined seeing… Most kick drums don't rotate, so I'm not sure how the spinning starts on these things, but I guess the lead singer could casually give it a flick round every so often. No, there's no way that attaching a random bit of shiny, pointy aluminium to the front of your drum kit will make it sound better.
