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Jamstik+ is a backpack-friendly 'smart guitar'
The first time I encountered Jamstik, a guitar controller for Mac and iOS, was at CES 2013. Zivix -- the team behind the product -- came to our trailer and gave us a demo. That was a prototype, which eventually got crowdfunded and did pretty well as history tells it. Now there's Jamstik+ with a few significant improvements, and once again, the company's looking to you to fund it (spoiler: It's already met its goal). While the original Jamstik won people over, concerns over latency left some users wanting. Has version 2.0 cracked it?
The original 1954 Gibson Les Paul 'Black Beauty' goes up for auction
If you're an avid collector of music history, you might want to consider emptying your piggy bank for this. On February 19th, the original 1954 Gibson Les Paul Custom -- better known as "Black Beauty" --(left) will be auctioned off, giving someone with deep pockets the chance to own the prototype that became perhaps the most iconic guitar ever made. For the uninitiated, Paul, a musician and inventor, worked with Gibson to create a new electric guitar in the 1950s, with this first model being delivered to its namesake in 1954.
PLAYER for iOS teaches you how to play your music library
MiQ Limited has announced PLAYER, a free iOS app that analyzes songs from your device's music library and then shows you how to play those songs with chords, keys and song structure. PLAYER uses a streamlined interface and attractive UI to display song structure and chords in real-time as a song from your iOS device is played. The idea is that you see the correct chords that correspond to the song as it's being played, which teaches you to play along with the song. If you don't know a particular chord, PLAYER displays chord finger positioning for guitar, piano and ukulele at the top of the app. Before you start, the song is first sent to MiQ for analysis, which takes a few seconds. Additional features include a Discover section that allows you to see the Top Charts of songs used by PLAYER in iTunes' music library. The charts give you a taste of sample chords played in a given song as well as the option to tag a song for later purchase. PLAYER also lets you compile a set list of songs for rehearsal to save you digging around for individual songs you want to practice. Finally, a nice touch is a feature that allows you to slow down the playback of a song you're playing along to. It's a great tool for when you're first learning a song and everything's a bit too fast for you to keep up with. Regarding song analysis, unfortunately no app is going to correctly predict and place all the chords of a given song. And PLAYER is no exception. Your mileage will vary depending on the style and production of the song you're listing to. For best results, you need to give as much attention to listening to the musical makeup of a song as you do looking at the chords being displayed in the app. In short, PLAYER is an easy to use, well designed app. It's a wonderful tool for anyone wanting to learn and develop their musical playing skills for guitar, piano and ukulele, especially beginners. As a side note, PLAYER is developed by the same company that developed Jamn, an app that teaches you the musical theory of the relationship between notes, scales and chords.You can read my review of it here. Finally, if you like PLAYER, but want a bit more detail and control of the manipulation of the song you're learing, check out Capo for Mac, which I reviewed here.
Gibson's Les Paul headphones take design cues from the iconic guitar
Gibson's fitness-minded headphones may get most of the attention here at CES, but venture inside the company's tent, and you'll discover yet another line of cans. And these are much more in line with what I'd expect from the guitar maker. In fact, the inspiration comes from the Les Paul: an iconic guitar that debuted in the '50s and named for the musician who first endorsed it. It's still a popular choice for pickers. Later this year, Gibson will equip Les Paul owners and admirers with a new series of headphones that get their aesthetics from the design of the classic axe. Just like the guitar, there will be a range of choices, including Standard (over-ear) and SG (on-ear) models that pack regular, Lightning and wireless connectivity.
The iRig 2 wants to replace your guitar pedal board with a phone
IK Multimedia has been cranking out new versions of its iRig guitar adapter for phones and tablets for nearly five years. Here at CES 2015, there's yet another update. The iRig 2 still allows you to connect that axe to an iOS, Mac or Android device, but this time around, there's a 1/4-inch output jack, so you can use the company's mobile apps (like AmpliTube) alongside an amp with ease. It also means that, if you so choose, you could make that mobile device part of an effects loop, or replace it entirely. Sure, the sound of individual pedals is hard to beat, but this setup aims for convenience. There's also a headphone jack to keep from annoying bandmates, and while the onboard gain control returns, a new toggle switch will bypass the connected mobile device entirely. If you're considering giving it a go, the accessory will be available during Q1 for $39.99/€29.99.
The iRig HD-A equips Android users for mobile guitar recording
IK Multimedia's iRig series of mobile recording wares have long be an option for the iOS faithful, and now its guitar-minded add-on is prepped for Android. The iRig HD-A is a $100 accessory that allows you to plug your axe into a mobile device track riffs while on the go. Just like previous efforts, this Android version is very much a plug-and-play setup for guitarists to use the company's AmpliTube amplifier and effects simulator app to toy with sounds and virtual rigs. It packs in a 24-bit 48kHz analog to digital converter, and can be paired with a computer via USB when you're stationary for a while. As you might expect, other entries in the iRig line can be used alongside the HD-A for a more robust mobile arsenal. However, there's one important caveat: the device only works with gadgets running Samsung Professional Audio. This means that the Galaxy Note 4 and Galaxy Note Edge can sort the goods now, and compatibility for the Galaxy S5, Note 3 and others is said to be on the way. The aforementioned AmpliTube is available as a plug-in for Samsung's SoundCamp app, so you can record tunes with whatever setup you come up with while toying around.
Watch this guy shred through four decades of video game music
Sure, some video games require lightning-fast fingers, but even the most insane combos in Street Fighter don't quite compare to running up and down a guitar's fretboard lickety-split. To pay tribute to 40-plus years of gaming history, YouTuber FamilyJules7X put together an epic 17-minute performance (embedded after the break) of music from the medium's past and present. If you ever wanted to hear heavy metal versions of classic game-themes like Space Invaders, Phozon and Tetris alongside those of Donkey Kong Country, Pokémon, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Fallout 3, this should be right up your alley. Most impressive? Jules shot the video, mixed the audio, programmed the drums and performed the guitar and bass parts himself in eight days -- all during his last week of college finals. If you want to download an MP3 of the track, hit the YouTube page. Now, if you'll pardon us, we have some head-banging to do.
Rocksmith is losing its religion, gaining REM DLC
The latest batch of DLC for Ubisoft's guitar tutor Rocksmith 2014 adds a handful of singles from early-90s college radio mainstay REM to a game that already boasts tracks from Oasis, Aerosmith and Weezer, among others. Included in the downloadable content release are five tracks: "Uberlin," "Everybody Hurts," "The One I Love," "Shiny Happy People," and "What's The Frequency, Kenneth?" As usual, each of these songs bears a $3 price tag, though you can grab them all at once for $12. Ubisoft claims that Rocksmith 2014 is able to teach users to play the guitar in just 60 days, though you may need to allot extra time to "Everybody Hurts." Lengthy crying jags can take a lot out of you.
Roadie tunes your guitar for you, tells you when your strings are about to break (hands-on)
Unless you've traded your guitar strings for an axe-shaped MIDI controller, tuning your guitar is probably one of those chores you've just learned to deal with. It's hardly the bane of any guitarist's existence, but sometimes it seems like there could just be a faster, more brainless way to get your instrument ready to jam. Turns out, there is. Roadie positions itself as the next generation of guitar tuners. Think of it like a modern String Master, a device that fits snugly over your instrument's tuning pegs and does the hard part for you. Paired with a companion smartphone app, Roadie listens your guitar's strings and turns its gears until the instrument is on key. We dropped by the team's table at Haxlr8r, and the process was dead easy, quickly tuning a demo guitar without breaking a string. In fact, it's designed not to -- by comparing a string's elasticity with its frequency, the device can actually warn you when your guitar's wires are about to break. Not a bad trick, particularly for guitarists (like this editor) that aren't completely sure when their instrument was last restrung. The device's Kickstarter page has already more than half of its $60,000 goal, and has a little over a month left to get the rest. Looking for a way to chip in (and to avoid guitar maintenance)? Check out the source link below; Roadie tuners start at $79.
Gittler's all-titanium guitar has no neck or body, demands more than the intro to 'Stairway' (video)
"An out of this world guitar playing experience." That's what Gittler promises from its aircraft-grade titanium axem and has launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund production. Based on Alan Gittler's original 1978 design, which is now housed at MoMA, it maintains the same simplified structure, coming from the mantra to strip away "all that is unnecessary and redundant." That's resulted in a guitar body that lacks both a neck and body -- although an acrylic guitar neck can be added, if needed. Guitar enthusiasts that pitch $2,000 into the Kickstarter coffer will land one of 250 "classic model" Gittlers, although they'll have to follow that up with another $1,995 payment to receive the instrument. There's no volume controls, although the makers have managed to squeeze on knobs for both bass and treble. The funding goal stands at $80,000, although it's hard to put a price on good shredding.
Korg's KR Mini rhythm controller puts a backing band in your gig bag (video)
Sometimes a metronome just won't cut it when you're playing an instrument alone. That's where Korg's KR Mini comes in, providing the galloping metal beat that bridges into a poppy chorus for your bass, guitar or keyboard jam session. You can even chain the unit's nine presets -- 8-beat, 16-beat, dance, jazz, Latin, metal, pop, R&B and rock -- together with a plethora of fills to make your own backing tracks to shred along to. The box's 16 velocity sensitive-pads do double duty too, allowing for finger drumming if none of the onboard loops do the trick. If you need inputs to run your existing effects pedal-board or foot controls into, the KR Mini has you covered there too. No monitor? No problem. The built-in speakers can provide the sound you need at a moment's notice, with a trio of AAs providing the juice if you aren't near a wall outlet. Considering the company's storied drum machine-heritage, it's cool to see Korg honoring that legacy with this latest KR model. The Mini ships in November for $79.99, and while it may not be the ego-free backing band of your dreams, it probably comes close. Follow all of our IFA 2013 coverage by heading to our event hub!
Rocksmith 2014 trailer plucks out its improvements
This Rocksmith 2014 trailer tours the game's improvements over the first title published by Ubisoft in 2011. 2014 sees a wide variety of changes, including a better note highway and lack of load times, Ubi says. Rocksmith 2014 will launch in October.
SteadyTune for Mac
Agile Partners released SteadyTune for Mac today. It's a simple app that gives you a tuner for stringed instruments in your menu bar, and it's an amazingly accurate alternative to the tuners built into apps like Logic Pro. It uses a completely new algorithm from Agile Partners that provides a stable and accurate meter. You can define your instrument type and listen for all notes, or define a tuning to detect just certain pitches. It has presets for an array of instruments ranging from six- and 12-string guitars all the way through banjo, ukulele, violin and double bass. The entire meter glows red and green as you near the perfect pitch, which makes it easy to use from a distance. SteadyTune can be configured to stay on top of other windows, and you can set the input device to listen on and define a hotkey to pop it up and hide it. SteadyTune is just US$4.99 on the Mac App Store, and check out the website for more information. If you play a stringed instrument, this app is great on its own or in combination with any recording software you happen to use.
SessionBand Jazz lets you create like a master
UK Music Apps Ltd produces SessionBand, an iOS-based app that gives you chord-based audio loops. You can use these loops for professional recording or to enhance your music experiments while you learn. A new version, SessionBand -- Jazz Edition, was released on June 15th. The new Jazz Edition features over 16,000 precision-cut chord-based jazz loops recorded by bassist Geoff Gascoyne, pianist Tom Cawley, drummer Ralph Salmins, and woodwinds (saxophone and flute) by Andy Panayi. The four UK-based jazz musicians are associated with top London music schools, including Royal Academy of Music, Royal College of Music, Trinity College and Guildhall. You can watch an entertaining video and see these musicians in action in SessionBand's introductory YouTube video. You can create your own copyright-free jazz music with your own jazz quartet by selecting and joining together various chord blocks. The SessionBand Jazz provides ten jazz chord variations for each of 15 popular jazz styles. According to UK Music Apps, you can "listen to the same set of selected chords in any of those styles." Also joining SessionBand, the February-released highly rated app, this week are SessionBand -- Piano Edition and SessionBand -- Acoustic Guitar Edition. The Piano Edition features recordings by Tom Cawley, while the Guitar Edition features recordings by Christian Marsac. These versions are on sale in the iTunes Store for $2.99, while the SessionBand - Jazz Edition sells for $3.99. All of the SessionBand apps feature one-touch recording, automated mixing, metronome and count-in, auto-transpose and Audiobus compatibility. The apps are compatible with iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch, running iOS 5.1 or later, although the company recommends using the apps with the iPad 2 or iPhone 4S or newer devices. Personally, I rather like their tag line: Everyone's got a song in them. What's yours?
Jamn for iOS makes learning to play guitar visual, easier
Jamn (US$1.99) is a universal iOS app that visually communicates the relationship between musical keys, chords, scales, notes and the audio an instrument produces. Having spent some time teaching music to young students, I know all too well how difficult it can be to communicate the relationship between music theory and the sound that an instrument produces. Inevitably, it involves me scribbling endless analogies on a piece of paper until the penny drops. And while there are helpful visuals out there, I've not come across one as clear and as simple on the iOS App Store as Jamn. Through Jamn's intuitive and interactive Jamn wheel, the relationship between theory and sound is made visual, helping to connect the dots for beginners and those wanting to learn more. For example, by selecting the key of C in Jamn, the wheel will clearly identify all relevant major and minor chords for that key. Turn the wheel and the key changes to reveal the next appropriate chords. You can also hit play to hear exactly what each note and chord sounds like. It's a simple premise, but has the potential to make a big difference in the learning process. Each note and chord is also represented on a virtual guitar fretboard, displaying where each finger should be placed to make up the chord. The same can be done by swiping the fretboard to ukulele or piano mode. In guitar mode, tilting your iDevice will put the app in eHands mode, giving you a literal hand position representation of what your hand should look like when playing the chord. The app comes with 10 of the most common hand positions, a further 200 can be purchased via in-app purchase for $1.99. Additional features include an in-key chord finder, a scales library, a tuner and tutorial videos to get you started. There really is a lot in Jamn to get you learning, understanding and playing your instrument. If you've already got the basic principles of playing, for example, the guitar, Jamn will be a fantastic tool to help you develop and progress in your musicality. But if you're a teacher, I can see Jamn being particularly useful in providing a creative and interactive way to teach students the fundamentals of playing the guitar, ukulele or the piano. Jamn is certainly worth checking out. What apps have you used to help you learn or teach an instrument? Let us know in the comments below.
gTar opens up iOS and Javascript SDK, adds Ableton Live compatibility
It's been a while since we've heard anything out of the gTar camp -- nearly half a year in fact, when the company announced pre-orders the week of CES. This morning the Kickstarted instrument manufacturer broke the silence by announcing that it'll be opening up its SDK for both iOS and Javascript, letting developers create apps for browsers and Apple's mobile operating system. The learning-friendly instrument already has a bit of a head start, as it's presently compatible with more than 150 apps, according to the company. Compatibility also extends to Ableton Live, via an "unofficial custom script" that makes it possible to use the gTar's fretboard as a control panel for the popular DJ software.
Daily iPhone App: Guitar! by Smule plays a familiar tune
Smule is the company behind a lot of excellent music apps, and its latest release is called, simply, Guitar! by Smule. Just like much of Smule's other work, the app is designed to let you "play" a guitar via your iPhone, tapping and strumming various notes that run across the screen. That in itself is not all that innovative, but Smule's tie in to its other apps and the company's substantial licensed music library is. With Guitar!, you get access to some really great guitar pop songs, and the team has also connected this app up to the Sing! karaoke app, which means that the singers putting in their voices to match your guitar are just fans playing along as well. That makes this app a little more special than just a standard music game. Still, despite that extra connection, there's not much else to make this one stick out -- you only get two songs for free, and then you'll either need to pay for a few more songs, or earn a whole lot of points to purchase others to play. It's nice that Smule has provided the app for free, and if you like these games they've made, this one is worth a download. But Smule is definitely starting to follow a formula here, successful as it may be so far, rather than inventing something really brand new.
Smule users record 1 billion songs
Smule may be only 5 years old, but the California development firm started in part by Jeff Smith and Stanford Assistant Professor Dr. Ge Wang has had an amazing impact on the world. The company shared some stats with Evolver.fm that are incredible -- Smule's apps have been downloaded over 100 million times, are used by 15 million people a month and that audience has recorded over 1 billion songs. Sure, those songs may be amateur auto-tuned, auto-rapped or karaoke trash, but the statistics -- and Smule's bottom line -- prove that the company is on to something. While such venerable music gaming titles as Rock Band and Guitar Hero have seen better days, Smule's apps are all about actually making music, and that seems to make a difference to app consumers. Smule pulled in US$12.6 million in revenues last year, and is expected to reach the $20 million mark in 2013. The latest addition to the Smule stable is Guitar! (free), a music game released yesterday in which users play along with recordings of popular songs to gain points and where practicing opens the door to new levels and songs. [via GigaOM]
Smule Guitar app plays nicely with Sing (video)
Bay Area app developer Smule has amassed an army of mobile instruments, but really, what fun are all those music makers without a little good old-fashioned jamming? Today, the company's offering up the simply named Guitar, an app that lets you strum along to songs recorded through its equally straightforwardly named Sing. At present, the company has hand-picked a dozen or so singers, letting you play along (though expect that number to increase, as time goes on), becoming "the first pair of [Smule] apps that actually talk to each other," according to the company. Using the app will be pretty intuitive for anyone who's messed around with Guitar Hero and its ilk, letting you know when to strum via swipe through a dynamically scrolling layout. On more advanced modes, you can choose the chord you want to play, but in Easy, it'll just do it for you. You can pick a single string with a tap and add vibrato by shaking your iPhone / iPad. We got a preview of the app during a recent visit to the Smule office for the Engadget Show, back when it went under the (arguably superior) name "Strum." Check out video of that and the final version after the break.
Finally, those Maroon 5 songs you wanted are available in Rocksmith
Just in case the thing that prevented you from buying Rocksmith on Steam was the lack of Maroon 5 songs, we'll just remove that musical obstacle for you right here and now. Valve reports that "Misery," "She Will Be Loved," and "Harder to Breathe" have all been added to the game. You can buy each song for $2.99, or pick them all up together for $7.99. Once purchased, you can play through the songs with a standard electric or bass guitar, and each song also adds a new authentic tone to play with on the game's Amp mode. Sweet Maroon 5-style haircuts are, unfortunately, sold separately.
