Agile Partners, best known for creating an exceptionally useful $9.99 iPhone application called Guitar Toolkit that packs in a guitar tuner, a metronome, and fantastically detailed chord and scale charts, on Monday released its first follow-up app.
Tab Toolkit, also available via Apple's App Store for $9.99, enables users to read and listen to real-time synthesized versions of guitar tablature charts on their iPhone or iPod Touch.
Here's Kirk Hammett's guitar solo from "Master of Puppets," displayed in tablature and regular notation on an iPhone with Tab Toolkit. Hit "play," and it'll scroll by in (very fast) real time, with a synthesized version playing through the headphones.
Tab Toolkit won't have as large an audience as Guitar Toolkit, which is immediately useful to players of all levels, as it assumes that you have (or can get) tab charts--and that you know how to read them. But if you're a serious guitarist, $9.99 is a fair deal for a very sophisticated app that performs well--no freezes or stutters, as I've experienced with some other music-oriented apps. (If you're just learning about tablature, the $2.99 iPractice is probably a better first download.)
So where do you get tab files? If you're a songwriter, you can use Power Tab Editor (freeware, Windows-only) or Guitar Pro ($59, for Macs and Windows PCs) to create your own. There are also online libraries of tab files for popular songs and artists--GProTab has a particularly extensive collection of Guitar Pro files--though copyright holders periodically crack down on these sites, which generally operate outside their approval.
Once you have some tab files on your computer, Tab Toolkit lets you transfer them to your iPhone directly over your home wireless network. It also includes an embedded version of Safari so you can download tabs directly from the Web. Tab Toolkit does support PDF and rich-text tabs, but you get the most results if you use PowerTab or Guitar Pro files.
At last, once you have some PowerTab or Guitar Pro files on your iPhone, the fun begins. Tab Toolkit scrolls through the song at the correct tempo, displaying both traditional and tab notation, with a metronome and synthesized version of the instrument to keep you on target. It fully supports multitrack tabs for the same song--for example, I was able to download all three guitar parts, bass, and drums for Metallica's "Master of Puppets," and follow through each individually--and you can stop the automated playback and scroll through the chart manually to learn particularly tricky parts like Kirk Hammett's guitar solo. You can display either a guitar fretboard or piano keyboard on the screen to help you with fingering, and can even flip the guitar upside-down if you're a lefty.
So you finally got tired of faking it and bought a guitar. Congratulations! Now what do you do? Most beginners start with some basic lessons to learn how to hold the thing and finger some very simple chords. So far so good. Then they buy a tablature book, which shows you how to finger chords and scales. This is where a lot of would-be guitarists give up and decide they'll become lead singers instead.
Hey, that sounds like Jimmy Page.
A new iPhone app called iPractice can make the chore of learning and practicing your fundamentals a bit more fun. It's a lot more workmanlike than the Star Guitar app I tried out a few months ago; Star Guitar teaches you the names of chords and lets you string them together into song ideas, but assumes you already know how to play them. iPractice actually helps you learn how to play in the first place.
I tried the free light version, which contains five basic lessons, such as C major scale and G pentatonic scales. (Pentatonic scales are the cornerstone of blues and classic hard rock guitar.) First, you set a few parameters such as how fast you want to practice. Upon starting, the first screen shows you a picture of a guitar neck and explains which finger to put on which string for the starting position. After giving you a few seconds to get your fingers in place, the app displays a simple tablature chart. As the numbers light up, you put your finger on the indicated string and fret and play. A click track keeps you at a constant speed, and an optional background piano track lets you hear whether you're in key.
It's not going to make you a rock star overnight, but it's more engaging than a book of scales, and more convenient than computer-based guitar lesson programs--your iPhone's probably already with you when you pick up your guitar, so you won't have to drag your guitar to the computer. The full version costs $2.99, cheaper than any tab book I've seen, and includes 170 sessions. You'll need a second-generation or later iPhone or iPod Touch to use it.
Follow Matt on Twitter.
Star Guitar is built around a calculator-like interface that lets you choose from 144 chords.
Updated on March 28 at 12 p.m. PDT: The developers of Star Guitar explained to me that the latency between chord changes is intentional--it's meant to change on the first beat of the next measure. If you want to change it immediately, you can simply double-tap. Also, Star Guitar also records .WAV files--they're hidden at the bottom of the library list, below all the .pattern files that represent the built-in rhythms (you can edit them or create new ones on your computer). Finally, they asked me to link to the demo video on YouTube, so here it is.
I've been playing around with a new iPhone app, Star Guitar, for the last day or so, and it's a sophisticated piece of work that could help beginning guitar players learn how chords fit together into songs, as well as give more experienced songwriters a quick way to record their ideas when they don't have a guitar handy.
Released last week by Amidio, the creators of the Noise.io Pro synthesizer application for the iPhone, Star Guitar is based around a calculator-like interface that lets you choose from 144 chords.
The designers had to be very clever to fit that many chords on a single screen--essentially, you start by picking one of the seven natural-tone letters (A through G), then adding various modifications (flat or sharp, seventh, major, and suspended fourth). You might have to consult the help screen to figure out exactly which combination of buttons will create a particular chord--for example, a G6 is created by hitting "G" and "major"--but for the most part, if you know your chords, it's fairly intuitive.
If you don't know your chords, it's a fantastic way to learn what all these cryptically named chords sound like. I've played for years, but still have to think for a few seconds before I could hum you the notes in a suspended fourth. With Star Guitar, I can just play it.
... Read MoreGuitar Hero: Metallica, which lets gamers play along with the band and its influences, comes out in the U.S. on March 29. Metallica lead guitarist Kirk Hammett spoke to me this afternoon at the South by Southwest music festival about the game and other issues related to music and technology.
Q: With the Guitar Hero game, do you think you'll be reaching longtime fans, or is this mainly a way to reach younger fans who might know a song or two but don't really know Metallica?
Hammett: We'll be reaching fans across the board, longtime fans, fans who've just gotten into us, Guitar Hero fans who might have reached Metallica through Guitar Hero. It works in a lot of different directions. Our demographic gets wider and wider through the years; at our shows we see a lot of kids who are 10, 12 years old, and a lot of that has to do with the fact that their parents have been fans for a long time. And a certain percentage of it is because they're Guitar Hero fans and they got turned on to Metallica through Guitar Hero, and they want to actually see Metallica as a live performing band.
Were you a Guitar Hero player before this?
Hammett: I have to say, I've only really played Guitar Hero once. I'm the kind of person who, if I start playing video games, I don't stop. So a few years back, I said to myself that I have to stop playing because I don't play guitar, I don't eat, I don't sleep. I had found out about Guitar Hero from seeing it in the media, seeing the poster on the wall in the studio where we were recording our album, hearing about it from friends. So I did actually play it once, I played against Lars and I beat him. He plays it all the time. But I had to tell him I had a fair advantage being a guitar player myself.
Do you find there's a split between musicians and non-musicians? I think a lot of musicians look at Guitar Hero and say "I'd rather be playing."
Hammett: I never feel like I'm playing my instrument enough. It leads back to what I was saying earlier about being totally obsessive. I've talked to other guitar players who've played this game, it's apples and oranges, it's a different thought process between this and actually playing an instrument.
Do you think kids growing up today are going to be drawn to games like Guitar Hero instead of learning how to play the guitar? Or do you think musicians will always be musicians?
Hammett: I think it's going to be responsible for creating a lot of musicians, for kids making the leap to playing a real instrument. I have a friend who works at a music instrument store, and he told me that because of Guitar Hero, guitar sales are up. For me, that's a great thing because these kids are being brought up on the music that's in Guitar Hero, it's great music, great classic rock, great classic metal that they wouldn't hear otherwise. It's all just about pop drivel on the radio. They're getting an education through Guitar Hero, and if some of these kids are truly inspired, they'll make the leap and grab a guitar and learn how to play the songs for real.
What about the songs from other bands that are in the game? Did you guys pick all of those bands, and were there any specifics that you picked?
Hammett: Well, I wanted UFO to be in there, but for legal reasons we couldn't do it so we had to settle for Michael Schenker Group. Same thing with The Misfits. We would have loved for The Misfits to be on here, but for legal reasons, we have Samhain instead.
Do you have a recording rig that you use to get ideas down outside the studio?
Hammett: Traditionally, I'll use a small recording processor, which I'll eventually load into ProTools. A lot of the stuff written in the last four or five years, I used (Apple's) GarageBand. Then from GarageBand I put it on a CD and then dumped that into ProTools. GarageBand is really handy in that I can just have my laptop, have my guitar, have a guitar cord, and plug my guitar into the laptop. Once I've tweaked it and modified things, and built upon the ideas, I'll put the music into ProTools, which has become the industry standard. So for me, it's really about GarageBand and ProTools.
So you just go direct, you don't even need a microphone?
Hammett: Sometimes I'll use an Mbox, yeah.
I know they captured a lot of moves for the game, how did that work?
Hammett: They filmed us with sensors on us. It was pretty cool. We lip-synced to the songs, and they got full-motion captures of us playing the music. They did full body scans of us as well.We tried to aim it to be as accurate as possible.
Seattle has an overabundance of rock musicians for a city its size, from pure garage amateurs to club bands to touring stars.
Microsoft employs about 40,000 people in the Seattle area today, and there are legions of ex-Microsofties who stuck around after they left the company. So there's bound to be some overlap between the two groups.
I know several serious and talented musicians who have or had day jobs at the 'Soft, but they tend to downplay the connection--showing up sober to work every day to build or sell software just doesn't play well in rock biographies.
(Credit:
Jim Allchin)
Of course, some employees are so famous that it would be silly to pretend otherwise. Jim Allchin, who led Windows development for more than a decade, is among them.
I had heard for years that Allchin is a serious guitarist, and as Todd Bishop reports today, now he's got an album coming out.
After listening to the samples on Allchin's Web site, I will say that he can certainly play. I'd guess that he counts Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani, and Pat Metheny among his guitar influences.
He also produced the record, and his Web site has a bit of info about his recording techniques and gear: everything was recorded straight to hard drive using MOTU interfaces (I'm going to guess PCI rather than USB or FireWire) and Sonar Producer digital-audio workstation software--which is, not surprisingly, Windows-only (though you can run it on a Mac with emulation software). But I wonder if he used Windows Vista or XP?
Although Allchin's fairly famous in the tech community, he's probably the second most famous ex-Microsoft guitarist. Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, a longstanding guitar player, released an album with his band Grown Men a few years ago. He's particularly well-known in Seattle music circles for jam sessions that can occur any time, any place.
As a member of the old-people-who-used-to-play-in-rock-bands demographic, I've never found much appeal in Rock Band or its competitor/predecessor Guitar Hero. But they obviously have a lot of devoted fans, including, apparently, "the only Beatles in the world" (and the others' designated heirs).
On Thursday, Rock Band creators MTV Music-Harmonix teamed up with Apple Corps and announced a forthcoming video game that will let you play along with Beatles songs. The game won't merely be another Rock Band version or Track Pack, but will rather be an entirely new game that will presumably work with the Rock Band peripherals. Album art will be prominently featured, as will the original mixes, presided over by Beatles engineer George Martin's son Giles (who also worked on the Beatles/Cirque du Soleil tie-in project, Love).
Personally, I'm hoping for an interactive Yellow Submarine portion and a new Rock Band keyboard so I can try to play "Hey Bulldog."
It doesn't seem like there'd be much overlap between a band that broke up nearly 40 years ago and a new video game, but generation after generation keeps reclaiming the Beatles as its own. My friends' 7-year-old daughter has been obsessed with them for some time--she could tell John songs from Paul songs from George songs when she was only 4, and watches Beatles movies alongside Hannah Montana flicks.
The game will come out late next year, in time for the holidays.
You're on stage, in the middle of your first song. The band's tight. The sound's dialed in. The audience is grooving. But you--idiot guitarist--forgot to do the Stevie Ray Vaughan trick of tucking your cable up through your strap, so instead it's running straight down to the floor, next to your feet. Excited, you take a step forward to pose for your friends in the front row and step right on your cord. It comes out with an ear-splitting pop and buzz. The bass player rolls his eyes as you get down on the stage, pick the end of the cable back up, plug it back into your guitar--another loud pop--and finish the solo. Momentum lost. Show ruined. Chances of rock stardom zero.
Belkin's got the solution: BreakFree connectors. They're magnetic, like the MacBook's MagSafe power cable. They can't prevent you from stepping on your cord, but when you do there's no pop, no buzz, and you can reattach them very quickly. They're also excellent for guitarists who like to change axes between songs, but lack the roadies or foresight to do the busy work of turning on the bypass each time. Plus, you're less likely to damage your input jack after hundreds of plugs and unplugs--and there are few things worse than an input jack failing on stage. (What's that crackling sound?)
$19.99, available in September.Wandering the CES floor among the audio exhibits, with no particular destination in mind, several things caught my eye.
Radiient cofounder Jano Banks, who helped invent HDMI, demonstrated the company's Roomcaster wireless speaker technology. Most such speakers use the 2.4gHz band, which is subject to interference from household devices like cordless phones and microwave ovens. Roomcaster uses ultra wideband (UWB), which operates over a broad spectrum and is less subject to interference. The demonstration featured an HDMI video connection and Roomcaster-enabled wireless speakers, and the sound was clear with no discernable latency against the picture. So far, Roomcaster's still in development, but Banks claimed that several speaker partners are signed up to begin shipping speakers in late 2008.
Dirty little secret: a lot of rock musicians can't read music. (Personal confession: my sight-reading's terrible, and I never learned to read bass clef despite playing bass as my main instrument for the last 15 years.) Piano Wizard has been around for a couple years now, and while it's marketed as a teaching tool for kids, it's a great way for anybody to make the leap from key watching to reading actual sheet music. That's not a huge problem, as most piano players learned the old-fashioned way. It's a different story with guitarists. Hence, Guitar Wizard. It was introduced earlier this year in conjunction with the Fisher Price I Can Play Guitar System, but apparently they're set to introduce a digital interface and fretboard overlay that will let Guitar Wizard be used with a regular guitar. They're demonstrating it at the US Music booth, in the back right corner of the main hall at CES. The company is also working on transferring its technology to game consoles. Imagine Guitar Hero with, like, real guitars.
All your friends could crowd onto the Boomchair Rumbleseat to play Halo 3.
(Credit: Matt Rosoff)If your surround sound system's not quite close enough, there are several companies offering chairs with built in speakers. These chairs are aimed at gamers, but I can think of more imaginative uses for the Boomchair Rumbleseat, with a built in vibrating motor that reacts to particularly loud bass sounds.
Tonight, Bill Gates gave his last CES keynote before retiring from Microsoft. (Prediction: he'll give a keynote again, but probably not next year). Though entertaining and occasionally educational--Windows Live Photo Gallery got some well-deserved spotlight time for its panorama feature--there wasn't much about digital audio in it.
However, the final set piece featured a Guitar Hero III battle between Gates and Microsoft Entertainment and Devices President Robbie Bach. Each brought in a ringer--Bach got a Guitar Hero championship who shredded the introduction to Guns N Roses "Welcome to the Jungle." Gates, never to be trumped, brought in Slash, who played the real thing on his Les Paul through a pair of Marshall half-stacks.
As you might expect, the Hero version actually sounded a lot more like the original.
Ion's digital turntables, which let you convert LP records directly to digital files, aren't new--I first saw them at the 2006 CES--but the company is showing more sophisticated equipment each time I stop by their booth. This year, they're showing off their LP Dock turntables, which not only feature a USB connection out but also a dock for selected iPods (5th gen and Classic and 2nd and 3rd gen Nano). This lets you record directly to the device via Voice Memo mode.
But I hadn't seen their URecord before--it's like their digital turntables but more versatile, letting you connect any audio source via RCA cables. The iCUE also looks cool--it's a two-channel mixer for digital audio files on your computer.
Ion's iCUE lets you mix digital audio files from your computer.
(Credit: Matt Rosoff)At their CES booth, they'll be showing off their electronic drum kits in conjunction with an Xbox 360 playing Rock Band. And right across the aisle, the folks at Peavey will be showing their guitar controllers with Guitar Hero. It's a virtual rock-a-thon! Check it out, about halfway back in the main hall at CES.
