JamUp Pro is a fantastic, easy to use app.
In conjunction with the JamUp Plug I reviewed last month, Positive Grid have provided me a copy of their premiere guitar amp and effects modeling iOS app, JamUp Pro.
JamUp Pro is one of the newest guitar apps to appear in the iTunes app store, and it has really taken off with a bang. With 6 multi-stage amp models and 14 studio grade effects available from the launch date, and more to come according to Positive Grid, it is great value at $19.99.
The JamUp Plug is a great little iOS interface at a great price.
Nowadays there are a range of instrument interfaces available for the iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. With so many available, and a wide range of prices and connectivity it can be hard to work out which one is best for you. Most connect through the headphone jack of your iOS device, and they all provide an audio connection for your guitar or bass with varying degrees of success.
One of the latest players in the iOS instrument interface is Positive Grid, with their JamUp Plug. Like many of the other interface manufacturers Positive Grid have their own iOS app to use with the JamUp Plug – JamUp Lite and JamUp Pro. I’ll be reviewing JamUp Pro soon. (more…)
Rock Prodigy, like Guitar Hero, but for real guitar playing.
Having just read about the demise of the Guitar Hero franchise this week I thought it would be apt to review a new iOS app called Rock Prodigy. This free application works on iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad, and is a guitar teaching app/game that works much like Guitar Hero, but you use a real guitar instead. You can purchase songs by many different artists for a few dollars a track, or basic guitar exercises for around a dollar (prices depending on your location). Songs and exercises are rated by difficulty too, so it will make it easier for people to pick songs at their skill level.
Rock Prodigy is much like Guitar Hero, except you use a real guitar, and play real notes to trigger the guitar parts of the song, and score points. A timeline is shown in a tablature type format, with the notes you need to play scrolling across the screen. Play the correct note or chord as it crosses the “Play line” and the guitar part in the song will play for you. (more…)
PolyTune - strum, tune, rock.
I’ve been using the Peterson iStrobosoft iPhone application for some time as my main tuner with great success. It’s strobe tuning technology is extremely accurate, and great for setting intonation, etc when restringing guitars.
Having such a fine degree of tuning accuracy can hamper you a little when you just want to tune up and rock. You feel the need to get the tuning bang on the mark, when no one would really notice that you are 3 cents out of tune on the a string.
The TC Electronics Polytune iPhone application is awesome though. Strum all of your strings, see which ones are out, and tune them accordingly. Nice, quick and simple.
I compared the two mentioned applications by tuning on the Polytune application first, then checking on iStrobosoft. I found that PolyTune was nearly as accurate as iStrobosoft, and that the degree that the guitar was out of tune negligible at most.
So now when I am just tuning a guitar to play I use the PolyTune application, and restrings are with iStrobosoft.
The display is just like the physical Polytune pedal, and it so nice and easy to read.
One thing that is a little annoying is at Polytune application doesn’t seem to use the microphone on the iPhone was well as the iStrobosoft application. It wont be able to pick up some unplugged electric guitars that well. Plug them into an amp and it’s fine though. I plan on buying or making a guitar cable for my iPhone soon though, so it will be a non-issue really.
Overall the TC Electronics Polytune application is great for making the sometimes tedious job of tuning nice and fast. It’s definitely a worthwhile addition to any iPhone carrying guitar players app list.
A pretty cool application for the iPhone. Imagine how aweseome it would be on the iPad.
Agile Partners have come up with a great little application for the iPhone. Tab Toolkit offers guitar players a useful tool for storing guitar tab files, viewing them, and playing them through the iPhone speaker or headphones for reference.
Tab Toolkit allows you to load tab files, include Power Tab, Guitar Pro, PDF and text based tabs. Only the Power Tab and Guitar Pro files can be played back through the audio system in Tab Toolkit. The others are available just as references to read.
Version 1 of Tab Toolkit was only capable of playing one instrument at a time. Agile Partners have rectified this though with version 1.1. If you held back from purchasing Tab Toolkit because of this worry no longer.
The tab listing part of Tab Toolkit is nicely done, with three different modes. You can have alphabetical lists by artist, and when you click on the artist it takes you to all of the tabs in your repository. You can view all tabs alphabetically, or tabs listed by artist, with every tab listed underneath the artist heading. The later is my favourite view.
There are two ways of downloading your tab repository to Tab Toolkit. You can load them from your PC using your iPhones IP address, or you can download them from the web using the inbuilt web browser. Each are nice and easy to use, particularly the nice web based interface.
One thing I felt was missing is the capability to print tabs off over WiFi to printer. This would make Tab Toolkit a very powerful application. I teach guitar, and if I was showing my repository of tabs to students, and they wanted a copy of one of them I’d love to just tell them to fire up their printer so I could print it off for them. I have sent through a suggestion to Agile Partners to see if they could add this capability to a future release.
Overall Tab Toolkit is a handy application for guitar players. It is a great tool, giving you access to your tab collection anywhere, plus allowing you to find and be able to read tab files on the go. I’d love to see what Agile Partners do with Tab Toolkit when the iPad is released. An expanded version with a page per screen tabs would be amazing!
