Wed, January 25, 2012 at 9:02 AM If you have already invested in IK Multimedia's iRig device and you've had the same problem we have managing devices and cables dangling off your iPad, you may be interested to hear about the new iKlip Studio.
;)
The recently announced iKlip Studio
Announced at this year's Winter NAMM and priced at a very reasonable $29.99, this adjustable iPad stand also folds flat for storage and importantly incorporates a little holder for your iRig, which then clips onto the back of the iKlip Studio.
;)
Rear view of iKlip Studio with iRig mount
We haven't seen it in the flesh yet but it looks fairly sturdy and we think it's a great idea that will potentially solve one of our main annoyances about using the iRig with our iPad.
Here's a little taster video from IK Multimedia about the iKlip Studio's general features - let us know what you think in the comments:
IK Multimedia, Phil, Studio, guitar, iKlip, iRig, recording | in Accessories, Audio, GarageBand, Music Mon, January 23, 2012 at 9:50 AM It is probably very wrong to get so excited about an iPad accessory before we have even seen it, but we felt the same way about the iO Dock from Alesis and their new AmpDock, designed specifically for guitar and bass players, has got us in a stupor again.
;)
Basically a slightly cut down version of their iO Dock, Alesis have made the AmpDock more robust for live use. AmpDock features an enclosing cover on the fourth side so that you iPad isn't exposed on the top edge, as it was on the iO Dock.
There's also a handy little kickstand on the back to angle the AmpDock when it is sat on top of your amp and to allow clearance of the amp's handle. If you have ever tried balancing your iPad on top of your amp you'll know how useful and reassuring this feature will be.
But the main thing that got us excited was the inclusion of a pedalboard controller in the $299 price!
This is a great boon and means that, for the iPad-owning musician, AmpDock is ready to rock (or not, depending on your guitar style) out of the box without any further expenditure.
More details and specs below, after the teaser video from Alesis:
AmpDock Key Features
AmpDock Specs:
Fri, January 20, 2012 at 12:05 PM ;){kind=logo}
After surprisingly little begging on our part, the nice people at Sonoma Wire Works in California agreed to send one of their GuitarJack 2 review models over to the UK for us to take a look at.
Of course, we agreed to let you know what we thought of it in return, and as always we have written our review just as we found it, in 'real world' situations we would use the device in, so here goes.
Overview
We expect by now you already know what the GuitarJack 2 is, but its main purpose is to provide you with the best sounding, cleanest audio input into your iOS device, specifically the iPhone 4, iPad 2, iPad, and iPod touch (not 1st gen.).
Here's a little video showing the GuitarJack 2 in action:
First Impressions - Construction
Our first observation? This thing is built like a tank!
All the other interfaces we've laid our hands on have been made of plastic of some sort. They seemed fairly substantial but one was certainly flimsy enough that if it were left on the floor it would not withstand the impact from a misplaced boot.
GuitarJack 2, on the other hand, has an aluminium shell and a heft to it that makes us think it could easily withstand a stomping from our 'gig boots' (we haven't tried it because we do have to send it back). It is a big chunk of made-in-America metal.
This solid shell is backed up by the very welcome metal jack sockets for a ¼" guitar/instrument cable, an ⅛" headphone jack (with increased drive for monitoring with headphones) and on the other side an ⅛" stereo microphone/line in.
The ¼" input is a solid brass Switchcraft jack, which we think is a good thing. In fact it is so solid that removing our guitar cable from this jack often involved inadvertently disconnecting the GuitarJack 2 from the device's dock connector.
About the Dock Connector
The one thing that we have found with most dock connecting devices, including Apple's own Camera Connection Kit, is that it is very easy to knock the 30 pin connector loose and it remains a problem in a busy recording setup even with GuitarJack 2.
;)
Proxima Dock Extender Cable bought for under £5This connector issue also means that GuitarJack is not best hung off your device with cables connected to each jack, whether in portrait or landscape mode. The weight is liable to pull the interface away from the dock.
Sonoma have obviously thought about this though and you will find four little rubber feet on the bottom of the unit which give it some grip on a desk surface when your device is laid flat on its back, as in the product shot with the iPad (above) and iPhone (below).
They also suggest using a dock extender cable, even offering a $26 one for sale on their site, but we managed to pick one up on Amazon (UK) for under £5 (pictured above) that has full charging and syncing capabilities. It is this cable that we used when recording all the samples below and it never came loose.
Some info and hardware specs
Before we get into how the GuitarJack 2 sounds, here are a few specs from Sonoma Wire Works for the techies in our audience:
Software Features
(Control Panel in GuitarTone, FourTrack, StudioTrack & TaylorEQ)
GuitarJack 2 Control Panel in FourTrackLevel Control: 60 dB of continuous level control
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;)
;){kind=icon}
We will be taking a look at the software integration in a future post. For this review we will be concentrating on the GuitarJack 2 hardware and its sound.
So what does it sound like?
We know, by now you're probably thinking, "This is all very good, but what does it actually sound like?", so let's get to that.
For a device costing this much, it better be good right?
Well, we have to say, it is!
GuitarJack 2 is by far the cleanest audio input device we have tested. Noise is non-existent in all but the highest of gain settings and even then you have to turn the volume up very high to know it's there.
Audio from a microphone is clear and totally devoid of noise. Sound recorded from another audio device (in our test the audio from an iPad's headphone socket) sounds just as good.
Guitar tones are crisp, clear and well balanced. Even with high-gain, distortion loaded, fuzz-maven settings in AmpKit+, there was an obvious lack of feedback.
We ran plenty of sound tests and we recorded our general observations and a few samples for you to hear below.
Compared to Headphone jack input devices
Our main concern was how the GuitarJack 2 would sound in comparison to audio input devices that used the iOS device's headphone jack.
We have always been a bit disappointed with the noise levels present in audio interfaces connecting via the headphone jack.
To be honest, this may be less GuitarJack 2 versus iRig / AmpKit LiNK / JamUp Plug / iRig Mic, etc. than it is 'dock connecting audio devices' versus 'headphone jack connecting devices'.
The iPad/iPhone audio circuitry always generates noise in our experience and, as such, we think devices like iRig Mic, etc., will continually be at a disadvantage because of this.
But let's see what GuitarJack 2 sounded like with a guitar.
Guitar Input
We tried lots of different guitar apps and setups. GuitarJack 2 worked with everything we tried except Amplitube. IK Multimedia's apps just don't seem to detect an audio source via the dock connector, something we hope they rectify very soon.
We had been sent an A/B switch by Sonoma Wire Works too, which let's you input your guitar and split the output in two so that we could record on the iPad and iPhone at the same time. We used the amazing sounding AmpKit+ because it has both iPhone and iPad versions and we know it well.
A/B testing a guitar signal using AmpKit+ on iPad & iPhone
After trying lots of distortion laden settings and comparing the GuitarJack 2 with iRig, AmpKit LiNK and the JamUp Plug, the biggest difference was the lack of screeching feedback using the dock connected device as compared to the headphone jack devices.
But it was when we stripped everything down to the cleanest amp settings we could in the AmpKit+ app, took away the noise gate and matched the settings on both the iPhone and iPad, that we finally understood how clean the signal was from GuitarJack 2 in comparison.
Here's a few sample recordings so you can judge for yourself. We used our A/B setup shown above to record the same audio onto two devices simultaneously. We recommend listening with headphones for a better comparison and don't worry, Phil doesn't have to rely on his guitar playing to make a living!
First up, clean as we can get it, using AmpKit LiNK:
and now using GuitarJack 2
It is the audio hiss that you can clearly hear from the device connected to the headphone jack (in this case the AmpKit LiNK) that sealed it for us. The GuitarJack 2 is far superior and offers the cleanest signal we have heard so far, even without a Noise Gate pedal.
Feedback
This demo took us by surprise. When we were recording these we could only listen to one of the devices for monitoring (unless we wore two pairs of headphones, which seemed a bit weird).
So we chose to monitor our guitar through the GuitarJack 2 connected to the iPhone whilst recording. That sounded ok with this sample, noisier than we would normally use because of the high gain and lack of Noise Gate pedal, but acceptable:
Then later we listened to the version we had recorded via the AmpKit LiNK into the iPad. The feedback we heard here was not the nice tonal kind, but even using AmpKit's excellent re-amp feature afterward we had trouble dialling it out.
Here's how the same set-up, with the same 'Dynamically Dirty' preset, sounded through AmpKit LiNK, the headphone socket audio device that has arguably the best feedback prevention (warning: it's not very comfortable to listen to):
The difference is clear, we're sure you will agree. We haven't done anything with these sounds except trim the end bit off and export them from the apps used to record them.
Microphone input
As mentioned, GuitarJack 2 has an ⅛" stereo mic input with software controls to use mono, dual-mono or stereo input depending on whether or not you are using the ¼" input at the same.
When we used our old mono condenser mic (XLR to ¼" mono) we couldn't get it to work using both of the GuitarJack 2's inputs (for example vocals and guitar, or vocals and output from an iPad for video demos).
;)
Our old mic and XLR to stereo jack cableThe 'Both Inputs' mode on GuitarJack 2 seems to take the Right channel only from the stereo mic input and our mic was only showing up on the left.
After playing with lots of of step-down/mono/stereo adapter combinations we gave up and ordered an XLR to stereo ⅛" cable that is bridged, so the mono signal is split into a left and right channel output. This worked wonderfully.
So how did the microphone sound? We compared GuitarJack 2's input to the nearest headphone jack competitor we had, the iRig Mic from IK Multimedia. This device also has three hardware switchable sensitivity settings, as does GuitarJack 2 (via the software control panel).
We wanted to specifically show you what the noise levels were like on each setting. We strongly recommend you listen with headphones to more effectively hear the comparisons.
First, the iRig Mic:
And here's our inexpensive mono condenser mic connected to the ⅛" stereo socket on GuitarJack 2:
Hopefully the difference is obvious, especially on the high sensitivity setting used at the end of our audio. GuitarJack 2's noise-free audio is clearly evident here in the second example.
Further testing underway
We are still conducting various 'real world' tests with GuitarJack 2, especially using dual inputs for videos of the iPad in action recorded on the iPhone 4, as well as the GuitarTone software that only works with FourTrack currently, but hopefully with StudioTrack on the iPad very soon.
As soon as we have more to show you we will let you know.
Final thoughts
In our opinion, audio recorded via the GuitarJack 2 sounds better, cleaner, more dynamic and more reliably useable than that of any other audio interface we have used for iOS devices.
;)
Much of this is due to the fact that GuitarJack 2 interfaces with the dock connector. But just as much of the GuitarJack 2's performance comes from the way it has been professionally engineered and optimised to work with both the hardware and especially the compatible software.
If, like us, you could not normally justify the $199 RRP cost of the GuitarJack 2, you can get away with devices like the ones we have mentioned above that connect via the iOS device's headphone socket. For many purposes these would probably be enough and are a fraction of the cost.
If, though, you are serious about your sound, if you want the best possible start and quality of audio recording that you can reasonably expect on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, then we think you should sell something else and/or scrape together the pennies to buy yourself the GuitarJack 2.
We are sure you'll consider it a worthwhile investment in your music and other audio productions.
GuitarJack 2 was still available for a discounted price of $149 from Sonoma Wire Works direct, at the time of writing and its online and street price may be around the same when the deal finishes. A quick Google search has the price at a fairly uniform £139 here in the UK.
Further reading: iRig vs AmpKit LiNK - which is better? Part 1 of 2
Further reading: iRig vs AmpKit LiNK - which is better? Part 2 of 2
AmpKit Link, AmpKit+, GuitarJack 2, Instruments, Interface, Musical, Phil, Sonoma Wire Works, guitar, hardware, iRig, iRig Mic | in Audio, Music, Review Mon, January 16, 2012 at 1:26 PM ;)
The nice people at Positive Grid have sent us a note to say that JamUp Pro, the relatively new Guitar FX-app-on-the-block has just been updated to Version 1.3.
We loved this boutique looking and great sounding app when we reviewed it back in November last year.
What's New?
New in 1.3 are an "updated DSP engine, audio copy and paste, and 20+ new amps and effects available via in-app purchase.".
The new in-app purchases are obviously the big thing, but we are particularly excited to see support for ACP included in this update too.
If you're quick you can take advantage of a 50% discount on the new expansion packs, but for just one week only.
Go and grab your update.
App Store Link: JamUp Pro
Tue, January 10, 2012 at 11:56 AM IK Multimedia are throwing their considerable weight firmly behind the iOS platform with their latest round of product announcements ahead of this year's NAMM show, starting next week.
;)
The first of these we wanted to tell you about is the iRig Mix. Here's the trailer video which got our heads in a spin with the sheer potential of this device for the mobile musician.
Be sure to watch through to the end to see the multitude of ways iRig Mix can be used.
Check out the iRig Mix page for more demo videos of the device in action and details.
Needless to say, we are very excited at the prospect of this new device, what do you think of it? Let us know in the comments.
Mon, January 9, 2012 at 12:51 PM As expected, the iPad is featuring heavily at CES, or rather, accessories for the iPad are popping up everywhere. SlashGear and Engadget both reported this morning on the soon-to-be-released Guitar Apprentice from ION Audio (the people that brought us the iCade and Piano Apprentice for iPad).
The idea is that keys on the $99 fretboard light up, teaching you how to play guitar and perhaps also enabling guitar games. The potential is there for this accessory to be used by iPad musicians with CoreMIDI compatible apps to play an iPad synth app for example in an iBand.
We think it is a fun and creative idea for those who already have an iPad, but if you are really looking to learn guitar, we think you should get a starter electric or acoustic guitar and, if you have an iPad, get the brilliant WildChords app by Ovelin. You'll do a much better job of learning to play real guitar that way.
CES, Case, Guitar Apprentice, ION Audio, Phil, WildChords, guitar, iPad | in Accessories, Audio, Education, Fun, Games, GarageBand, Learning, Music Tue, December 13, 2011 at 4:06 PM ;)
The nice people at Positive Grid, developers of the brilliant JamUp Pro and the JamUp Plug, have launched a seasonal giveaway. You can read our review of both to see why you should want to win them.
For the next 4 weeks Positive Grid are giving away a copy of the JamUp Pro app along with their specially made for iOS hardware plug, which we really like.
All you have to do is leave your name and email address on the giveaway page and you are entered for all 4 weeks of the giveaway.
Nothing to lose and well worth winning!
Giveaway, JamUp Plug, JamUp Pro, Phil, Positive Grid, effects, guitar | in Accessories, Audio, Competition, Music, News Wed, December 7, 2011 at 9:07 PM Have you ever tried learning guitar? How far did you get?
If you're like a lot of people you probably learnt a few chords, maybe even a few songs, but never really got any better and you lost motivation. If you took guitar lessons you may have a had a guitar teacher who struggled to engage you and made learning guitar a chore, not fun.
WildChords from Finnish developers Ovelin has been designed specifically to dispel these problems with learning guitar.
Using a gaming approach, combined with a carefully ramped learning curve, cute cartoon graphics and bespoke, fun sounding songs to play along with, we think WildChords has a good chance at succeeding.
We were in on the beta program for this app and we have seen it develop a great deal from the early versions but the core idea of the app has remained the same: to make it fun to learn.
Here's a promo video made for WildChords that shows off the quirky European sense of humour that we love.
The story
As you will have seen in the video above, the idea behind the game is that a lot of animals have escaped from a nearby zoo and are now terrorising the locals.
You play our brave guitar hero, who takes to the streets armed with the knowledge that the escaped animals can be corralled pied-piper like by playing the corresponding chord. A for Apes, C for Crocodiles, E for Elephants, and so on.
;)
Using a real guitar (acoustic or electric) you play the chords shown as our cartoon hero marches down the street. No plastic guitars allowed here! This is about learning to play guitar for real.
As each new chord is introduced there is a little tutorial showing you how to play the chord and where each finger should go.
The iPad's built-in microphone picks up how well you play the chord and lights up the string for each note that is sounded correctly.
Moving on
Once you have started getting used to playing the chords and as you move up through the levels you get to move on and play individual notes. The cartoon-like graphics continue here, with cute little birds sitting on telegraph wires, getting zapped if you don't play the notes correctly.
Somehow, you are suspended from a bunch of balloons, guitar in hand and you have to play the fret and string indicated or the birds get it! As the stages progress it gets trickier, requiring quite a bit of concentration.
Even though we've played guitar before, we found ourselves sweating a bit and getting quite tense on these levels.
;)
;)
What's it like to play?
WildChords really is a lot of fun to play and at the same time quite challenging. Each time you strum a chord it has to ring out correctly and you have to hit the timing bang on if you want to do well.
Far from being the trudging, demotivating type of lesson that puts so many of us off learning to play an instrument, WildChords makes learning guitar fun and keeps you coming back for more.
Rewards
Do you like collecting gold stars? We do!
WildChords rewards accuracy and timing with the oft-used three gold stars at the end of each level. Which is clever, because not getting three stars is annoying, especially when trying to learn a new skill, like playing guitar.
If you're determined to do this right, you'll want another go at the level, and another, until you get those three gold stars.
;)
More lessons
WildChords starts as a free download and this will get you a long way towards making more recognisable sounds from your guitar.
If you have completed all these initial tutorials you can extend your skills and buy further tutorial 'packs' which include new challenges and some new chords and even scales.
These packs are currently available as in-app purchases for just $2.99 (£1.99), which is not bad at all and a great deal cheaper than a single guitar lesson.
Even if you don't want to pay for the extra lessons, the WildChords app is a free download from the App Store, and we reckon you should go and get it.
If you do grab WildChords, don't forget to leave us a comment and let us know what you think.
Sat, November 26, 2011 at 3:49 PM With a few well established guitar effects apps such as AmpliTube and Ampkit already on the iOS scene, it might seem a bit overambitious to launch a new guitar effects app. Any new app would have to set itself apart and offer something the existing players do not.
So what does new effects app JamUp Pro from developer Positive Grid, offer?
Here's what Positive Grid's website has to say:
Up until now, the tone experience on iOS hasn’t really developed to give the full dimension and response of a mic’d up rig, and other solutions haven’t really provided the amazing user experience that guitar players should have on their iPad or iPhone. We decided to take this challenge head on to ensure JamUp truly re-creates the experience of playing through the most coveted guitar amps, and in some cases, way more fun.
Positive Grid's aim in developing the JamUp app (available in Lite and Pro versions) was to improve on current apps sonically. Really, although it's nice to have dials that go up to 11 and a lovely UI, in the end for guitarists it's all about their 'sound'
So, how does JamUp sound?
JamUp sounds great! We especially noticed a crispness on the more ramped up, distorted setups which was a very welcome find.
If you get the settings right (we had to pare back the humbuckers on our Epi Les Paul) the clean sounds are clear and resonant, sharp when they need to be and mellow with plenty of well rounded low end when dialled in.
Hybrid MESH Amp Modelling
This great sound comes from acute attention to detail in the amp modelling. In fact, Positive Grid have a whole page dedicated to describing the detail and parameters considered in their sound modelling.
Here's a little bit of what they have to say:
From the high level preamp and poweramp distortion, tone stack design, to the low level bright capacitor, blocking filter, cathode cap, power amp sag, and cabinet impedance interaction. We developed a unique MESH modeling technology, not only to capture the exact nuances of each amplifier in its killer setting, but also incorporated the dynamic performance of each model.
We could do no better than this demo video from Positive Grid's YouTube channel. Take a minute, grab a pair of headphones and listen to these sample run-throughs for a good range of sound demonstrations:
Jammin'
Both the AmpliTube and AmpKit apps have a jam function, as well as some other amp adds. So while this feature is not unique to JamUp we like the straightforward interface they use and the slightly beaten up, vintage UI is both clear and welcoming.
It's really easy to enter the Jam screen, load a song, set the tempo (0.5 for us usually), pitch and backing track volume and away you go. You can be jamming away sooner than it takes to read that last sentence out loud.
This is a brilliant tool to learn new songs and work out those riffs and solos that fox you when you hear them at normal speed.
Vintage Tuner
The chromatic tuner continues the easy to use, vintage styling. It combines a lovely looking note wheel interface that helps you quickly identify the note you're playing, with a more accurate colour coded meter that helps you to fine tune your guitar.
It works well in practice and seems to be as accurate as any other iPad tuner we have used.
Special FX
The effects chain in JamUp really impressed us because it is simple to access, simple to use and easy to change or modify the signal path. The drag and drop approach to adding and moving effects in the signal chain is the least complicated approach we've seen so far and works very well.
This all adds up to an effects interface that, while not as visually polished as AmpliTube for instance, offers a straightforward, accessible level of interaction that novices and more experienced players will appreciate.
We were also impressed with the quality of these effects pedals. They all performed as we expected them to, and some, like the Chorus, Flanger and Tremolo sounded cleaner and more authentic than other guitar effects apps we have tried.
Here's another video from Positive Grid, this time demonstrating the various effects found in JamUp Pro:
Sound-on-Sound Phrase Sampler
This one-man-band sampler and overdub feature is fantastic for working out song ideas, recording solo riffs over a rythm track or just trying out sounds. It works a lot like the recording / overdub function in the synth app Animoog if you have used it, but you can adjust the recording length here in JamUp Pro.
It would be nice if there was an undo available instead of the 'clear all' function for when you mess up an overdub, but it is still a useful and potentially powerful tool to have built-in.
Check out the video below for an idea of what can be done with this Sampler feature in the right hands (not ours!):
The Specs
Whilst we have mentioned areas above of the JamUp Pro app that stand out to us particularly, there is more to the app. Here is a full spec list:
Effects (JamUp Pro)
The Complete Package - JamUp Plug
;)
The JamUp Plug shown here with iPhone 4
In addition to the JamUp software, Positive grid have followed a similar pattern to IK Multimedia and Agile Partners/Peavy in releasing hardware to go with their app. The JamUp Plug is a little different though and we think it is a good thing.
Why this is a good thing
Although we love using both of them, what really annoys us about both the iRig and AmpKit LiNK is the trailing cable design they use.
This dangles off of your iPad/iPhone limply and then has the guitar and headphone cables connected to that, which has caused us to inadvertently pull the iPad forward off its stand, not to mention the tangling problem.
Addressing this issue, the JamUp Plug fits directly in to the headphone/mic socket on top of your iPad, sitting flush against it, meaning less trailing cables to worry about.
This helps guide the guitar cable and your headphone cable down the edge of your iPad, as you can see above, and reduces cable tangle and clutter. In our opinion this is a big plus for the JamUp Plug.
Construction
The JamUp Plug is cheaper than most of its competitors at $19.99 from Amazon.com, but the construction feels a bit 'plasticky', especially the 1/4" instrument cable input which doesn't have the usual metal ring and guide channel, so we are not sure how this will hold up over time.
Having said that, we didn't experience any problems at all with the unit we reviewed so there is no reason to expect problems, we are just comparing the JamUp Plug with it's more robust looking fellow guitar interfaces.
You don't have to use the JamUp Plug with the JamUp app, but its price and lack of dangling cables would certainly recommend it.
The website states that JamUp App also supports most available iOS guitar adaptors:
Final Thoughts
If you are after an easily accessible, authentic sounding and feature packed guitar effects app with that vintage vibe, JamUp Pro is just your thing. We like using it a lot and at the moment it is our main guitar amp modelling app.
If you're not sure, there is a free version JamUp Lite available in the App Store which has just 1 Amp and 4 effects but a fully functional sound-on-sound sampler, jam player and tuner. You will easily get a feel for the app by trying out the Lite version.
This review was based on the JamUp Pro app, which is available for $19.99 in the App Store and gives you full access to every amp and effect available without the contentious in-app purchases.
JamUp, JamUp Plug, JamUp Pro, Phil, Positive Grid, effects, guitar, modelling | in Audio, Music Tue, November 22, 2011 at 11:46 AM ;)
We were amazed that 'Jimi Hendrix: The Complete Experience' is a free app but if you are a Jimi fan or want to know more about the guitar legend then go and grab it now.
The app is a good demonstration of interactive design and use of the touch interface. Here's what we thought of it after spending some time with the app.
Developed by Universal Mind for Sony Music Entertainment and Experience Hendrix LLC, Jimi Hendrix: The Complete Collection apes the coffee table book / reference apps that 955 Dreams make and which we are very fond of, but obviously with less depth (although, the developers Universal Mind do say in the iTunes description that more content will be added on an ongoing basis).
For Jimi fans it is a fascinating read. We loved the really informative 'Early Days' section about Jimi's early life from childhood through to his time in the US Army. There are many things we never knew about Jimi and his life before he hit the public eye.
;)
There are a lot of videos too with some rare footage and even a voice over from Jimi taken from the 'West Coast Seattle Boy' documentary, personal family photos from Jimi's childhood and some of the more familiar shots we have seen before. You will also find a Discography (with iTunes links), info on some of the big venues and festivals he played and interactive maps of significant sites in Jimi's life.
There is a constant music selection being played from the iTunes store previews (so just 30 seconds of each track) with 'Buy from iTunes' button displayed at the top right of your screen. This is obviously the model for providing this app for free.
It is actually quite good for picking up those odd tracks you don't already have in your library when you hear them being played, so we think it may work as a promotional app.
As a free app, despite the obvious promotional side of things, Jimi Hendrix: The Ultimate Experience offers a lot of content for those curious about the man and the story behind his tragically short life.
But it should get better, as the last page of the app says that in future versions there will be new storyline content and videos along with games, interactive chord sheets and more. If the app stays free this could be really good and we are looking forward to seeing what they include in the updates.
The free download of Jimi Hendrix: The Ultimate Experience is available now in the App Store.
Coffee Table, Education, Jimi Hendrix, Phil, Reference, guitar | in Books, Education, Music Fri, November 4, 2011 at 9:58 AM When we raved about the professional quality audio samples in IK Multimedia's new SampleTank app (still 50% off until 13th November), we wanted to show you how good these sound, but to be honest we don't have the skills. Fortunately, IK do, and they have added a page of video demos showing just how amazing their SampleTank app sounds.
Future Tech
Sometimes, we are guilty of taking all this for granted but remember, this is all happening on a portable tablet device, a computer that you can take with you wherever you go and plug it in to any MIDI keyboard via things like the iRig MIDI. Future-tech of our childhood is here!
On with the Demos
We have included a few of our favourites video demos below, to see the rest check out the page at IK Multimedia. For now though, grab a pair of headphones and listen to the quality of these samples, we think you will be impressed.
The nylon guitar and Sax sounds in this one are amazing, they sound better than our real nylon guitar
Beautiful piano sounds in this one
Mon, October 31, 2011 at 2:07 PM Here's a short video that any guitarist will find interesting and it may even tempt you to replace that hefty amp that you're lugging around, at least for jamming round a friends house anyway.
YouTube user soaresgiu1 made this demo using IK Multimedia's iRig for the guitar input and iRig MIDI to connect the classic Boss GT-8 controller via the dock connector, both played through the new guitar fx app JamUp (our review is on it's way).
We think this set up has potential for playing live, what do you think?
IK Multimedia, JamUp, Phil, guitar, iRig, iRig MIDI | in Accessories, Audio, Music Thu, October 27, 2011 at 11:54 AM Here's news of a new guitar fx app in town, and it looks and sounds very interesting. With its boutique looking UI for the pedals and amps, sampler with overdub, jam tools and more, JamUp has a few tricks up its sleeve that might just entice guitarists to take a look at it despite being amongst a fairly crowded corner of the iOS app store.
Developers Positive Grid have released two versions of the JamUp App, a Lite (Free) version and a Pro version at $19.99 (£13.99). Interestingly, they have also released a guitar interface called the JamUp Plug that retails at $39.99, using the headphone/mic socket of your iOS device like the iRig and AmpKit Link .
Positive Grid say that their focus was on the tone of the guitar amp simulations and they have tweaked the standard sound from the industry standard amps to come up with a tone that they claim is better than anything heard so far on iOS.
Hopefully we will be able to tell you more about it soon, but for now, you may be as impressed as we were with the demo below, the end product sounds pretty fantastic!
Fri, July 29, 2011 at 4:41 PM ;)
We were a bit sceptical before trying this on our iPad because many of these 'slow downer' type apps make the audio sound horrible, especially at the slowest speeds with clipping and stuttering.
In RiffMaster Pro for iPad though there is none of that. The audio quality is really fantastic. In fact, it is probably the best audio slow downer we have heard, on any platform.
We tried it out with two classic cover band songs, "Rebel, Rebel" by David Bowie and "Sweet Child O' Mine" by Guns N' Roses. Both songs, but especially the latter, have intros that thousands of young guitarists have spent many hours listening to over and over again to perfect their covers.
In both cases we were able to slow the song right down to 50% speed without losing any detail and retaining perfect pitch to play along with. Actually, the audio was so clear and we found it so fascinating to hear the individual notes and words being sung, that we started slowing down all our songs to hear how they were constructed.
;)
You can choose to change the Pitch instead and keep the same tempo, which will help Guitarists and bands who tune down, as many do to get a bit more grunge in their sound.
Setting up repeated sections is very easy and the waveform display is fast, accurate and responsive when scrubbing through the song. You can also mark certain points in the song, useful if you are learning a particular section and can see it coming up in the waveform display or add notes for the songs.
If you are a Guitarist with an iPad and you want to learn songs by other artists, you need this app - simple as that really!
RiffMaster Pro is available from the App Store for $4.99, which is a lot cheaper (although with less advanced features) than their Desktop versions.
Here's a video preview from the Developers showing how the app works. Remember if you get this app to let us know what you think of it in the comments below.
Phil, RiffMaster Pro, guitar, learning, slow downer, songs | in Education, Music, Review Fri, July 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM How would you like an intimate 1:1 guitar lesson from some of the top musicians in the business? In your own home!
With On the Music Path app, that is pretty much what you get. You can even say, “Hang on, slow down a bit and play that again”, as many times as you like without annoying your tutor.
If you want to improve your musicianship, appreciate high quality video and classy app design, we think you will love On the Music Path, and it is not just because our favourite actor/photographer/musician Jeff Bridges told us to.
Here’s Jeff to tell you more about the app. We'll give you our hands-on review after the video:
The Approach
As you can see in the video above, On the Music Path uses high production value video tutorials to teach a skill. We liked the teaching approach used in the videos. The guitar videos, for example, show both hands of the tutor on the guitar, all the way through the lesson, so you can see exactly what they are doing.
These videos are supplemented with onscreen guitar tabs (or optionally music notation) highlighting the notes being played with a little blue arrow above or below the Tab.
Each lesson begins with a short introduction from your tutor where they demonstrate the skill your are going to learn, what will be covered and how it can be used. These introduction videos are very personal and although it may sound a little hokey, it really feels like they are talking directly to you. Try it and see.
You're In Control
You can control the speed of the video playback and even slow it right down to quarter speed whilst retaining the exact same pitch. Very useful if you need to break a riff or song down note by note.
There can be some strange sort of echo like stutter if you play the video at the slowest speed, but you have to expect this really from the audio and the notes are still clearly audible to play along with.
Another great feature is being able to set in and out points on the video so that you can loop and repeat a section that you are trying to learn, very handy.
Once a video lesson is finished the app pauses with a screen that lets you tap once to carry on to the next part of the lesson, or double-tap to replay the last video. This seemingly small detail has a big impact when you are learning.
Instead of breaking your concentration, going back to a menu or rewinding a video, just double-tap to practice the skill again, and again. It is a very useful feature (one we had to use quite a lot!).
Your Tutors
This app is not for wannabee super shredders or death metal fans necessarily, not at the moment anyway. The style of music being taught and the manner of your instructors is relatively sedate with Blues and Folk style guitar playing being the current topics covered.
Some well known musicians have lent their talent and knowledge to these tutorial videos though, talented and authentic musicians who love their craft.
Our teachers have won Grammy’s, been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, played at the very top of the charts and even been nominated to Parliament…But that’s not why we chose them. We chose them because they’re great teachers: They have the patience, generosity and talent to inspire you to become a better musician.
Among these is Jackson Browne (Rock and Roll Hall of Famer); Songwriter, Folk Rock guitarist and Brit legend Richard Thompson (OBE); and noted guitarist Steve Postell who delivers a stellar series on the fundementals of guitar. These are really good, solid basic lessons that any beginner guitarist will find invaluable to starting them off on the right foot (or leg actually) in their guitar playing lifetime.
Only acoustic guitar lessons are available right now, covering mostly folk, blues and classical playing, but the app shows a 'Coming Soon' label on electric guitar lessons with Eric Johnson, Sitar with Ravi Shankar Piano with Vonda Shepherd and Drums with Steve Ferrone, amongst several other instruments, so there is a lot to look forward to.
Video Size and Quality
The videos are gorgeous and look fantstic on the iPad screen if you opt for the full HD quality lessons. You are looking at around a 750MB to 1GB download that will be stored on your iPad though.
If, like us, you are struggling not to overstuff a 16GB iPad, you will find yourself deleting a lot of apps, podcasts, music, photos and other video to make room for these lesson downloads.
You do have the option of Standard quality downloads or the much smaller low-res versions. These take about 380MB and 180MB on average respectively. We tried them all for most lessons and the low-res videos are ok to watch on the iPad screen if you don't need to see the detail but the Standard quality videos were more acceptable to watch on the iPad.
If you can make room for them though, the HD quality is worth it, especially if you plan on hooking your iPad up to a larger display whilst using On The Music Path. We used HDMI and VGA out to watch the video tutorials on our HDTV in the lounge and they looked and sounded fantastic.
The guitar tab overlay is always clear, no matter what quality video you have selected, so you won't have problems seeing the notes you need to play.
No Streaming
We think it would be better if there was an option to stream these lessons, meaning we wouldn't have to keep them on our iPad. This may mean we lose the portability of the lessons, but if your main use for the lessons was at home where you have wifi and broadband available, having to wait for the stream each time wouldn't bother us too much.
The Cost
On the Music Path is a free download for your iPad, and most lessons have a sample provided for free.
Lessons range from $1.99 - $19.99 (£1.49 - £13.99) which might seem a bit expensive but, when an hour with your local guitar tutor costs around £25, consider what you're getting for your money:
If, like us, you are running a limited budget, then you may have to ration yourself to one or two downloads per month.
Given the size of the tutorials, especially at high quality and the amount of content in each one, you probably wouldn’t want to download all of the lessons at once anyway.
Overall Impressions
If learning to play guitar or becoming a more accomplished player , is something you have always wanted to do we think you will relish On the Music Path, especially if Blues, Folk and Classical is your thing.
As more lessons are added in the future in other areas such as Rock guitar, Keyboards, Bass, Ukulele and Drums, so the app has the potential to become your portal to all manner of musical instruction, right there on your iPad.
We highly recommend you check out On the Music Path, you have nothing to lose as the app is a free download from the App Store.
You will be able to tell if it is for you from the free samples that are included. Just be sure to free up some space on your iPad, especially if you are already struggling with your 16GB iPad like we are.
