Gear Reviews, Articles, Songwriting and Performance Tips

Top 5 Apps for Guitarists 2011

Posted at July 6, 2011

One of the best things about playing guitar is that it is such a versatile instrument that you will never get bored. Sick of your tone? Buy a new FX pedal. Tired of rocking out? Pick up a sweet acoustic. To that end, there are also endless ways to supplement your guitar playing with apps.

Here is our list of the Top 5 Apps for Guitarists that you need to own.

CLEARTUNE - CHROMATIC TUNER

Using the built in iPhone mic, Cleartune does a great job of quickly and accurately allowing you to tune your guitar (and other instruments) with ease. When you first boot up the app you will notice that unlike other chromatic tuners out there, Cleartune utilizes a clever "note wheel" which let's you seriously tune your instrument with an impressive level of control. The animation and graphics of this app are very high end and polished. This may just be the last guitar tuner you ever need. $3.99.

GARAGEBAND (iPAD)

Leave it to Apple to raise the bar once again on the very definition of what an app can be. GarageBand far exceeds the power and usefulness of almost every other app out there. If you are looking for a powerful and seriously fun multitrack recording studio, you would be wise to pick up this app. GarageBand allows for 8 track recording with loops, drums, synths, keys, and anything else you can imagine at your fingertips. Basic editing and mastering is allowed and your can easily export your tracks to Logic. $4.99.

GUITAR JAM TRACKS - SCALE TRAINER & PRACTICE BUDDY

The hardest part about learning how to solo is where to put your fingers, in my opinion. The second hardest part is finding a friend to jam with. Guitar Jam Tracks - Scale Trainer & Practice Buddy solves both of those problems by packing 5 genres of backing tracks into one flexible and responsive app. Included genres of backing tracks include rock, blues, acoustic blues, reggae, and jazz. The idea is to simply select a backing track and learn what notes and scales apply to that key. All major and minor keys are included. I find it helpful to alternate keys and styles to keep things fresh. $5.99.

50 BLUES GUITAR LICKS - TRUEFIRE (iPAD)

Combining video lessons, tabs, and audio, 50 Blues Guitar Licks is a fantastic app which does a lot more than just stuff worthless riffs and licks down your throat. The course is taught by expert guitarist Jeff McErlain who has hand crafted a collection of 50 licks which are all amazingly unique and draw inspiration from Jimi, Stevie, B.B. King, and other legends. When thumbing through the well titled licks your ear will recognize the solos and you will be inspired to work hard and learn these "must know" licks. The video lessons are fun and informative and help you slowly learn the notes. Easy and accurate tablature is included with each lesson. The company makes rock, jazz, country, and funk versions. $4.99.

AMPLITUBE

Imagine being able to plug your guitar directly into your iPhone (or iPad) and rocking out with a huge number of effects, mics, and amp models? Look no further than Amplitube. One prerequisite for using this app is buying the iRig guitar interface ($30). This clever input connects directly to the headphone jack of your iPhone and allows for a standard guitar input as well as a headphone jack. What is amazing about Amplitube is being able to dial in essentially any guitar effect you can imagine. If you can hear a sound in your mind it is quite possible to reproduce it in Amplitube. One thing that you must keep in mind with this app- the developers have opted to include additional features through in-app purchasing. In other words, you can buy extra effects a la carte, as well as adding an 8 track recorder. A rock solid way to bring your effects in the road with you without sacrificing tone. FREE.

Apple

Jamming with AirPlay and Guitar Jam Tracks for iPhone – Awesome!

Posted at December 1, 2010

In one of my previous posts I said the AppleTV sucked. Turns out it is pretty darn cool. So far only AirPlay-approved apps stream video, but some other stuff streams audio. I have an iPad and frequently practice my guitar to the Guitar Jam Tracks apps. I love them so much I put one of their banner ads on my site. Anywho, this was pretty fun - after hooking up my AppleTV and booting up the app, I noticed a new icon near the volume control that was never there before. Turns out this thing was AirPlay compatible! The iPad speaker is ok, but having jam tracks out of my stereo with full control on my iPad is pretty sweet. I got excited and made this video - enjoy.

Ronz Gear Reviews

Free Guitar Backing Tracks

Posted at June 24, 2010

As every guitar teacher will tell you, one of the best ways to learn how to solo on guitar is to put plenty of time into practicing either with a fellow player or to guitar backing tracks (or jam tracks, as they are sometimes called). What are guitar backing tracks? For those unfamiliar, a guitar backing track is usually a recorded rhythm section, often times based on 12 bar progressions, in a particular key, which is designed to allow a musician to freely solo over in order to improve solo technique.

Not all backing tracks are suitable for soloing, however. The internet is filled with many poor examples of backing tracks which are often times cluttered with too many instruments, sound poorly, include wrong chord changes, and are just too fast.

Good guitar backing tracks will sound clear, do not present too many instruments, and offer a good range of keys (major and minor) which will allow you to properly work your solo technique.

Tips for good practicing over guitar backing tracks:

1.) Learn Your Pentatonic Scales-
Mastering the Pentatonic scales (in both major and minor) is the best way for a new guitarist to learn how to properly solo. By simply learning 5 (five) patterns which correlate to different root notes, you can travel the entire length of the fretboard and never hit an incorrect note. Mastering the Pentatonic scales is the backbone of your soloing skills, as more complex scales will then add or subtract various notes which will allow you to tailor your sound to various styles.

2.) Spend Equal Time Playing over Major AND Minor Progressions-
Far too many guitarists just focus soloing over minor pentatonic chord progressions. You need to release early that the same five patterns used in the minor pentatonic scales can be shifted to easily allow for major progression playing. Do a simple search for major and minor scales on Google and print out each form. You should, over time, commit these to memory in order to help yourself master the guitar.

3.) Listen to yourself-
Hopefully you have some way to record your solos while practicing over guitar jam tracks. Good guitarists know how to solo; great guitarists listen to their own playing and figure out ways to improve. When listening to your solos, try to find ways to improve your playing and avoid bad habits.

4.) Proper Fingering-
It is critical that you practice all of your guitar scales using proper fingering. If you start getting into bad habits where the wrong fingers are being used, you will start to transition slowly between scale forms, be unable to utilize advance soloing techniques, and will slow down the overall speed of your solos. Proper form is critical.

5.) Do Not Over-Solo-
Anyone who has been to a live local rock show has seen this phenomenon: A local guitar gets his opportunity to solo and instead kills the audience with a blasting of notes and speed that bores a listener after a few bars. Basically, it can take years to master the phrasing of your solos. Keep in mind that white space (or rests) are just as important to your solos as the notes you hit. A player who spaces out their solos will be able to build intensity and focus instead on rhythm changes to keep things interesting.

6.) Listen (and copy) Your Favorite Players-
There is absolutely no shame in dissecting the solos of your favorite guitar gods (Slash, Jimmy Page, Hendrix, Mayer, etc.). By slowly learning licks and phrases you will learn what constitutes a great solo and some of it will bleed into your overall sound over time. It is important to listen to a wide range of players and styles (blues, jazz, rock) while keeping your own voice original.

7). Practice!-
Below is a list of the best free sites we have found that offer good quality Guitar Jam Backing Tracks. Print out your scale charts and spend as much time as you can working on your solo skills. Remember to have fun and the rest will fall into place!

www.guitarbt.com
www.guitarbackingtracks.com

Ronz Gear Reviews

TASCAM M-164UF 16-Input Mixer with Effects and USB 2.0 Interface

Posted at May 18, 2010

The Tascam M-164UF 16-Input Mixer is a fantastic mixing board that is quite capable of good results in a live setting as well as home project studio environment. Let's take a quick look at some of the features of this hot selling M-164UF 16-Input Mixer.

First, the TASCAM M-164UF 16-Input Mixer with Effects and USB 2.0 Interface retails for under $300 (pretty affordable, considering what it does). It features 6 mic inputs with XLR ins and phantom power. While we would have liked to see 8 inputs, as some other mixers have, at 6 inputs this is a decent amount and should allow for basic miking of live bands and/or drum recording as well. The phantom power works well and the mics sound great through the M-164UF.

Each mic input also has 3 band filtering passes which allow for fine tuning of your overall sound in the early stages. There are an additional 5 stereo line inputs on the Tascam bringing the total number of inputs closer to 16 globally speaking. What is most impressive about the Tascam M-164UF 16-Input Mixer are the onboard digital effects, which sound great and offer a level of flexibility in live settings that really make those performances stand out. It is often difficult or clunky to carry around racks of equipment and the digital effects that come standard on the Tascam M-164UF 16-Input Mixer more than do the trick in a variety of settings.

Includes Cubase LE4 48-track recording workstation for connecting to your Mac or PC.

Overall, the Tascam M-164UF 16 Input Mixer is a great product which has the power to improve your sound tremendously.

AC Adapter Power Supply Fr TASCAM M 164UF M 164FX M 164

US $19.99

10d 14h 7m

Ronz Gear Reviews

TASCAM 2488neo 24-Track Digital Recording Portastudio Review

Posted at May 18, 2010

Tascam has a long history of providing great all-in-one recording solutions for musicians since early 4 track cassette recorders hit the scene. Since then, Tascam has been busy pumping out many different types of recording hardware that still follows the all-in-one approach. The Tascam 2488neo 24-Track Digiital Recorder is a cost effective machine that, while it tries to do everything, still manages quite well to record good demos. That being said, it is not as easy as recording with your PC and some audio software, such as Cubase or ProTools. However, the Tascam 2488 Neo is much more cost effective and portable (relatively speaking).

The Tascam 2488neo retails for around $699 and has a large and attractive mixing board combined with a generally pretty tiny screen (monchromatic colors), and even a CD burner (perhaps the most handy feature). The number of inputs that the Tascam 2488 Neo has is quite good, at 8 mic inputs, making this quite capable at recording and miking a full drum set, or for live performances using the Tascam 2488neo. Built in mastering effects such as reverb, compression, amp emulations, and EQ processing still do not match that of software offerings on a PC, but still manage to sound quite good in the Tascam 2488neo. The EQ is 3-band EQ on 24 channels, which makes this machine quite a flexible digital multi track recorder.

The Tascam 2488neo also has three(3) Aux sends, which will allow a person to have a bunch of digital rack equipment pumped into the Tascam recorder. Specifically regarding the 8 inputs, you get 4 XLR phantom power doublers as 1/4" mic/line inputs, plus four more 1/4" mic/line inputs. This is a great variety.

In the age of iPod Touches, iPads, and even high resolution cell phones, the colorless LCD display is pretty much the worst thing about the Tascam 2488neo. It is hard to view from side angles and is quite bright when working in low light conditions. Worse still, fixing and scrubbing audio waveforms is quite cumbersome and thus you should probably export your recorded tracks to a digital PC recorder such as Cubase or ProTools LE in order to properly fix your tracks. The Tascam 2488neo does thankfully have a high speed USB 2.0 plug for easily connecting to your computer. This small screen and the lack of the ability to plug in a monitor or mouse makes it very hard to use. That being said, the actual mixing board with physical knobs are made very well and make adjustments very easy and pleasurable.

All in all, the great debate in the DAW workstation world is whether or not these standalone multitrack recorders still have a place in our hearts now that the home PC or Apple Macbook has much more power than these little devices could ever dream of. Basically, it may be a wiser investment to but some digital mixing board that interfaces with your home computer and building your studio from there. Tascam will have a hard time selling these things as the years progress, unless they improve the displays and make them easier to work with. Again, Tascam has been wise and is now marketing these boxes to those who will be recording live music and need a portable DAW (digital workstation). That being said, even a notebook computer has more power than the Tascam 2488neo and is vastly more portable.

Weight the pros and cons of owning this machine. The Tascam 2488neo is a solid machine for the price, just keep in mind what your overall goal for recording are before purchasing this thing. DO NOT buy the Tascam 2488neo because you think it will convince people who visit your basement that you have a legit home studio just because this thing has a bunch of nice looking knobs and faders, the device is much less powerful than your computer!