Thursday, March 11th, 2010
This week we had the pleasure of test driving one of TouchChord’s newest iPhone apps - the TouchChord’s Songbook Rolling Stones. TouchChords has built a new way to learn music and practice guitar using your iPhone. They’ve built a suite of iPhone apps and have recently released a set of “songbooks” that include music from The Rolling Stones, The Police, Cat Stevens and James Taylor among others.
Monday, January 25th, 2010
I’ve been meaning to post about Jim Campilongo’s new album “Orange” for a while. If you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Campilongo and you call yourself a guitar player, now is the time to go out and pick up an album.
“Orange” is a remarkable collection of mostly instrumental tracks that feature the wide range of mind-bending guitar playing. Jim Campilongo mixes it up, changing styles and feel from to track to track giving a great variety for a guitar album.
Sunday, January 10th, 2010
Paul Reed Smith has released a new iPhone app that combines a guitar amp simulator, an accurate tuner, and a song practice tool which lets you upload your original ideas, jam along to hits, and slow down riffs and solos for easier learning. The new iPhone app is called the PRS Jam Amp and is on sale now in the iTunes store for $9.99.
Before you buy make sure you’ve read this review. There are some considerations to think about before buying the app.
Saturday, January 2nd, 2010
As far as we’re concerned, there is no better way to ring in the new year with a new guitar. And Gibson Guitar is ringing in the new year with two. Yesterday, Brian wrote a great story about the new Jimmy Page Number Two Gibson Les Paul. And today we’re seeing the release of the Gibson Keb’ Mo’ Bluesmaster - a guitar that seems like it came straight the early 1900’s deep south - but customized for modern players like the guitar’s namesake - Keb’ Mo’.
Monday, December 21st, 2009
When we first posted on the Guitar Hanger earlier this year we thought it was a handy way to save some space and at the same time have easy access to your axe when the inspiration hits. We’ve had a closer a look at the Guitar Hanger and had a chance to try it out in our own closet with our own guitars.
Overall we think the Guitar Hanger is a useful way to keep your guitar handy but it’s have some drawbacks to consider.
Friday, December 18th, 2009
Techie magazine and blog Wired has posted a review of the Gibson Dusk Tiger guitar. They gave the guitar a 7 out of 10, praising the extensive amount of customization in an easy-to-use knob and software combo, while still maintaining the classic Gibson, analog signal. Wired panned the “cheesy looks and weird finish” and described the guitar’s name as “Ron Burgundy-esque”. They’re right, the name does conjure up thoughts of Sex Panther.
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009
Truefire’s master class “335 Blues” is Larry Carlton’s first instructional DVD in twenty years. But don’t let that gap make you think Mr. 335 instructional ability is rusty or lacking. I’ve been disappointed before with instructional DVDs before and found they can sometimes be difficult to use and tab booklets that were inaccurate compared to what the musician was playing. Not true with Truefire.
Friday, December 11th, 2009
TourSavant.com is a new service geared towards working bands to help plan tours using their “Virtual Road Manager”, an innovator tour router that uses a database of over 16,000 venues to help bands plan their tour. You provide parameters like an anchor gigs, starting and end locations and the application searches across it’s database to create a map of your tour and venues using Google Maps.
You can even specify a minimum city population for your tour. Other features include loadable MasterCard that provides hotel and fuel discounts - something that’s pretty handy when you’re out on the road. Check out the demo video to get an sense of how it works.
Thursday, December 10th, 2009
Admittedly for someone that works on the Internet and spends a lot time thinking about gear and guitars, I’m a bit of a luddite when it comes home recording software and hardware. In the past I’ve mainly used Garageband on MacBook Pro with a FireWire Solo recording interface. So when I was contacted by Cakewalk to give their Guitar Tracks Pro 4 a try I decided it was time to broaden my horizons.
Overall I was impressed with breadth and depth of options and features included in the Guitar Tracks Pro 4. It was a bit daunting at first but eventually I was to get it set up and working properly on my WinXP laptop.
Tuesday, December 8th, 2009
Gibson has released some of the most beautiful, iconic guitars around. The Gibson Les Paul Standard, the Gibson SG and Gibson Explorer are just a few examples of some of coolest looking guitars known to man. But recently we think Gibson has released some very ugly looking guitars that I’d have a hard time shelling out Gibson prices for.
Everyone has hits and misses. Check out these misses over the past couple of years coming from one of our favorite builders out of Nashville.
