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04 April 2011
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As a budding Guitarist (Not to be confused with a guitaring Buddhist) myself, there were a few apps I just couldn't wait to get my hands on when I bought my iPhone. GuitarToolkit and TabToolkit are both absolutely stupendous apps, and not just because they break ground in both Tab reading and Guitar tuning. Read on for my complete run down on the two most superb Guitar apps to ever hit the App store.
Tabs. The super confusing way of reading music for newbies, and yet at the same time one of the most fantastic ways to write guitar music down. Tabs have been both a stumbling block and a stepping stone for guitarists young and old, but they can be a tad awkward at times. And they don't do the best job at representing timing, as in whether to hold a note for 2 seconds or just 1. TabToolkit takes away the pain and confusion, by allowing users to not only see the tab, but also to see where to put your fingers on a virtual guitar neck, and the music notes for those of us who can read conventional music. With the ability to read not only normal text tabs, but also Guitar Pro and Power Tabs, users can also listen to the music as it plays. On top of those, they've also given us the ability to download tabs directly using the built in Web Browser, and that's possible with either 3G or Wi-Fi. If you fancy it, you can choose to change the sound of the instrument playing, choosing anything from a piano to an overdrive guitar, and just about everything in between. Slowing down or speeding up the song are also available, and can really help when you're learning a fast song that needs slowing down.
TabToolkit makes learning songs like this a heck of a lot easier
From the same developers, GuitarToolkit is a must have companion for anyone who has a guitar. This app focuses primarily on tuning, with the option to select from their wide variety of different tuning styles. And, if they don't have the tuning there, you can input your own. And it doesn't just tune your guitar. This caters for everyone with a strumming instrument, no matter if you've got a yokel axe Banjo, a Mandolin, 12 string guitar, or the humble little Ukulele. It also lets you tune a 4, 5 or 6 string bass, or a 6, 7 or 12 string guitar. It lets you practise your fingering for scales with the built in fretboard, use it as a metronome, and (here's the best bit) check any chord ever. And I mean any chord. I'll give you an example. Pretend you want to find the chord C Major 1. That's pretty simple, but if you fancied it, you could also choose C Minor, C Dim, C Aug, C Maj7, C 7, C M7, C7 flat 5, C dim7, C sus 4, and about 15 other variations. And for each of those variations are another huge amount of variations. I for one would never even get close to possibly needing these chords, but rest assured, if the chord exists, it'll be in this app. There are over 500,000 chords. Yeah, you read that right. But I want to get back onto the Tuning side of this app, as that's what really stands out for me. After you've chosen your instrument and tuning style, you can go to a screen that shows a simple old-style tuning dial. But there's nothing old about this tuning... thing. You can hit the "Mode" button to go from the tuning style of your choice to standard tuning, and if you hit it again it'll go to an "All notes" mode, which shows exactly what note is being played. Kind of hard to explain all this in an article, but all very, very cool.
Never again will you be stuck in the middle of the bush without a tuner. Unless you forget your iPhone, of course
I can't rave enough about these apps. They are superior in every way to other apps that claim to do the same thing, groundbreaking in their ingenuity, and supreme in their execution. There, I think that was eloquent enough, don't you? These amazing apps are available from the app store for a low-for-what-they-do price of $13.99 each. I can guarantee you won't regret your purchase of these. In closing, I'd just like to mention one last thing. Agile Partners (The people who made these apps) have probably the best customer service of any app maker I've ever spoken to. Not only did they reply quickly with a friendly, personal email, they actually took the time to email me personally a few weeks later to tell me they'd released an update which resolved the issue I'd been having. Now if that's not brilliant customer service, I don't know what is. If you're reading this Brad, thanks a million.
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