Tag Archives: guitar

Roadie Tuner Automagically Tunes Your Guitar at CES



Roadie Tuner logoWhether you’re a musician or a music lover, no one appreciates an out-of-tune instrument. And while there are many solutions available to help players keep their strings properly tuned, they usually require clunky workarounds or inaccurate devices.

Todd and Nick met with Sam Force of the company Band Industries. Sam showed off the Roadie Tuner, a mechanical Bluetooth-enabled guitar tuner. Just place Roadie Tuner over your instrument’s tuning pegs and the connected smartphone app takes over, analyzing the sound coming from the strings and commanding Roadie Tuner to turn the pegs accordingly.

Roadie Tuner would be a great accessory for beginners and seasoned players alike. It is currently available for $99 direct from the Roadie Tuner website as well as a growing number of retail outlets.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central and Nick DiMeo of F5 Live: Refreshing Technology for the TechPodcast Network.

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Jamstik Guitar For Your iPad



Zivix LogoLearning to play a musical instrument is both challenging and rewarding but fitting practice into today’s busy lives can be difficult. Zivix Jamstik – the guitar for iOS – could be the answer. Chris Heille from Zivix shows the two Todds a few riffs.

The Jamstik is 16″ lightweight, portable guitar with six real strings and five frets designed to fit into modern life. It’s also a MIDI guitar controller which wirelessly connects with the iPad, iPhone and Mac. The Jamstik gives you the ability to use all of the nuances of guitar playing to control your favourite music creation iOS apps or Mac software.

Jamstik is a new idea in guitar controllers because it uses infrared light to “see” what your hands are doing in real time. Unlike other MIDI guitar solutions that rely on audio analysis and conversion to MIDI, the Jamstik scans the fretboard to detect what your fretting hand is up to before your picking hand ever hits a string.

If you want to learn the guitar, the included JamTutor iPad app will get you going through the basics of playing guitar without the hassles of tuning, lesson scheduling or expensive guitar teachers.

The Jamstik is available now for $299 from a range of retailers including select Apple stores. If buying direct from jamstik.com, look out for the limited time discount code CES2015JSSAVER.

Interview by Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central and Todd Aune of The Elder Divide for the TechPodcast Network.

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Gibson Takes TPN Award at CES



Gibson LogoCelebrating 120 years of Gibson, Aljon Go shows Jeffrey and Todd the superb Anniversary Edition of the Les Paul Standard.  It’s stunning both in the Ocean Water Perimeter finish, the level of detail and the technology built-in. The sound of the guitar can be changed to mimic the tone of your rock’n’roll hero and Min-ETune will tune the guitar automatically. Amazing – watch the video to see the guitar adjust the keys by itself.

There’s no doubt that this is a premium product – the price for the guitar on show is $2999 – but it’s hand-crafted in the US, taking 30 days produce. Every one is a collector’s item. Sweet.

(Is it not a little bit worrying that Jeffrey’s Google Glasses match the Les Paul finish?)

Interview by Jeffrey Powers of Geekazine and Todd Cochrane of Geek News Central for the TechPodcast Network.

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Jam Up Turns iPhone, iPad into One Big Effects Pedal



JamUp
JamUp

I’ve seen multi-effect processors for iPad before. We did a CES interview on a stompbox. Positive Grid (positivegrid.com) is another company offering effects pedal for iOS. Today, they announced JamUp, a new multi-effect guitar app and guitar interface for iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch.

JamUp gives guitarists access to many tones. They also have the  iTunes Jam Player and the very first sound-on-sound phrase sampler.  With 24 hybrid amps/effects, 16 user presets, sound-on-sound phrase sampler, iTunes player and more, you might be able to replace your large pedal board with an iPad or iPhone.

“JamUp is the must-have guitar app on iPad or iPhone for guitar players,” remarked Calvin Abel, Product Manager at Positive Grid. “It channels the traditional multi-effect pedal into one single guitar app with a good number of jamming and practice features, plus the stunning user interface and convenient form-factor, giving you the ability to completely transform your rig with this one app.”

You can choose from 6 historic amp models and convolution cab simulator, spring and digital reverb, tangy modulations, tape and digital delays, classic and fuzzy distortions, filters, compressors, noise gate and other essentials. JamUp also has “play along” capabilities. Capture loops and riffs and create sound-on-sound overdubs.

You will need the special adapter to connect the guitar into your iPhone, however, if you already have that device from another program, you can easily use it with JamUp.

Two versions of the software: JamUp Lite (Launch Special 30 days free) and JamUp Pro ($19.99) are available in iTunes App-Store now. JamUp Plug US MSRP is $39.95.