Cakewalk Guitar Tracks 2.0 Review

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(More customer reviews)I have to say that I am really impressed with version 2.0 of Guitar Tracks. They completely redesigned the user interface, which looks great, and made it really easy to use. It's a full 8 track recording studio with input and output meters, and audio editing. Each of the tracks can now be mono or stereo and can use any DirectX audio plugin. It comes with Stereo Reverb, Chorus, Flanger, Delay and Parametric EQ plugins. It also has the Drag and Drop Drummer Lite software with a bunch of great drum loops, that intergrates with program. I was up and running in about 5 minutes.

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Guitar Tracks 2.0 is a PC-based multitrack recording program built for guitar players. Designed to be as easy to use as a multitrack cassette recorder or tape deck, this is a great musical sketchpad for guitarists and singers/songwriters. Use it to get ideas down quickly. Controls are logical and clear so you can lay it down and mix it up fast. Features include eight recordable tracks of digital audio, easy punch-ins, looping, locating markers, stereo equalizer, delay, flange, stereo chorus, reverb, and vintage amp simulation. Mix down to stereo WAV files to burn CDs or make MP3s for the Internet. Tune up quickly with a built-in chromatic tuner. Guitar Tracks works with any guitar or microphone.

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Rock Guitar for Dummies Review

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(More customer reviews)I really like this guitar course. It is more of a rock approach to guitar, including songs by Van Halen, Nirvana and Black Sabbath. The program starts off teaching different guitar skills and then teaches a song with those skills. Then it will teach a slightly harder guitar skill and another song. It is laid out very logically. I have played before and it had been a while so I was looking for something more of a review and to bring myself back up to speed since it has been a while since I had played guitar. I'm always in front of the computer so I figured this would be perfect to do on the computer. I am learning some things from the cd and it has help motivate me to play again and i have been picking up my guitar doing so more often. and the tips given on this cd has also help alot with setting up the sound I'm looking for.as of now I have not finished it yet but I would say yes it is worth the money . but I would also say if you are a pretty good guitar player already well then this isn't for you. Chances are you already know most if not all of what is on this cd . but if you are just starting out or just want to get motivated to play again and need to get back to the basics this may work for you and some of the tips on this cd will be of great help to you too.

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The eMedia Rock Guitar For Dummies CD-ROM makes learning quick and easy with over 70 audio and video-enhanced guitar lessons and rock gear tips. You can start from scratch, and our revolutionary teaching style will have you playing songs, chords, and riffs within minutes! Instant Feedback listens to your playing and highlights notes played correctly in melodies so you can learn faster. Instructor Charles McCrone, a graduate of the cutting-edge Guitar Institute of Technology, has over 25 years of playing and teaching experience. Discover how to play rock guitar including how to string and tune your guitar, play simple chords, full chords, power chords and much more!

Interactive Educational Software
Over 70 step-by-step video-enhanced lessons.
Over 30 high-quality videos with full-screen option.
Animated fretboard displays fingering positions as the music plays.
Includes an automatic tuner, metronome, digital recorder and chord dictionary.
Finger Tracker shows you the note you're playing on the fretboard.

The over 70 lessons cover all the techniques needed to play rock, punk, and metal, including movable power chords, effects pedals, yanks, hammer-ons, pull-offs, palm muting, distorted riffs, the blues scale, using feedback, the whammy bar, and more!

Play hit songs! Over 40 songs including:
"You Really Got Me" -- As performed by Van Halen
"All Day and All of the Night" -- The Kinks
"Don't Fear the Reaper" -- Blue Oyster Cult
"Tomorrow" -- Silverchair
"All Right Now" -- Free
"Lake of Fire" -- Nirvana

Also features songs in the style of:
Smashing Pumpkins
Jimi Hendrix
Black Sabbath
Blink 182
AC/DC
Rolling Stones
Led Zeppelin
Metallica
...and more!

New Instant Feedback on Your Playing!
Instant Feedback shows you when you play the correct notes on your guitar as you progress through an exercise. With a microphone connected to your computer and a guitar in your hand, play the first note you see in the exercise (or song) on any screen featuring the "ear" icon in the upper right corner and the computer will highlight the note for you in green. As you reach your goals of getting all notes to change color in each exercise, you'll discover that reading tablature and music notation is easier than you ever thought possible!

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eMedia Guitar Method v5 Review

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(More customer reviews)I'm a guitar instructor who teaches a once a week high school guitar class. I've started recommending Emedia to my students as a great at home guitar program. As an instructor, I really like the step by step approach to the lessons. The video are very helpful in demonstrating techniques between lessons. Kids that are using the program progress a lot faster than those that don't. This is a fine program either for those that want to learn on their own or that are also taking lessons.

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The latest version of the world's best-selling beginning guitar CD-ROM! 165 comprehensive full-screen lessons cover everything from the basics to chord strumming, playing melodies, and fingerpicking. New interactive feedback on melodies and interactive quizzes help make learning tablature and music notation easy. Covers folk, blues, classical and rock styles, including a modern rock chapter with various strumming styles, movable power chords and power chord riffs. Over 50 large-format videos from instructor Kevin Garry, Ph.D., include split-screens and close-ups of both hands.

Learning guitar is made fun with over 70 songs, including famous hits from artists such as Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, and Steve Miller. Songs are recorded live and hits even have multi-track full band accompaniment. As the songs play, an animated fretboard guides you through the fingerings, and MIDI tracks allow you to slow down and loop parts of the music for practice. This latest version offers fully scalable lesson screens, an option for full-screen video and interactive feedback for melodies. The Note Tracker shows you what note you're playing and Instant Feedback tracks your progress through the melody as you play. eMedia Guitar Method is the ultimate way to learn how to play guitar!

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Guitar For Dummies Review

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(More customer reviews)Guitar for Dummies is a good place to start learning how to play. It's pretty straight forward in teaching chords and strumming techniques and I really enjoyed that it had the built in recorder, metronome and tuner. The only drawback is that with SOME lessons the teacher assumes you know certain things already. I've never picked up a guitar in my life before buying this and now I can at least play along to simple songs. It was worth it for the price.

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The eMedia Guitar for Dummies CD-ROM makes learning quick and easy with over 80 step-by-step lessons. Songs and exercises are accompanied by full-motion videos, live recorded audio and variable-speed MIDI tracks. The easy-to-follow lessons range from basics like stringing the guitar to playing chords and strumming techniques. Professional guitar instructor Kevin Garry, Ph.D., guides you with video demonstrations of techniques. The costs for the same number of private lessons and all of the accessories included in eMedia Guitar for Dummies would run well over a thousand dollars which is why this software is an excellent value!

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Cakewalk Guitar Tracks Pro 3 Digital Audio Software (Windows Only) Review

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(More customer reviews)Somebody at Cakewalk must be doing something right. Guitar Tracks Pro 3 is an amazing upgrade over the older versions.
The new interface is silky smooth. The metronome actually works.
And, I can finally record at 24 bit 96khz, which I couldn't do with a lot of competitor's software.
A lot of great new effects (look under GT FX). Really good new reverb, equalization (called "Q"). The new plugins look like expensive rack mount units that you drool over (but dare not buy) at music stores.
Okay, minor complaints that the software defaults are kinda weird (sound on sound record, among others) which are leftovers from the old Guitar Tracks software. Also the record button is tiny tiny tiny.
But all in all, for the basic recordist, this is one hot piece of software. If your not at version 3, definitely upgrade. After about an hour of twiddling around, you will be all grins.
And as we all know, Cakewalk actually includes a printed manual that a normal human being can use and understand.
Hats off to Cakewalk for an excellent upgrade.

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EarMaster 5 Review

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(More customer reviews)I love this software. I'm a pretty crappy guitarist who decided to go back to the basics and learn some music theory (which I'm doing via the "absolutely understand guitar" DVD set by Scotty West -- I recommend that product as well -- the presenter has a tendency to ramble and excessively repeat himself but ultimately the material is solid and a lot of things are starting to click so it was worth hanging in there). Anyway, this software is a perfect complement to your music theory studies. I think that unless you're just lucky to be born with a natural talent, you're going to need some dictation of intervals, chords, scales, and rhythm to atune your ear to how they sound. Playing it on your own instrument isn't as effective because you can't help using your eyes and fingers as a crutch. With this software, you have nothing but your ears to find the answer.
Some small nits to pick, which I'm writing here hoping that emedia will read this and include in its next upgrade: (1) the sounds are pretty crappy and hardly like the instruments they're supposed to represent. I'd rather get a choice of three instruments (say, piano, violin and steel string acoustic guitar) that sound realistic than 60+ crappy MIDI ones. (2) I wish an exercise were included that helps you train absolute pitch. For this, I think the Deburgh method is good. It starts by playing two notes (Eb and F#) and you have to listen in to the character of each and once you can distinguish them you progress to other/additional notes. (3) Another thing that I would find extremely useful is if the scale identification (which is what I'm working on now) could be expanded beyond ascending/descending. My hunch is that a program could be written to pick out notes from a scale in a sequence that still sounds relatively musical (following some musical rules). Or alternatively, plenty of examples (a couple of hundred, so you can't rely on memory) could be stored of existing music pieces in those scales. Ultimately, I would like to be able to hear something on the radio and be able to pick up by the character of the music that it's in this or that scale/mode (even if I can't tell the pitch) and the included exercise (just ascending/descending) is a bit too easy.

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If you want to sing, improvise or jam with complete confidence, you need to recognize all the sounds around you. Ear training can make this possible. Making music with others will become easy and fun! EarMaster is your personal teacher. It is easy to use and provides instant feedback. EarMaster includes a Standard Tutor with over 400 lessons as well as a Jazz Tutor with over 200 lessons. Both will guide you and automatically increase in difficulty as your ear improves. Create your own customized exercises to improve the way you play, compose and notate any style of music!

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eMedia GuitarPro 5.1 Win/Mac Review

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(More customer reviews)This review is written from the prospect of using Guitar Pro for Classical Guitar purposes. I have tried many notation programs for classical guitar. None are perfect. I've concluded that you need a high end music notation program for professional looking scores and another program for doing transcriptions for personal use or sharing.
On the high end, the choices are Finale, Sibelius, or Lilypond. I chose Finale for this purpose. You can do anything with it, but there is a steep price to pay. It is not intuitive at all, and it's expensive. The interface is a cluster of years of buildup. One wouldn't design a user interface like this from scratch. If I didn't already own Finale, I'd might go with Lilypond, or look more carefully into Musecore.
But I decided that I needed a notation program for simple transcriptions. Here are the ones that I tried in increasing order of my preference:
1) TablEdit - seen some decent scores for this one on the web. Deal breaker the UI is confusing. I'd just as well use Finale for everything.
2) Power Tab - interface OK, free, lots of features. Deal breaker most of the focus is on the tab representation, very little on standard notation.
3) Tux Guitar - nice interface, very similar to Guitar Pro, free. Deal breaker can't add fingerings. This program may eventually catch Guitar Pro.
4) Guitar Pro - nice interface, will do just about everything necessary easily. Can display/print standard notation only, tab notation, or both. Output is very good. ASCII import. Drawbacks for standard notation are that fingering are unconventional in location and labeling, bar can only be specified though text input, crescendo specified through volume control which is tied to a track(s).
In the end, the decision was an easy one. It just took a while to download all of the programs and try them out. Hopefully, I just saved you a little time.
Update 11-04-2010:
Since I wrote this review, I've switched from Finale to Lilypond. Even though I am a programmer, I was intimidated by Lilypond until I discovered using Frescobaldi (available on Linux only) as a front end. This system is just a pleasure to use and way easier than Finale. Lilypond doesn't do tab very well at the moment, so I'll likely continue using Guitar Pro when I need tab.

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Guitar Pro 5.1 has all the tools you need to improve, compose and accompany yourself on the guitar. It's got a multitrack tablature editor for guitar, banjo, bass and other stringed instruments. Scale tools and a chord diagram editor lets you create the perfect score and the guitar composition you've always wanted.

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