Jamstik Guitar Trainer

Product Information

Tascam's colourful new CDGT1 lets you easily practice playing or singing alongside your favourite CD. The app supports multiple altered tunings and you can limit the range of strings or frets your being tested on. This is useful to home in on a small portion of the fretboard that is giving you trouble.

Photo: Mark EwingTascam have clearly identified a need for a device that will help guitar players or singers work out songs from CDs by allowing them to slow down the music without changing its pitch. However, their CDGT1 Guitar Trainer goes rather further than that, as it also allows the key of a piece of music to be changed without affecting its tempo. The guitar input has its own effects section to allow you to play along with the CD you're trying to learn. Seeing Red

The best guitar learning apps at a glance:

The guitar effects are fine for practice purposes, though the overdrive sounds are rather too 'fizzy' for my liking and I wouldn't choose to record using them. I preferred the clean and chorused guitar presets as these sounded rather more musical to my ear. The vocal effects fare a little better, as they don't usually have any distortion settings and tend to use mainly effects such as reverb or delay, though there are some interesting lo-fi frantic panning and megaphone presets for the more adventurous. This app is designed to teach you the notes of the fretboard. Knowing the notes of the fretboard is important to learning the instrument but is an area that is often neglected by many players. Some players simply learn the notes of the 6th and 5th strings to allow them to find bar chords and scale patterns while other only learn say the notes on the first four frets. This tool will help you master the notes on all strings all the way up the fretboard. The Jamstik Guitar Trainer is for anyone who’s ever wished they were onstage, playing hit after hit to a crowd of screaming fans. First and foremost, however, it is not a guitar; it’s a MIDI controller that’s meant to be connected via app to another device. Otherwise, you won’t be getting any sound out of it, so be advised. It’s actually better than lugging around an entire instrument, especially for beginners. It takes the place of a full-size guitar and works to teach you everything you need to know about playing the instrument as well as providing you with ways to make it work in terms of music creation. If the app offers play-along tabs or chords, its song library is probably the most important factor to consider. Even if you’re just starting out, you’ll likely have an idea of the kind of music you’ll want to learn on guitar. Being able to play along to your favourite songs will keep you motivated – but playing outside of your comfort zone can also be a useful learning tool. But the Jamstik isn’t all just for learning. If you already know what you’re doing, you can opt to use it to make music within programs such as GarageBand. It’s a simple way to record guitar parts or similar sounds (which can end up sounding terrifying if you don’t know what you’re doing at first). That’s what makes Jamstik such a versatile option, because you can use it for a variety of options.

Keep in mind the level you’re at with the guitar – and the level you want to reach – while looking at learning apps. The best guitar learning apps at a glance: A practical software solution for working out how to play songs. As it stands, it gives you a real head-start on figuring things out, plus its standard phrase-training facilities are excellent. You can trust Guitar World Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing guitar products so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test. Chordify boasts the biggest library of chords for electric guitar, ukulele and piano, with more than 22 million songs on its database. Its interface is incredibly clear and easy to use, which makes it great for beginner guitar players.

The TASCAM GB10 is the ideal practice tool for musicians of any skill level to build their technique. The TascamGB10 is an essential tool for any practicing guitar or bassplayer. As amazing as it sounds, theGB10 really does allow you to slow down an MP3, without changing the pitch! That's right, you record in a normal MP3 from itunes (or similar), and then you can do all these things... The app works in a slightly different way to the other learning apps on this list. It’ll play the song you’re learning via a YouTube video, simultaneously showing you the chords with the correct timing. This gives users a great feel for the rhythm of the song, far superior to just looking at a chord sheet and trying to recall the feel from memory. The app contains hundreds of easy-to-follow lessons and guides to improve your playing and ability. Once you sign up, you’ll answer a variety of questions on preferred instrument and genre. Your responses will then guide the creation of a comprehensive, customised curriculum comprising what Fender describes as personal “learning paths”.

If you fancy a phrase-trainer but don't see the value in a standalone unit, the RC-3 loop station has an onboard phrase-training feature – and it's a pretty decent looper too. The first consideration when exploring the best guitar apps on the market is what aspect of your playing you’d like to augment.A stalwart of the online-lesson world, TrueFire is a video lesson platform with a roster of truly big-name teachers. Joe Bonamassa, Grech Koch, Tommy Emmanuel, Kirk Fletcher, Tim Pierce, Steve Vai and countless others have all contributed lessons to the platform. Courses range from overviews of whole genres to deep-dives into specific theory concepts. With its ultra-compact design and new functionality, the new CD trainers from TASCAM are the most user-friendly trainers ever. The new CD-GT2 guitar trainer completes our all-new lineup of trainers for the, musician, student, teacher and artist on the go.