Musical Gear

We all have periods of time throughout the day that are essentially wasted – whether it be during a commute, waiting in a doctor’s office, or restlessly sitting through a three minute commercial break until your show resumes.  What better way to kill that time than by practicing guitar?  Pocketstrings is a mini guitar neck [...]

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With forScore, you can carry a complete library of music scores with you.  You can download most any PDF into forScore and even annotate it using text boxes or add common musical notation symbols with the built-in library of stamps or your own, custom-designed stamps.  forScore has an organizational system that lets you sort your [...]

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If you’ve ever wished that you could learn to play the piano but don’t want to take weekly lessons miles from home, I have a potential solution for you. It’s software for your PC or Mac and Midi keyboard called Playground Sessions. With this software, you can jump right into learning to play popular songs [...]

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(Disclosure: Yonac Inc. provided a promotional copy of this app.) The iPad is a great platform for musicians, at least those of the electronic or guitar-playing variety. But what if you fit into both of those categories? Then maybe Shredder by Yonac Inc. is for you. Shredder is a full featured guitar-driven synthesizer, meaning that [...]

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If you’re looking for a cool gift for your favorite ukulele player, this is it. It’s a kit for a folding soprano ukulele. The parts are made of laser cut bamboo. All you need is some sandpaper, glue and a few other miscellaneous items and you’ll be able to build your own instrument that just [...]

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There’s a lot of software available for the iPad that lets you record and edit music, but you need some sort of adapter to connect the instrument to the iPad.  Instead of needing an arsenal of different adapters, the Alesis iO Dock Pro Audio Dock for iPad and iPad 2 lets you connect any of [...]

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The K-Bow from Keith McMillen is a Bluetooth enabled bow for the violin, viola, cello and bass, which is constructed of Kevlar and graphite. While the K-Bow may look similar to a normal bow, it’s actually a real-time controller that will allow you to manipulate the sounds coming out of the stringed instrument for which [...]

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Did you know it was National Drum Month?  Me neither.  But it’s not to late to celebrate it, and Korg has just the portable device to kick your drumming up a notch.  The Wavedrum Mini uses Korg’s legendary Wavedrum technology, but it’s packed into a device small enough to take with you.  Tap the dynamic [...]

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The GuitarJack from Sonoma Wire Works allows you to connect a variety of instruments and / or microphones to your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch. The GuitarJack plugs into the dock connector of your iOS device and features a 1/4 inch instrument jack and a 1/8 inch stereo mic/line input. It can record voice and [...]

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The Korg microPIANO is a miniature grand piano that even has a lid that opens. It’s about 31 inches long and 12 inches deep, with 61 velocity sensitive keys. It has 60 built-in sounds, 25 one-touch musical phrases and 40 demo songs. The microPIANO has built in speakers and it can be plugged into into [...]

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Last year I reviewed the Yeti USB microphone. At the time, I really liked the microphone, and over the last year using it, my opinion of it has only improved. Honestly, when it comes to my needs, the Yeti was definitely a 10. When they released the Yeti Pro, I was intrigued to see what [...]

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Combine the 25-key lighted keyboard from ION with your iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, and you’re on your way to learning to play piano.  You  use the free teaching app in iTunes with the Piano Apprentice keyboard, and you follow along with the lights on the keys as they guide you to learning to play [...]

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Awhile back Julie wrote about the Orpheus wallet, a wallet for guitar players.  The company selling that wallet is currently out of business, awaiting a relaunch, but it seemed that from that article’s feedback the price ($107) was a bit much for the average gadgeteer.  Whipping Post, makers of a gorgeous line of guitar cases, [...]

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The FlashHarp is a 2GB flash drive that doubles as a harmonica. Yeah, you read that right – a harmonica. It even comes with a 10 minute instructional video stored right on the drive so that you’ll be blowing “Oh Susanna” in no time. Play a tune then copy files to your computer. Just be [...]

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The Griffin StompBox is a programmable multi-functional foot controller that interfaces with the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch, enabling virtual guitar effects for any instrument that takes a 1/4-inch jack such as a guitar, bass guitar, electric violin or keyboard. StompBox was created to work with Frontier Design’s iShred LIVE app to allow musicians to [...]

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DigiTech has announced a new programmable pedalboard and iPad application that together allow a guitarist to replace a floor full of effects pedals.  The iPB-10 Programmable Pedalboard “combines the simplicity of a pedalboard with the flexibility of a multi-effect system.”  The Audio DNA2 inside the iPB-10 provides no-latency, high-definition signal processing.  The iPB-Nexus app lets you [...]

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The iBamboo speaker is another innovation seeking funding through Kickstarter.  It’s a speaker exclusively for the iPhone 4 that is literally a piece of foot-long bamboo with a carved iPhone dock opening.  That’s it.  There are no cables, no batteries, no need for electricity whatsoever.  Once the iPhone is placed in the dock, the bamboo [...]

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I love to listen to music on my various gadgets, and I have a bunch, including some Android gadgets.  So once I got my invitation I was excited to try the new Google Music Beta.  It’s no secret to anyone who knows me that I am fed up with iTunes.  I am a Windows pc [...]

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Actually, I’m just jealous that they don’t have a version of the TunerMatic Action Tuner for ukuleles! The TunerMatic is a robotic guitar tuner. Just turn it on, place over a tuning knob, pluck a string and it will do the rest of the work. It will loosen and tighten the string till it is [...]

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Most people like leather cases for their electronic gear, so why not leather cases for your other toys?  Whipping Post Leather has three gorgeous 100% full-grain leather cases that will do your guitar proud.  These cases are hand-sewn with marine-grade threading, have 1″ thick padding, and stainless hardware.  The strap can be used as a [...]

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