Musical Gear

Samson’s new Carbon 49 USB MIDI Controller is piano style keyboard with 49 velocity-sensitive keys, dedicated Transpose and Octave buttons, as well as Pitch Bend and Modulation wheels. Designed with the iPad in mind, the Carbon 49 features an integrated iPad slot and can be used with your favorite MIDI apps via Apple’s iPad Camera [...]

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This Solar Guitar Tuner from ThinkGeek has a solar panel to keep its batteries recharged.  The TASCAM TC-15 chromatic tuner has needle, strobe, fine, meter tuning modes, with twelve tone equal temperament tuning and a detection accuracy of within one cent (one hundredth of a semitone).  Tune the guitar by plugging it into the Solar [...]

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Many years ago someone invented a cable lock system that protected your bicycle from theft. Not so long ago, Kensington took that idea and applied it to a cable that was designed to secure your laptop. Now we have another product that uses this basic same idea. It’s the Rock Lock for your guitar. It’s made [...]

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Most computers and mobile devices have built-in microphones now, and they are fine for phone calls and video calls.  They fall short when you need a higher-quality audio for podcasting or recording music.  There are a variety of microphones on the market, from cheap stalk microphones to studio-quality mics costing hundreds (or thousands) of dollars.  [...]

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Olaf Diegel from the Auckland University of Technology in Auckland, New Zealand is exploring the limits of 3D printing technologies and applications. Some of his projects are shown on his ODD website.  Case in point his Spider electric guitar which is cut using a EOS Formiga P100 (which I’m guessing is probably a little out of the price range of [...]

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I’m not sure how big the market’s going to be for this product.  I mean what’s the criteria? A Gadgeteer Love your iPad or iPhone Love Ukelele Surely that’s a small market , what are the chances ? From Amidio comes the Futulele, an upcoming Ukulele synthesizer for iOS. With a special case that holds either an [...]

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We’ve seen effects pedals that incorporate iPads, but the DigiTech iStomp is designed for iPhone – although you can use it with iPod touch and iPads, too.  The iStomp is just like every other stompbox, except you can change which stompbox it is using the free DigiTech Stomp Shop App.  The iStomp comes with DigiTech’s [...]

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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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