REVIEW – I pretty much taught myself to play piano and guitar when I was just a kid by using music books back before the internet was a thing. Then after becoming an adult, I became obsessed with the ukulele. At one time, I had over a dozen ukes in my collection. Unfortunately, I’ve let playing music take a backseat to other activities and haven’t really played in years. When the opportunity to test the Roadie Coach came to me, I was happy to accept to see if it could help me dust off my favorite ukes and learn some new tunes. Let’s take a look.
What is it?
The Roadie Coach is a music tutor, tuner, MIDI controller, and recording device that attaches directly on your ukulele or guitar.
What’s in the box?
- Roadie Coach
- 3 instrument clamps
- Ball-head attachment for rounded back instruments
- USB-C charging cable
- Quickstart guide
The Roadie Coach is unlike the previous Roadie 3 tuner I reviewed. Although this Roadie device can also be used as a tuner, that’s not its primary function. The Roadie Coach is designed to help you learn to play and sing songs on a guitar or ukulele.
The device is a small block made of plastic with a built-in color touch screen and a clamp that you can use to attach it to your instrument.
One side of the Roadie Coach has a padded contact microphone that touches the bottom of the guitar or ukulele.
There are also AUX-IN and AUX-OUT jacks that you can use to connect pickup-equipped instruments and external microphones, headphones, etc. Note that there’s also a regular microphone on top of the device.
You’ll also notice the small latch in the image above. I’ll explain its function shortly.
The opposite side of the Roadie Coach has a USB-C port that is used to charge its internal battery.
And, there’s a power button on the side.
Attaching the Roadie Coach to your instrument
The Roadie Coach includes three metal clamps, allowing you to attach the device to instruments of various thicknesses (1.3 – 4.8 inches / 3.3 – 12.2 cm).
The clamp is inserted into the holes on the side of the Coach.
Teeth on the edges of the clamp allow for precise fit adjustment when you close the clamp latch.
You can even use the Roadie Coach with rounded body instruments using the included ball head adapter.
The Roadie Coach can be used with guitars and ukuleles. Since I no longer play guitar, I selected one of my Kiwaya soprano ukes to test with the Coach.
I was a little worried about clamping something to my ukulele and scratching or even cracking it. But the insides of the clamps are padded, so they should not scratch your instrument.
It’s also important not to squeeze the clamps together too tightly. When you close the latch, it will automatically squeeze the ends together slightly to create a secure hold. I found that you need to bring the ends of the clamps to where they are just touching the front and back of the instrument, and then you can close the latch.
Using the Roadie Coach
When you turn on the Roadie Coach, you’ll see the main menu with three options: Recorder, Tuner, and Insights. You can scroll up, and you’ll have two more options for Midi and Settings. I don’t have the ability to test the Coach’s Midi function, so I won’t be talking about it in this review.
The recorder uses the built-in microphone of the Roadie Coach to capture what you’re playing and singing if you sing while you play your ukulele or guitar. I’m not a singer, so…
During the recording session, you’ll be able to see onscreen sound level graphs for the instrument and the microphone (if one is connected to the AUX IN jack), along with the recording time, battery level, etc.
The tuner feature uses the Roadie Coach’s built-in microphone to help you tune your ukulele or guitar strings. An animated graph will show red, orange, yellow, and green bars to let you know if you’re getting close to the right string pitch as you tighten or loosen the string.
I didn’t like using the built-in tuner very much. It seemed really fidgety and showed that the string was in tune with one pluck of the string and then high or low with the next pluck.
The Roadie Coach app also has a tuner that uses your phone’s microphone; I prefer it over the one built into the Coach. Or better yet, I prefer the Roadie 3 tuner.
The insights feature basically shows how many minutes you’ve played per day and how many days in a row you’ve played.
Roadie Coach app
Installing the Roadie Coach app on your iPhone or Android phone will give you access to songs and basic tutorials for playing your instrument.
Be aware that the song selection is virtually non-existent until you subscribe for $4.99 a month. When you do that, quite a few more songs become available, and at the time of this review, there were 188 songs to choose from. The only free songs include You Are My Sunshine, Happy Birthday, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, and a few Christmas tunes.
I don’t like the fact that you have to pay an additional $5 a month to open up a library of songs for a device that you have already paid $200 for.
When you choose a song to learn, it does so by levels. It starts out showing you the chords that make up the song. When you’re practicing the chords, it will detect if you’re playing them correctly and prompt you when you’re not.
Then, it will let you play the song at your own pace by showing a live view of the chords scrolling across the screen while the tune plays. It is kind of like the Guitar Hero video game if you remember it. You’ll see a live view of your progress through the song, with green indicators when you’ve played the correct chord. You’ll even be able to see if you played the chord too soon so you can nail down your timing.
When you successfully finish a level, you’ll get a score and information about your playing and what to focus on to help you pass the next level.
I like that the app will pause the song if it detects that you’re playing the wrong chord or have stopped playing altogether. This helps beginning players not feel stressed about keeping up with the song if they aren’t comfortable changing chords yet.
I don’t like that the app uses a weird synthesizer sound instead of a real guitar or ukulele sound to play the songs.
I like that you can download recordings that you’ve made using the coach’s built-in recorder function. If you’re a singer, you can listen to the recording with an emphasis on the instrument or the vocals.
What I like about the Roadie Coach
- Built-in recorder
- Built-in tuner (if they improve it)
- Learning songs is like a game
What I’d change
- The selection of songs is limited and is also behind a subscription/paywall
- It needs to include some basic music theory tutorials too
- It would be nice if fingerstyle songs were also included in addition to strumming songs
- Include a case instead of making you buy it separately
Final thoughts
I really wanted to love the Roadie Coach because I’m a big fan of their tuners and use the Roadie 3 tuner all the time. However, the Roadie Coach doesn’t have the capability to help me with the type of music that I like to play which is fingerstyle. Now, if you are a strummer and a singer and don’t mind yet another monthly subscription, you might really enjoy the Roadie Coach. This device definitely has potential and I hope they continue to improve it with more features and songs.
Price: $199.00
Where to buy: Roadie
Source: The sample for this review was provided by Roadie. Roadie did not have a final say on the review and did not preview the review before it was published.
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