Music Gear

News, reviews and articles about musical gear and accessories.

Finis SwiMP3v2 Waterproof MP3 Player Review

finis swimp3 1

Swimming laps in the pool back and forth-back and forth.  As you’re swimming you hear the splashing of waves against the lane barriers and sides of the pool. Exhaled bubbles rush past your ears in loud succession.  If you were running, you would be listening to your favorite tunes, picking up the pace with each […]

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Is it a Lite-Brite or a musical instrument?

tenorion

Friend of The Gadgeteer and music man extraordinaire Mark Rosengarten sent me an email tonight to tell me that he’s waiting to take delivery of a Tenori-On. Since I had no clue what he was talking about, I went directly to my BFF Google for the 411. The Tenori-On is a really wild looking musical

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Spotlight Gadget – Hercules I-Stand Guitar Stand

hercules istand

Hercules has updated the boring old guitar stand to new levels with the I-Stand. The design is pretty cool. It collapses into a disc shape when not holding a guitar. I need a bunch of these for my ukuleles! 🙂 Hercules doesn’t show these on their own site, but you can find them on Musician’s

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eNote Clip On Digital Chromatic Tuner

Since I recently started playing a ukulele, I’ve been interested in various accessories that go along with playing a stringed instrument. Admittedly, there aren’t many. But the main accessory that I use every time I sit down to play (or try to play) a song, is a tuner. A month ago, I took a look a the Intelli IMT-500 tuner. I like it very much, but like any good gadgeteer, I’ll be happy to dump it for something better. Today I’m going to tell you about the eNote Clip On Digital Chromatic Tuner from ELECA. Read on to see if it beats the Intelli.

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Intelli IMT-500 Clip-on Digital Chromatic guitar tuner review

Back in the stone age when I was learning to play guitar, there were only two ways to tune an instrument. By pitch pipe, or by ear. I wasn’t good at either method and was always frustrated that my guitar sounded ‘funky’ when I would play it. Years later, when the first electronic tuners were introduced, I was over joyed. Finally an easy way to keep my instrument in tune. They only problems with those tuners were the fact that they were somewhat bulky and required either a quiet room or a patch cable to connect to the instrument’s pickup. Things have changed since those days. Now we have nifty strobe type tuners like the Waves Strobe-On-String tuner that I reviewed not long ago and the Intelli IMT-500 Digital Chromatic Tuner that I’m going to show you today.

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Planet Waves Strobe-On-String Guitar Tuner

If you play guitar, either acoustic or electric, you probably own some type of tuner. Tuners come in several varieties. There are pitch pipe type tuners that make a sound for each guitar string. Your task is to then tighten or loosen the string until the sound it makes matches the reference note that the pitch pipe makes. Unless you have a really good ear, this is a very hard way to tune your instrument. Electronic tuners are much easier to use. These tuners have a microphone that picks up the sound a string makes when you pluck it. Then using a meter or some other method, it tells you if you need to loosen or tighten the string to bring it to the right pitch. The only problem with this type of tuner is that it requires a relatively quiet environment to work or if the guitar has a pick-up, you can connect the tuner using a cable. Today I’m going to tell you about a tuner that can work in the noisiest places, doesn’t need a cable and is tiny enough to fit in your pocket. It’s the Strobe-On-String Guitar Tuner from
Planet Waves.

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Piano Wizard PREMIER Keystation 49e Package

As a kid, I remember sitting in front of my Mom’s vertical Baldwin piano, trying to learn to play Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 Ode To Joy. I never had real lessons, I just used the many lesson books that my Mom had used when she was a little girl. The piano bench was full of them and I loved paging through them, seeing the cartoon-like pictures for each new song. Once in awhile my Mom would sit down on the bench with me to give me pointers, but for the most part she never criticized my talent or lack there of. I just loved plunking those keys, making music. It didn’t matter if I was any good at it or not. Wow, I’m tearing up just writing this. I miss my mom…

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Miranda S-250 Travel Guitar

From an early age, I wanted to learn to play the guitar. I took a few lessons here and there through the years, but for the most part taught myself from books and tapes. I never was a very good player, but that hasn’t stopped my love of the instrument and music. I’ve had several guitars, from electric to acoustic, to even a mini electric that I built myself using a kit. I even had a dial up BBS back in the day completely devoted to TAB (tablature files) that was named CrossRoads BBS.

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