Which guitar software should I choose?
With four budding guitarists in our house, we have all been eager to try out the software guitar tutors. The guitar is the ultimate teach-yourself instrument, and with all the wealth of tutor books already available what are the advantages to using a software based approach?
The short answer is that I can honestly say I have learnt more in a week of playing with this software than I have over 25 fruitless years of trying to get anywhere with a self-teach book....
The long answer is that with a multimedia approach you get to learn through a combination of exciting resources:
- video instruction and example
- animated guitar tab or traditional notation, with effortlessswitching between the two
- high quality audio examples
- variable speed MIDI - how often have you tried to play along with a CD accompaniment only to have fallen behind in the second bar never to catch up? With MIDI you slow down the tempo to suit you
- animated guitar fretboards, which mean that as the piece is playing you can actually see which fingers to put down where.
Working through a series of lessons you gradually build up skills, but right from the outset you get the chance to play along with backing tracks and really feel that you are progressing. In particular, children like quick results, and we have certainly found that ours were quickly rewarded with the sense of achieving something straight away.
We used to have quite a choice of software for learning the guitar but over the years we have honed in on two packages as being the best value for money, the most reliable on all windows platforms (including 7) and the most comprehensive
The tutors are available in both acoustic and electric guitar versions. With 6 CD-Roms, these tutors really are incredibly thorough and detailed guitar software packages. There is a well thought out system of lessons and exercises aimed at developing good technique, correcting mistakes and eventually developing quite advanced skills. They have all the usual benefits of animated fretboard and notation, variable-speed MIDI, and their renowned video instruction.
If you can already play a bit, then we have two killer software packages that are fantastic for displaying tab, playing back, notating and general composing. is one of our top sellers, because at that budget price point, and with a host of new features in the latest version, it really is a fantastic addition to your guitar library. This product keeps on flying out to many satisfied customers
Last but definitely not least, we love . This is more than just a notation/tab editor. It is a full blown guitar composition paradise, it sounds great, looks fantastic and really is worth that extra bit. It works well with the Guitar-MIDI converter so you can input your riffs effortlessly and watch them appear on screen
Loading...