There are a bunch of guitar-oriented apps on the AppStore but the one demo’d in the video above, from developers at Frontier Design Group seems to have a lot of promise.
Called, simply, Guitar, unlike many of the instructional apps or glorified tuners out there, this app focuses on playablity. Chords and scales are easily assigned to its fretboard buttons, making it possible to strum chords, play melodies, or both. With over 1500 built-in chords, and a built-in chord editor to create custom chords, Guitar relies on a variety of realistically sampled sounds to provide surprising depth and nuance to what a user can play.
The most recently updated version of this $4 app, compatible with iPhone and iPod Touch, lets users record performances or create backing tracks that can be played along with. Recordings can also be backed up over the web to the Frontier Song Server, where they can be shared between multiple devices.
Guitar may not be as huge a hit as Ocarina, but it serves notice that Apple’s mobile gadgets are limited only by their users’ own imaginations.
2 responses to “iPhone and iPod Touch Evolve as Musical Instruments”
Snap. Faded out before the big guitar solo!