Mar 29
I've been on the lookout for iPhone and iPad apps which are either super useful or fun for guitar players, but that don't really fit into the category or effects, practice amps, or multi-track recorders. These are the best guitar iPhone/iPad apps I've been able to find. I use all of these so the reviews are the real deal. Enjoy!
Riff Raters
Riff Raters is a unique and addictive app where you can record short clips of yourself playing the guitar (use an iPhone/iPad cable or adapter) and instantly upload it to the Riff Raters site where other musicians can listed to, rate, and leave comments about your riffs.
It's a fun way to share music and make friends. See what people think of your latest riff. I've heard some really amazing playing on Riff Raters and submitted my own riffs for comment. There's a lite version that is free, and the full upgrade version is $99. it's a steal for the amount of fun you'll have.
Creator's Site: http://www.riffraters.com/
Video Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJLU1A7k4rU&feature=player_embedded
iSaidWhat?!
This is a totally unique app. It's designed to let you record someone speaking and then very quickly and easily take that audio clip and separate and rearrange the words. So for example if you're victim says, "It was so cold and wet out I had to put on some pants", you can then rearrange it to say "I wet my pants". Sure it's juvenile, but it's fun.
Where this is really powerful is if you use it as a song writing tool. So I took this app recorded myself playing a number of riffs from a song I was writing, and then rearranged them into a few versions of the song to see what I liked best. It's a piece of cake to extend sections, drag and drop to move riffs around and rearrange the entire song. By doing this you can experiment and see what works best for your song. It works great. In short a super easy to use very well designed sequencer. $1.99.
Creator's Site: http://www.tapparatus.com/isaidwhat/
Video Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BmWZrerTfbA
Combustion (InstantDrummer Series)
The Instant Drummer series is a number of apps in different drumming styles. These are a very high quality drum machines where you can take all sorts of beats and then tweak them for tempo, time signature, intensity and complexity. It works great and sounds amazing. You can dial in very professional drumming in minutes and arrange an entire drum track for your songs.
Great for solo guitarists, demoing, heck you could even record an album with these. All the drum sounds are actual recorded drum takes seamlessly sequenced together. There are a number of different flavors. I mention Combustion because it's my favorite.
These drum tracks can be quickly pushed over to the companion FourTrack app where you can then cut your guitar, bass, and vocals. Costs just $3 bucks.
Audio Demo: http://www.sonomawireworks.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=216
iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/instantdrummer-combustion/id342424923?mt=8
RiffBox
This is another unique app which lets you play a riff and it then uses technology to detects the riff you played and automatically loop it for you. You can then layer more music over that to create more complex music compositions, or be a one man band.
This is a technical app so get the lite version if you're interested, it's free and read the help page in the app before working with it. This is a great tool for working out and composing layered music, trying different harmonies very quickly and efficiently.
The full version costs $4.99. Try this one before you buy. It may not be your cup of tea.
Creator's Site: http://backline-eng.com/home/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2&Itemid=3
L&M Guitar
This is a Gibson app. While it's not terribly unique it is pretty darn useful. It's free and you get a great quality tuner, metronome, chord charts, and a few lessons. Nice to have all this in one handy app for when you need it.
The price is right. FREE.
iTunes:http://itunes.apple.com/en/app/gibson-learn-master-guitar/id355744218?mt=8
Video Demo: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0RQkiX27R0
Over to you…
More in This Series:
- Connecting Your Guitar to Your iPhone, iPod, or iPad
- Do it Yourself iPhone Guitar Cables
- Guitar Effects and Practice Amps for iPhone, iPod, or iPad
- Best Misc Guitar Apps for the iPhone/iPad to Cure Your Bordom
- Multitrack Apps for Recording Your Guitar on the iPhone, iPod, or iPad (Coming Soon!)
- Getting Guitar Recordings from Your iPhone to Your Computer (DAW) (Coming Soon!)
This post was written by
Michael Jae.
Michael is a guitarist of over 18 years and has taught lessons, played in front of live audiences, and wrote and recorded his own acoustic fingerstyle albums. He's especially fond of playing classic rock, heavy metal, classical guitar, and fingerstyle acoustic guitar in the style of Leo Kottke and John Fahey.
I like those apps for iPhone, especially Gibson app. Blue mics also have some great microphones for iPhone, like Snowflake, that allows you to record your ideas wherever you are. I used iPhone with Snowflake mic with my acoustic guitar and it works well
Thanks for the tip about Snowflake. I haven’t heard of that one but I’ll check it out!
These look very cool. I’ll be sure to check them out.
I’ve been using Progression for the ipad for about a month now and it sure is an excellent tool for writing tabs and getting composition ideas down. I can see it also as an invaluable app for teaching guitar also.