guitar

Give the last-minute gift of music with these $30 piano and guitar lessons

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Get this $1600 piano bootcamp on sale for less than $4 a course today
These no-shipping music lessons make the perfect last-minute Christmas gift.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Not sure what to get the person who has everything this Christmas? Forget useless gifts they’ll never unbox and give them something they’ll appreciate. This mega-bundle of piano and guitar lessons from top instructors has earned rave user reviews and doesn’t require any shipping time, making it a fantastic last-minute gift.

During our Last Chance Sale, you can purchase the collection for just $29.99 (regularly $1,600).

Learn guitar, piano or music production with one of these discounted bundles

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These music courses are the perfect way to kick off your new year productively
These music courses are the perfect way to kick off your new year productively.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Do you remember when you decided you would use your extra time during quarantine to pick up a hobby or learn something new? Well, 10 months have passed, and we’re rolling into a new year with continuing restrictions due to COVID-19.

But don’t let that discourage you. One fun and productive hobby you can pick up is playing music. And we have some great musical training bundles that’ll help you start 2021 off right.

Roxsyn app turns your electric guitar into a synthesizer

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Roxsyn app on ipad
Roxsyn -- a synth that rocks.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Roxsyn is the “world’s first metamorphic guitar synthesizer” for iPad. The app lets you plug in your guitar and, when you play it, synthesizer sounds come out. It also offers a full suite of knobs to tweak and shape the resulting sounds, just like a regular, keyboard-driven synth.

But — and this is important — it’s not just using your guitar as a MIDI controller for a normal synthesizer. Let’s take a look.

How to make music with an iPad and a ‘classic’ Swedish synth

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These two will make beautiful music together.
A perfect music-making combo.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

At first glance, the decade-old OP-1 synthesizer from Swedish musical instrument makers Teenage Engineering looks about as standalone as it gets.

The tiny device couples a short, piano-style keyboard with a screen. And it contains a drum machine, several synthesizers, a sampler, a handful of sequencers, a virtual four-track tape recorder and even an FM radio. You can create entire tracks on it with no other gear, or you can hook it up to electric guitars and microphones and bring the outside world in.

But it also pairs surprisingly well with an iPad. You can record audio back and forth, but things go much deeper than that. You also can use the OP-1’s hardware keyboard to play instruments on the iPad, and use iPad MIDI apps to control the synthesizers on the OP-1.

Making music with an iPad and a synth

If you own both pieces of gear already, hopefully this how-to will give you some new ideas about making music with an iPad. But if you only own an iPad, this in-depth article will provide tips for using your tablet with other music gear.

And if you know nothing about the OP-1, or about Teenage Engineering’s work in general, you’ll learn why the company is kind of the Apple of the synth world. Teenage Engineering is known for its incredible interface design — and for having a quirky personality similar to 1984-era Apple, when the brand-new Mac was making waves.

Stark is a new kind of guitar amp for iPad

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Stark looks as good as it sounds.
Stark looks as good as it sounds.
Photo: Klevgrand

A new music app release from Klevgrand is always something to get excited about. And a new guitar amp simulation app? Almost as rare as an in-the-wild sighting of an AirPower mat. Combine both, at an introductory price of just $10, and you have a pretty special day. The app is called Stark, and it’s also the first Audio Unit amp sim for iOS.

FretBud is the simplest, most useful guitar-scales app ever

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Fretbud is super-simple, and that’s what makes it so useful.
FretBud is super-simple, and that’s what makes it so useful.
Photo: FretBud

If you’re learning to play the guitar, then you will constantly be looking up two things: Scales and chords. After you get a bit further into it, you’ll add arpeggios to that list. And you will keep referencing them for years, becasue there are a zillion way to play each chord, scale, or arpeggio on the guitar. And here’s the problem. Reference materials for these three essentials are a pain to use. Either you spend more time clicking around an app than you do practicing, or you have to keep a ton of PDFs around, and try to keep those organized. Now, though, a super simple (maybe too-simple) app finally ge ts it right. It’s called Fretbud, and I love it.

Fender Bluetooth speaker looks like a 1950s tweed-covered guitar amp

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Fender Tweed Monterey
This, believe it or not, is a Bluetooth speaker.
Photo: Fender

This is Fender’s new Tweed Monterey. No, it’s not a tweed-covered guitar amp from the 1950s, although it certainly looks just like one. It is, in fact, the sweetest-looking Bluetooth speaker I’ve ever seen. It might not be the most practical, most portable or even best sounding Bluetooth speaker around. But if you want people to think you play guitar, this is the perfect accessory for your fake sleeve tattoos.

The Jammy is yet another attempt at an iOS-ready travel guitar

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Jammy is air-travel friendly.
Jammy is air-travel friendly.
Photo: Jammy

Truth: Every wireless musical gadget has to have its publicity photos shot in a park. Never mind that the user/model is wearing headphones, isolated from their idyllic surroundings, and likely struggling to read their iPhone display in the hot sun. The Jammy is no different. It’s a 17-inch-long practice guitar that can not only be taken to the park, but splits in two for carrying on planes.

Control your analog guitar pedals with this iPhone app and looper

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DC Pedals Bluetooth Looper will switch your pedals in and out using an iPhone app.
This box will switch your pedals in and out using an iPhone app.
Photo: DC Pedals

There are great guitar effects apps for iOS, apps which take the signal from your electric guitar and process it with weird and/or great-sounding effects. And there are also several Bluetooth gadgets that let you control those apps with your feet.

But what about the other way around? Is there a way to take a guitarist’s collection of old-school analog effects pedals, and control them from your iPhone? Well yes, now there is. It’s DC Pedals’ Bluetooth Looper and VirtualLooper app.

Learn to play a musical instrument with iOS

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learn to play
You don't have to build your own guitar, thank God.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

Learning a musical instrument is hard. Really hard. It takes a long time to make anything that sounds like music, and yet still people put in the long hours and the hard work to become great at their chosen instrument.

There’s no way around practicing, but there is. lot you can do to make the practice easier, more effective, and much more fun, and all you need is there on your iPhone or iPad.

This box turns your iPad into the ultimate guitar pedalboard

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iRig Stomp I/O Pedalboard
Nothing can bad can happen to your iPad down there on a stage floor. Nothing.
Photo: IK Multimedia

Electric guitar players have effects pedals. It’s an addiction, and a law of nature. We keep buying little stomp boxes in pursuit of the perfect sound, and of course we don’t even call it sound. We call it “tone.” But the sensible players don’t try to beat the addiction. They switch to software. Instead of buying and trading expensive hardware boxes, they move to something like iOS effects apps, which let you experiment at a fraction of the cost.

And that’s where IK Multimedia’s new iRig Stomp I/O Pedalboard comes in. It’s a hardware pedalboard that provides guitar players with a familiar front-end to all those amazing iOS effects.

These tiny guitar amps can be controlled by your iPhone

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laney iphone amp
So cute.
Photo: Laney

Laney’s new Mini-Laney and Mini-St-Lion are tiny, portable, desktop versions of the U.K. guitar-amp company’s popular full-sized amplifiers. They come in retro and modern styles, and mono or stereo versions. Plus, they can be hooked up to any amp-simulation software on your iPhone using a single cable.

Guitar Gravitas, Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition, and other awesome apps of the week

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Awesome Apps
'Appy weekend.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

This week we have apps that will help you to learn everything about your guitar, read up on the latest news, and use the Touch Bar to edit text on your MacBook Pro. But who are we trying to fool with all those? This weekend you’ll all be playing Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition all day long.

Bias Mini Guitar amp is controlled by your iPhone

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bias mini guitar
This slimline, portable amp can sound like any other amp, ever.
Photo: Positive Grid

iOS is getting to be a serious platform for musicians. Lots of musicians already know that, but now some amazing hardware is appearing that takes advantage of the little devices. The latest is Positive Grid’s Bias Mini, for guitar and bass, 300-watt guitar amplifier that takes its sounds from an iPhone, iPad, or Mac app.

EvenMidi adds real knobs to the iOS-controlled effects pedal [Review]

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evenmidi
Look at all those knobs. Just look at them.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The Eventide H9 is a magical effects box for musicians, and it is especially relevant to iOS users because it can be completely controlled by an iOS app via Bluetooth, putting virtual knobs and dials on the screen of an iPad or iPhone. Today, we’ll review the EvenMidi, which is a box that does one thing — adds bunch of knobs the the Eventide H9 so you never need to touch a screen again.

Boss’ smart wireless guitar amp is designed to work with your iPhone

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Boss katana air
Look ma, no wires.
Photo: Boss

CES 2018 bugThe Boss Katana Air looks like the ultimate living room amp for guitar players. It looks cool, it runs off mains power or AA batteries, and it features a wireless dongle that plugs into your guitar and means you never need to trail a cable across the room ever again. It even has a companion iOS app so you can tweak all the settings not available from the knobs and buttons on top of the amp.

This tiny cube connects your iPhone to guitars and microphones

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iTrack One Pre
The iTrack One Pre won't slide off your desk.
Photo: Focusrite

Focusrite’s iTrack One Pre might be the ultimate portable recording gadget for musicians. It’s a little cube that fits in a pocket, but that packs in connections for a microphone and a guitar, as well as a port for charging the iPad or iPhone you connect to. It can even supply Phantom Power to a microphone, and has it’s own gain (“volume,” kinda) knob.

Fusion Guitar packs an iPhone dock and speakers

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fusion guitar
With the Fusion Guitar, you too can sit in a chilly, graffiti-covered street and smile.
Photo: Fusion Guitars

What would happen if you took an electric guitar, made it as thick as an acoustic guitar, and stuffed the extra space not with boring old air, but with speakers and an electronic brain that works with your iPhone?

Then, you might put in a cutout on the guitar top to hold that iPhone, and a rechargeable battery to power it all. If you did all that, then you’d have invented the Fusion Guitar.

Nail the guitar sound of any song with Tonebridge

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tonebridge bass
Even bass players can use Tonebridge.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The iPad has many, many amazing effects apps for making music, and several high-level apps just for emulating guitar amplifiers and effects pedals. But what if you just want to plug in and play a song, and have your guitar sound just like the one on the record? That’s exactly what Tonebridge is for. Under the hood, this simulator app is as powerful as the others, but it’s way, way simpler to use.

Whereas most apps present a range or virtual pedals and amps, Tonebridge is based around songs. You fire it up, plug in your guitar, and search for the song you want to play. The app loads up the sound of the song, and you can play along. The app is impressive, nailing the tomes of pretty much any song you ask for, without any tweaking necessary.

But now, with the latest Tonebridge release, you can also dig in to the settings that used to sit behind the scenes. Let’s take a look.

The Roland Go iPhone mixer won’t rock your world [Review]

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roland go mixer
Like a spider at the center of a fancy audio-cable-based web.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

The Roland Go mixer is a little USB-powered mixer that lets you hook up a whole band’s worth of instruments to your iPhone, and record them. You can plug in almost anything, you can listen direct to the mix with headphones, and you can even pipe in music from an MP3 player or another iPhone via jack. On paper, it seems fantastic. In the studio, or bedroom, though, it proves to be just the opposite.

Teach your kids healthy digital habits [Week’s Best Deals]

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This week's best new deals include an app for keeping kids on the straight and narrow online, and lots more.
This week's best new deals include an app for keeping kids on the straight and narrow online, and lots more.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Fall is about to drop, and with the new season comes a bunch of great new deals at the Cult of Mac Store. This week, we’ve got a sleek 6-port USB-C hub and a lifetime subscription to Sticky Password. Additionally, we’ve got an amazing glowing guitar instruction tool, and an app for teaching kids more healthy online habits. Everything’s on sale at big discounts, read on for more details:

Best looper apps for iPad and iPhone

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looper apps iPad
You don't need a pedal, or even a guitar, to make amazing music with a looper app.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

A looper is a great musician’s tool, for practice and for making songs. Looper apps are also fantastic fun for anyone who wants to take a crack at creating a tune. Just hit record on a looper app, and make some noise. Then hit the button again, and your recording is played over and over, in a loop.

Then you then build on this, adding more layers. A guitarist can chop out drum beats, then some chords, and play a melody over the loop. A beatboxer can boom, boom, chick and spit into a microphone to build up what the kids call “sick beatz.” And Jimmy Fallon can sing a duet with Billy Joel.

There are many looper apps for iOS. Here are a few of the best.

How to send audio from one iOS app to another with Audiobus

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Audiobus mixer on a piano
Audiobus is like a set of virtual patch cables for musical apps.
Photo: Charlie Sorrel/Cult of Mac

If you want to make music on iPhone or iPad, you can choose from an embarrassment of fantastic iOS apps. You’ll also find plenty of music effects and recording apps on the platform.

The problem is using two types of apps together, because iOS isn’t nearly as flexible as macOS when it comes to digging into the system. But with a $10 app called Audiobus 3, you can route audio between apps. That means you can send music from, say, a drum machine to an audio recorder, or from your guitar to a sampler.

Further, you can route audio from many apps at a time, letting you create as complex or simple a setup as you like. If you think of Audiobus as a set of virtual patch cables for your iPhone or iPad, you’re on the right track.