Musician's Web Keeper

Band Bluebrain Releases Album as Location-Based App

Posted by Andrew Apanov 

Ultimate Guitar Tools featured in App Store Canada!

Hooray, we are featured in Canadian iTunes App Store!

More on this ultimate iPhone application for guitarists (it's been launched not so long ago): http://app.ultimate-guitar.com/ugt/ugtools/

Posted by Andrew Apanov 

Becoming A 'Rock Prodigy' With A Single Mobile App?

(download)

Click here to download:

becoming-a-rock-prodigy-with-a-single-iphone-app-fynantIpphAggHvItBmB.zip (338 KB)

All guitar players, from beginner to advanced, can now reach prodigy status with the launch of a new mobile application, Rock Prodigy™, that teaches users how to play a real guitar, any guitar, with the help of an Apple® iPhone®, iPad® or iPod® Touch. Using polyphonic pitch-recognition, Rock Prodigy allows all guitar players to learn, experience and absorb the music from legendary rock guitarists including James Hetfield of Metallica, Jerry Garcia of Grateful Dead and Joe Trohman of Fall Out Boy.

The app immerses users in original master recordings of popular guitar-centric songs, while simultaneously providing real-time feedback as players strum along with a real guitar. The interactive app also has the ability to auto-pause and uses tab-like performance cues for all four levels of play, which show precise rhythm, timing and note durations with real-time interaction and performance evaluation.

Allowing players to learn on the go, Rock Prodigy requires no additional hardware as guitarists can play directly into their mobile devices using the built-in microphone, a standard headset with microphone or a basic line-in guitar input adapter.

Posted by Andrew Apanov 

Ultimate Guitar Tabs iPhone app beats I Am T-Pain out of the #1 spot

We made it. Ultimate Guitar Tabs is the most popular app in the Music section of the App Store.

Here's the official press release for the app, I haven't posted it before:

Ultimate-Guitar.com officially announces the launch of Ultimate Guitar Tabs, an easy and convenient application for the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch that allows guitarists to access guitar tablatures, bass tablatures and chords from the world's largest online database of tabs.

In just over a week since its debut, Ultimate Guitar Tabs has rocketed to the number one spot in the iTunes App Store’s top paid music downloads category, and is in the top 50 paid downloads overall, earning four and five star ratings and rave reviews from users.

The app is the latest offering from Ultimate Guitar’s mobile applications division, which designs and develops music-related, multi-platform gaming and music applications for Ultimate Guitar, its network of sites and third parties.

"We are pleased to offer musicians a vehicle for accessing tabs via their mobile devices, and excited by the immediate success of Ultimate Guitar Tabs," said Ultimate Guitar’s founder Eugeny Naidenov. "We are building a media company that includes a mobile platform to connect musicians with music and each other - anywhere, anytime."

With over 10 million visitors per month worldwide and more than two million messages posted, as well as the largest library of licensed guitar tabs on the web, Ultimate Guitar is the Internet’s largest and fastest growing social media site for the guitar enthusiast community.

Ultimate Guitar Tabs allows users to browse Ultimate Guitar’s collection of more than 300,000 tabs with an array of search tools and features including:  

• Simple Search. Find Tabs quickly by entering artist name or song title.
• Advanced Search. Search by Tab type (guitar Tabs, chords, bass Tabs), part of the song (intro, solo, chorus), difficulty level, tuning, and rating.
• Favorites. Add any Tab to your favorites to make them available for offline browsing.
• Tab Packs. Collections of pre-loaded, pre-selected such as skills level (Easy, Medium, Advanced), music genres (Rock, Metal, Punk), and special occasions (Love songs, Xmas songs). Tab Packs are frequently updated.
• Top 100 Tabs. Listed by Tab type (Guitar, Bass, Chords and overall).
• Auto-scroll. View Tablature in the text viewer using the handy Auto-Scroll functionality - The App will scroll Tabs for you!
• Portrait and Landscape modes.

Posted by Andrew Apanov 

Gibson releases its own free iPhone app

Gibson Guitar has announced the launch of the Gibson Guitar App. This free App is available exclusively for all Apple iPhone and iPod Touch users directly from the Apple App Store. "This is one App every guitarist and fan of Gibson Guitar must own," the press release says. "Over the past two years over 3 Billion Apps have been downloaded around the world, the Gibson Guitar App cements Gibson’s reputation as the industry’s leader in innovation and music technology.

"The Gibson Guitar App includes a number of special features, such as a traditional chromatic tuner which starts in “All Notes” mode that tracks whatever is played. Owners of the App can choose a tuning on the “Mode” page so the tuner will only track notes for that particular tuning. Also included is a standard chromatic tuner, a simple tuner which allows less advanced users to tune to Standard tuning Open G, Open D etc by touching the key. For iPhone users, the Gibson headstock inlay will automatically change color indicating if the string is sharp, flat or in tune. For iPod Touch users they can turn the “Play Notes” option on so they can hear the appropriate tuning since they do not have a microphone facility.

"The Gibson app also features a standard metronome that allows users to choose a specific BPM or tap the screen three times to automatically set the tempo. Other key features of the app include over 30 chord charts with finger markings to help the user with mastering the chord. For those who prefer to learn new guitar riffs, licks or chord sequences via video tuition can now have that option from their Gibson App. The app will be updated frequently with new video content so users of all guitar ability can improve their technique from the comfort of their home."

What can I say - well done Gibson!

(download)

Click here to download:

Gibson_Releases_Its_Own_Free_i.zip (123 KB)

Posted by Andrew Apanov 

A music mobile app trying to prove that it can actually be used for creating music

Rockstar Games has posted "a previously unreleased" Beaterator produced track by Jay Electronica, which could leave one wondering if we should expect exclusive iPhone or PSP records from established artists in the nearest future. The producer created the tune at the Rockstar Beaterator House of Hype Lounge at the MTV Video Music Awards late last year using Beaterator for PSP (I covered the iPhone version on Dotted Music back in January). Jay's original track with "a hypnotizing bass line and an innovative electric crescendo" was made "in mere minutes". Here it is:

 Wait, OMG, this sounds like... A crappy track created on a modern sophisticated toy!

And the thing is that it is totally fine, a PSP is a toy. And I'm pretty sure the guys at Rockstar are having a good time promoting this game as a serious music creation tool (I would!)

Posted by Andrew Apanov 

EMI & David Guetta release an iPhone App

"EMI Music and Grammy Award winning DJ/Producer David Guetta will launch the first official David Guetta iPhone and iPod Touch application in the U.S. on March. 2nd. Through the app fans can follow David as he moves from city to city around the world, receive an ongoing feed of updates, photos, videos and tweets directly from David.

The app also contains innovate features such as Tour Tracker, an interactive world map that allows fans to see in real time where David is mixing and DJing.  Tour tracker enables fans to connect by sharing their own location, pictures and comments on Guetta's DJ sets from around the globe. The app also contains an additional feature developed by the leading interactive music solution company MXP4 which transforms the iPhone and iPod Touch into a miniature mixing deck, allowing fans to remix and play with Guetta's smash "Sexy Bitch" featuring Akon.

The app has been developed by Redshift, a technology company specialized in creating high-end mobile platforms and will be available for $1.99 at the iTunes store."

Seems like a part of a new wave of musician branded mobile applications I've been talking about. Will see if it's worthy in March.

Posted by Andrew Apanov 

Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars iPhone trailer

I want this NOW! Can't wait to check out the game.

PS: just sorting out all emails from the week of my absence, will be back with some cool MIDEM reports soon.

Posted by Andrew Apanov 

Arcade Rocker. The news will break here

Finally I feel that I can start openly talking about this.

The project we've been working on for REALLY long is almost ready to be launched.

Just imagine Guitar Hero, Jam Legend and Tap Tap Revenge brought together, made better, and able to play any song from your home / iPod music library.

Stay tuned for more.

Posted by Andrew Apanov 

I'm a MIDEM iPhone app star

Is it possible to be featured in a huge event's official iPhone app in a more stupid way?

I've waited for it for some time, and it finally arrived - the MIDEM application for iPhone, with news, conference schedule, and many other cool features that will help me and anyone attending the trade fair.

But after 5 minutes of using the app I headed to the More -> Photos section to see... myself, standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin.

WTF?

No, I know how it got there - I created a photo album on Flickr after last year's MIDEM, and someone behind the app found it searching for relevant titles and tags, obviously. And on our road to Cannes, I and my boss were in Berlin. But why, tell me, why were these pictures smartly removed from the app in few days after the launch, and then added back two more days later??

Anyway, this is a fun beginning of the event - look forward to it.

Posted by Andrew Apanov