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Music Made Mobile for the Masses

June 30, 2009 by JR · Leave a Comment 

First Timers:

The You Rock Guitar is a great learning tool for anybody that wants to play because:

No stringing required offers a smoother learning curve while maintaining the feel of frets & strings all the way up & down the neck.

No tuning – Chords don’t sound ‘off’ because of the constant retuning requirements of strings.  The two features combined allow you to pick it up and play right away – no wasted time setting up or adjusting.  It’s truly plug & play.

Ease of Use – Between the strings and the You-Rock Mode that auto-corrects common finger-positioning mistakes, early practice is a lot more rewarding as users sound good from the get-go.

Versatility – It can emulate almost any instrument, providing the user with a wider choice of songs to play. The Chord-progression modes help the player growth and expand his/her musical horizons at their own pace.

Composers/Musicians:

The You Rock Guitar is a great compliment to any guitar player because:

It is small, lightweight, and portable – perfect for travel/on the road playing

Versatility of multiple sounds/instruments in one – don’t have to carry multiple instruments with me to write/compose different sounds on different instruments.

Plugs into headphones or amps so I can use it anywhere (plains, trains, automobiles)

Long battery life (~8 hours) – compose from LAX to Heathrow airports.

Fun; all the different effects, sounds, recourses of the instrument push the boundaries of creativity.

Video Gamers

The You Rock Guitar is the first instrument to truly bridge the worlds of gaming and real music, enabling you to use an actual instrument right from your game.

In 2009, those benefits are limited only by the games themselves.  While the instrument (combined with the Game Flex Module) works out of the box with existing games, there is no additional/incremental functionality to the experience other than hitting strings instead of buttons.

But as game developers/publishers takes advantage of a new peripheral that begins where today’s accessories end, there’s no limit to what kinds of innovation will be possible through the You Rock Guitar.  Here are some obvious examples:

Games will be able to offer modes that increase in degree of difficulty by more closely associating in game notes to real notes played in any song.

Speed, rhythm, number of notes, complexity of notes, chords, and songs, will enable a continuous transition from simple/easy beginners, to ‘playing along-side the real music’ as the actual performers would see fit.

Both developers’ and gamers’ creativity will drive game development and a natural evolution between 100% game (role play) and 100% performance (music play).

The game’s appeal will broaden, as more people of all ages & skills will relate to the experience.

Teachers/Educators

The You Rock Guitar makes teachers’ roles easier:

The properties of the guitar inherently make it easier for students to immediately see results – the satisfaction comes quicker and hurdles are overcome more easily.

Measure progress – when connected to a computer, the instrument can keep track of every note and chord that you play, and will provide you with ‘reports’ on what/how you did, what errors/mistakes were ‘corrected’, along with behavioral trends.

Custom learning – The instructor can utilize the SDK to create customized learning plans that meet the specific needs of their students and that assist in measuring and analyzing their progress.

Fun will drive more players into the market for real instruments; driving demand from more students and the desire for more lessons – translating into increased revenues.

iTunes as your back-up band?

May 5, 2009 by Kevin · Leave a Comment 

Rocking on the You Rock Guitar

Rocking on the You Rock Guitar

Wanna practice quietly in the room, dorm or on the train, plane or automobile?
Simply plug you iPod stereo-mini output into the You Rock Guitar.
Next, plug your headphones (another stereo-mini) into the guitar too.
Find the song you want to jam with and hit play.
You can adjust the volume on the guitar for the overall mix and adjust the iPod level for the balance between the two.

YRG TIPS & HINTS

Go to some of the chord or tab web sites and download a few songs you want to learn, print them out and take them with you for learning “on the road”

Your band’s got some new tunes you need to learn? It’s time to learn your part. Put the song in your iTunes library and set it to loop.  Play it over and over till your your rockin “just like the record.”

One last tip. OK, we know you can’t bend our fretboard strings, but if you use the whammy bar you’ll get it down the same way, then when you switch to your electric, wham bam, thank you Mam, let’s rock.

Lastly, our batteries will take you from LAX to London on a 747 (without too many stopovers) but if your on a long haul over 9 hours, bring an extra set of batteries.