Guitar App Review: Guitar Jam Tracks by Ninebuzz Software
With the success of the Apple iPod, iPhone, and now iPad, Apple has the richest App marketplace on the planet. With well over 250,000 live apps, it can be very hard for someone to navigate the market and find good apps. Let us help you out: Today we take a look at a fantastic new app called "Guitar Jam Tracks" by Ninebuzz Software. Basically, Guitar Jam Tracks is a $.99 cent app that has over an hour worth of acoustic backing tracks for a guitar player to solo over.
We here at GGR downloaded the app and have been playing it for the past few days. Bottom line- for the asking price of 99 cents this app gives you an incredible value and does make practicing your scales and solos much more fun.
When you launch the app the first thing you will notice is the main screen, which consists of options for selecting any key (A-G) as well as whether or not you want to solo over a Major or Minor progression. At the bottom of the screen is a large "play" button with track time listed below.
The ideal situation for using this app is to either play the audio through the iPhone's small speaker, plug the output into your computer and solo over the files, or use a Bose Sound Dock or similarly plug the device into your home stereo.
Sound Quality: 10/10
Upon listening to the tracks we were quite impressed with the audio quality of the acoustic guitars. It is clear that Ninebuzz took great lengths to have these professionally recorded by an actual guitar player- the tracks sound lush and rich and have subtle changes in chords and rhythm which show that these are not short samples or loops. Unlike other backing tracks we have come across, what makes Guitar Jam Tracks different is that the audio tracks are not cluttered with other instruments. Basically, Ninebuzz says that the app is suppose to emulate the function of a guitar teacher, with clean acoustic backing tracks which allow you to hear and improve your solo chops.
One feature we would love to see in a future update of this app would be the inclusion of a drum option or metronome. Drums would allow a player to work on his or her rhythm skills and stick to the beat.
Overall Rating: 9/10
Quick story: As I was demoing this app for review, I had the app playing through my Bose Sound Dock when my wife came home from work. Basically, the sound of the acoustic guitars was playing cleanly in the background as I worked some of my soloing skills with my Fender Stratocaster. After my wife walked up the stairs she said to me that it sounded like I was playing with my friend Robert (we jam from time to time) and she thought that he was at our house playing with us. This story explains well why this app keeps growing on me- the backing tracks are authentic rhythm parts that will in turn give your solos more life.
Gibson-Guitar-Review recommends this app as of July 2010.
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