Hasta La Gadget!

I’m not a musician. I never learned to play the guitar, although I tried when I was a kid. When I couldn’t go from beginner to full-on rock star in a month I gave it up. But despite my lack of musical ability, one thing I do know is that guitars can be pretty easily broken. If you’re the sort of person that likes to travel off the beaten path and keep your guitar handy, a fragile wooden guitar can be a problem. This is where a company called Alpaca steps in with its durable Carbon Fiber Travel Guitar.

Not only is carbon fiber lightweight, it’s also incredibly strong allowing the guitar to go anywhere the musician might want with the ability to withstand elements. In addition to carbon fiber, the guitar is created from flax fabric, and bio-derived resins.

Alpaca promises that this combination of materials creates an incredibly strong instrument that still offers a brilliant resonant sound. The guitar also has an embedded daisychain on the back giving a universal attachment to any of your outdoor gear, and its strap is made from rugged paracord. The Alpaca Guitar is built in the United States and will cost you $575(USD).

The only downside is that you can’t smash this thing on stage.

At the start of NAMM 2013, Roland announced two new models in its Cube line and an iOS app to complete the trio. Both the Cube Lite and Cube Lite Monitor are on display in all of their dual-connecting glory, but we’re far more interested in the former for its guitar amp wares. The 10W compact unit touts built-in JC Clean, Crunch and Extreme tones alongside Chorus and Reverb controls. We were pleasantly surprised with how well these on-board sounds came across at the strings of a Stratocaster during the booth demos we witnessed. Usually included presets can be really hit or miss, but these are quite serviceable — especially in a portable unit. As you might expect, all of the usual controls are here including volume, treble, bass and drive and the requisite 1/4-inch input graces the backside. That’s all quite nice, but the real story here is the iOS software and aux connectivity.

That iOS app, Cube Jam, allows you to record and play along with tunes from your iDevice and connects via the i-Cube Link stereo auxiliary input from the headphone jack of a slate or handset. We were a bit disappointed that the connection didn’t come at the hands of a 30-pin jack or Lightning port, but overall the unit worked quite nicely in our limited time with it. The separate volume control for the aux port is quite nice and allows the user to adjust levels of the amp and the accompanying track independently to keep things just so. We’d surmize that you’d be able to connect an Android, BB10 or WP8 device for playback, if you’re willing give up the Cube Jam software. Cube Lite also requires a tethered power supply and doesn’t support Bluetooth connectivity like we saw on the iLoud from IK Multimedia. If you don’t have a need for the guitar functionality, the Cube Lite Monitor wields the same 1/8-inch input, but offers stereo 1/4-inch jacks instead and tosses the in-built tones. Head on past the break for a quick tour and a closer look awaits in the gallery just below.

James Trew contributed to this report.

Filed under: Misc

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Source: Roland, iTunes

The surprisingly small and light Jamstik is, in short, one of the coolest things I’ve seen at CES Today. It is a MIDI guitar that is actually a musical controller. By playing and plucking the strings you can play music using synthesized sounds and it recognizes chords, notes, and nuances including bends and hammers.

“The end result is fast, accurate and cost effective to make,” said Chad Koehler, Zivix VP. The device connects to a PC or tablet and you can play it just like a regular guitar. To go up the neck you simply slap a button on the body to play higher notes.

“Our goal is to provide a platform for making music more meaningful, accessible and fun for the masses. While the Jamstik is instantly compatible with Garage Band and hundreds of other core-midi applications, we are developing apps for teaching, interactive Tab and a fun music re-mix experience,” said Koehler. The Jamstik uses IR sensors to see your fingers as you press the strings so you never have to tune the guitar and it can notify you before you tap the wrong notes. It’s a great teaching tool and a fun portable music maker.

We got the chance to sit down with the Zivix team and talk about their creation. The plan is to gain distributors here at CES and launch the product this summer. While it’s not as “guitar-like” as the similar GTar, it’s definitely an amazing addition to the world of musical gadgets.

Despite the increasing number of robotic musical acts, I’m still always tickled by the idea of a band that does away with the human element, and puts robots in their rightful place – to entertain their masters. The latest robot musician – a mechanical bass-playing ‘bot.

Engineering student James McVay created the MechBass as his honors project at New Zealand’s Victoria University. The robot uses a set of four individual bass strings along with a motorized pick wheel to jam out its tunes.

A linear-motion system moves a pitch-shifter that frets the strings by applying pressure to them, and a servo-controlled damper mechanism can stop the strings from vibrating quickly. Optical pickups then capture the sounds, and send them to an audio circuit and amplifier.

The whole system is controlled using MIDI signals and an audio programming language called ChucK, so it can play pretty much any tune that can be played on a bass. A custom controller board using an ATMega328 processor acts as the bridge between the software and the hardware.

But don’t just take my word for how cool this thing is. Here’s a video clip of MechBass pounding out the intense bassline of Muse’s Hysteria.

While I don’t know if it’ll be replacing Flea in the Red Hot Chili Peppers anytime soon, I’m still totally impressed by MechBass’ musical talents.

Check out complete details on the build here (PDF).

[via Wimp]

There’s no shortage of instruments and peripherals to make GarageBand sing on iOS gear. Anyone jonesing for well-known instruments has had few options, however, which makes Fender’s launch of a USB-capable Squier Stratocaster something of a watershed moment. While it can plug into any quarter-inch jack or a computer’s full USB port, the extremely familiar electric guitar will strum its notes directly into any older iPad, iPhone or iPod touch through a pre-supplied 30-pin cable; yes, you’ll need a pricey adapter to rock out on an iPad mini. All the familiar controls and outputs you’d anticipate are present, including a 3.5mm headphone jack for some quiet practice in the den. Fender’s $200 price puts the USB Squier well within reach of mobile musicians — we just wish other guitar makers would follow suit.

Continue reading Fender unveils Squier USB Stratocaster that talks to iOS, lends cred to iPad jam sessions (video)

Filed under: Portable Audio/Video

Fender unveils Squier USB Stratocaster that talks to iOS, lends cred to iPad jam sessions (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 12 Nov 2012 17:47:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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