Pocket Guitar is a great virtual guitar app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Featuring an elegant and simple interface along with a realistic tone, this app makes for a perfect introduction to the world of guitar for beginners, and is also a blast for seasoned axe-men and axe-women.
Primarily developed by Shinya Kasatani, Pocket Guitar also leverages various open source code libraries and sample packs, illustrating what a single programmer can accomplish with the iPhone's development environment and its support for open source initiatives.
Pocket Guitar for the iPhone Features
- Six Different "Guitars" (Acoustic-Electric, Electric, Classical, Muted, Bass, Ukulele)
- Scrollable Fretboard
- Three Different Effects (Distortion, Chorus, Delay)
- Alternate Tunings
- Accelerometer-based String "Bends"
Virtual Guitar Software for the iPhone
When starting Pocket Guitar, the user is presented with a small section of the fretboard along with an area used for strumming. It is possible to scroll to any position on the fretboard using a button below the strum area. It's tough to scroll while playing; maybe a scrollable slider similar to the one in this free iPhone piano app would have worked better.
Pocket Guitar stands out amongst other virtual guitar apps for the iPhone with its excellent sound, especially with the distortion cranked. Neil Young's grunge sound of doom is almost channeled when plugging the iPhone into a pair of studio monitors or headphones. The accelerometer is also effectively used to bend notes when tilting the iPhone.
The different guitar types in Pocket Guitar are useful, but the bass and ukulele samples really need to be heard through headphones or speakers for the best sound quality. The classical guitar sounds especially beautiful. The only thing missing is some form of slide guitar option, like on the excellent Steel Guitar iPhone app.
A Nice Collection of Virtual Guitar Effects and Settings
Pocket Guitar sports three parameterized effects (Chorus, Delay, and Distortion) with any two of them available simultaneously. Combining a timed delay with distortion leads to a sound that David Gilmour would find useful.
The app also features a robust settings page which allows for alternate tunings, hammer-ons, and pull-offs. There are settings for a left-handed mode and volume and mute controls for playing along with the iTunes library on the iPhone or iPod Touch.
Pocket Guitar is recommended for both guitarists and anyone curious about exploring the world of fretboards and strings. It's a good time made more fun by also downloading the killer virtual analog synth app NLog 2.0.
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