

'WildChords' is One of the Coolest Things I've Seen the iPad Do - shawndumas
http://toucharcade.com/2011/12/09/wildchords-is-one-of-the-coolest-things-ive-seen-the-ipad-do/

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joshmlewis
Hm, I have played the guitar for a few years now and I think this is possibly
pretty useful. I'm not sure about the whole game design because I haven't
tried WildChords but most people get discouraged when they have to learn all
these chords just to play one song and learning where your fingers go and
being cramped and the whole mechanics of it all really depresses new people,
BUT if this game can get people to move forward even when they think they
can't do it, it's totally worth it.

Once someone plays a song and realizes hey this doesn't sound half bad it will
go a long way, it's just getting people past that first hump. I was taught
'Sweet Home Alabama' as my first song and I played the heck out of it but
knowing that I could play a song and I knew the simple chords that made it
happen went a long way.

The biggest thing though is really wanting to do it. I know people that took
piano lessons for years but quit when they had the chance even though they
could play fairly well. If you don't want to really play then it won't stick.
For people that really want to play guitar I think this app could be very
useful.

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dabeeeenster
These guys gave a quick demo at an event I held in London. Great guys,
fantastic product. The bar that we held the event was pretty busy and very
noisy. I thought there's no way it would work accurately in that sort of
environment, but it was spot on. Really really impressive.

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6ren
Does the signal processing tech enable a Guitar Hero with actual guitars?

A problem I found with guitar hero is latency (actually, with the drums, where
the discrepancy is more obvious, because you can hear both); a common response
I've heard from professional drummers is that these drum games are no right
(including from standalone arcade versions).

Is the iPad, as a platform very concerned with minimizing latency for UX, in a
position to address this?

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poppysan
Have you seen Rocksmith?

<http://rocksmith.ubi.com/rocksmith/en-US/home/>

It is a guitar hero for real guitars. They address latency issues as well. I
bought it on black friday and am amazed...

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dangero
Came here to say this. If you can get around the latency rocksmith is a better
solution because it makes your guitar sound proper for the track using dsp.
This solution just listens to what you're playing.

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zephjc
Very well done. Their signal processing might not be 100%, but it's probably
more likely my fault for playing it with my unplugged electric guitar :)

It's fun and seems like a gentle way to get new players to learn. Users can
replay levels as many times as they want to.

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HankMcCoy
Isn't chord detection / polyphonic audio analysis really difficult? And they
do it instantly using an iPad, that's really impressive.

It kind of makes me mad that Google "neglects" audio on Android. The well
known latency issues are the reason developers choose an iPad/iPhone over any
Android device :(

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skizm
I now want to learn guitar. This is great. It is like Guitar Hero (which I was
absolutely addicted to for a while) except it uses the real guitar. Can't wait
till this launches in the U.S. I'm wondering if when you add more instruments
if you need 2 ipads or if you can play in the same room with one ipad and 2
instruments.

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KingOfB
I just downloaded it - search for it on your iPad. Interesting choice to not
support iPhone.

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alttab
This is awesome design. Good platform choice and integration.

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bgruber
"it feels like a mixture of magic and something you'd see in a sci-fi movie"

Seriously? I mean, this is a neat idea and seems super well executed, and fine
tuning that kind of signal processing isn't that easy, but people are still
that impressed that a computer can identify guitar chords?

Really the hard part (which from the pitch the guy seems to understand) is the
educational aspect.

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chrischen
Rocksmith does this for the PS3, Xbox, and Wii and there are already iPad apps
that can detect what notes your guitar is playing.

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ajays
Have you tried any of the note-identifying apps? How are they? I'm not a huge
fan of game mechanics, but an app that can critique you and lead you to more
and more advanced guitar playing would be great. I've always wanted to learn
to play the guitar.

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awolf
Is this compatible with Apgogee Jam?

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Tomis
Someone should clone this for PC. Why restrict yourself to the iPad market
when you can write cross-platform code?

