Review of Breedlove Solo Concert

NOTE: I’m not a professional review. I do not get compensation or free products from manufacturers. I only review products that I purchase and use in real situations. The only money I make from reviews is from Google Adwords, over which I don’t have editorial control.

Welcome to my review of Breedlove’s Solo Concert guitar. More than a review, it’s also a story. A story of how I purchase a guitar. Maybe you can learn something from it, or maybe you’ll be entertained, or maybe you just want to skip to the darn review.

The Quest

And so it came to pass that it was time to buy a new guitar. If you’re like me, you don’t need a reason to buy a new guitar, you just need a justification. Hey, it’s a sunny day, I’d better buy a new guitar. Oh look, it’s raining, better buy a new guitar. It’s Monday, better buy a new guitar. Friday, new guitar… Since I’m not rich (and I don’t want to become poor), I’ve learned to resist that temptation. So when the time comes that there really are good reasons to purchase a new axe, I don’t mess around. I revel in the experience, but I also research as much as I can to make sure it’s a good purchase.

I needed a new on-stage guitar. Maggie, my Martin 00CX-AE was on her last legs. I had always had a love-hate relationship with that guitar and some of the manufacturing defects finally caught up to her, making her unplayable and unfixable. Aggie, my Larrivee, is a beautiful and sweet-sounding dreadnought, but I wanted one with a cutaway for those face-melting acoustic solos, and I feel cautious using her on stage because she seems too vulnerable to scratches and dents. I needed what they call in the car world a “daily driver.” A guitar that was durable enough to take on stage in the dingiest of bars, but that would still let me sound my best. So, justification found, I set out to buy a new guitar!

Continue reading Review of Breedlove Solo Concert

Chorderator for iPhone and iPad

The Guitarator suite of apps continues to grow. Today I’m excited to announce the availability of Chorderator for iPhone and iPad. It contains all the same functionality of the Android version, but now for iOS devices!

  • Look up any chord, any tuning.
  • Listen to any chord shape.
  • Save chords into Lead Sheets for easy reference.
  • Share chords and Lead Sheets with your friends.

Purchase Chorderator in the App Store:

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Guitarator Toolbox now available for Mac OS X!

Ever since the PC version of Guitarator Toolbox came out several years ago, folks have been asking me when there would be a Mac version available. Well, it’s been a while, but I think will be worth the wait. I’m proud to announce that Guitarator Toolbox is now available for purchase in the Mac App Store!

Thanks to those who tried the Beta version and gave me valuable feedback.

This version is for Mac only and requires at least OS X version 10.7 (Lion).

What is Guitarator Toolbox?

It is a desktop application, originally written for PC, but NOW available for Mac, with the following features:

  • Look up how to play any chord you can think of in any tuning for your guitar, bass, or other stringed fretted instrument.
  • Look up how to play lots of different scales.
  • Perform a “reverse chord lookup” where you pick the frets and it tells you the name of the chord.
  • NEW: Metronome.
  • NEW: Chromatic Tuner.

Visit the Guitarator Toolbox in the Mac App Store

Introducing the Chorderator Android App

In response to many requests, I have created an Android App version of my popular Chorderator guitar chord lookup tool. This is a quick app that lets you look up any guitar chord you can think up, in any tuning. Many tunings come preprogrammed, including guitar standard, dropped D, mandolin,bass guitar, and banjo. Or you can add your own custom tunings. You can listen to each chord shape.

And NEW to the Android App, you can batch up a collection of chords into “Chord Sheets.” So, for example, if you’re learning a song you can save all the chords for that song into a sheet, which you can share by email or text message.

The App is completely free while it is in its Beta stage. Eventually there will be a free version and a pay version. For now, why not head on over to the Google Play Store and give it a download!