Gibson Guitars announced Tuesday the release of Gibson Guitar App for iPhone and iPod touch. The app offers guitarists a tuner, chord charts, and a metronome, as well as access to instructional videos from LearnAndMaster.com (L&M), and an interface for reading content from Gibson.com.
The three main utility features are the built-in tuner, chord charts, and the metronome.
GibsonGuitar App contains two different tuner modes, a chromatic tuner using an analog needle model for showing the pitch, as well as a "simple" mode that uses the traditional Gibson headstock to indicate pitch through changing colors. You can also play the notes in Simple mode by touching the tuning peg, which is the only way iPod touch users can use the tuner as those devices don't have mics.
Simple tuner mode - touch the tuning pegs to hear the note
The metronome offers an easy way to get a beat, with or without a sound, using a dial for changing the tempo. You can choose between 2/4, 3/4, or 4/4 time signatures if you want an accented "1" beat, or no time signature for simply getting a straight beat.
The app includes chord charts for 30 chords, most of which are open position chords. There are a few basic bar chords, as well.
The lessons from L&M are basically a few select instructional videos from the extensive library available on L&M (ironically, the guitar being used in L&M Guitar Lesson 17 is a Fender Telecaster, but we're just nitpicking [Editor's Note: As noted by Guitar Dan int he comments, I got this wrong - the guitar is a tele copy made by Gibson. We're leaving the article intact so that Guitar Dan's comments make sense.]). There are currently seven videos being offered, and Gibson said that it would be rotating other videos in and out of the app over time.
Screenshot from one of the lessons (this one with a Gibson Les Paul!)
The last tab in the app is an interface for accessing news, feature content and artist events posted at Gibson.com.
The app is free on the iTunes Store.