Classic Rock Guitar, Volume 2
 January 1, 1997From "Michelle" and "Blackbird" to "Let It Be," a new guitar instruction CD-ROM from Ubi Soft Entertainment teaches intermediate guitarists to play some of John Lennon and Paul McCartney's most celebrated songs with the same riffs and instrumental treatment they received on the original recordings. Through special arrangement with Epiphone, for example, the program features "Yesterday" played on the Epiphone Texan, the guitar on which McCartney played the song on the White album.
Classic Rock Guitar, Volume 2, the second title in Ubi Soft's Learn & Play interactive music instrument series, is designed to enable any guitarists who knows basic chord-playing to take his or her technique to new levels. The program teaches seven Lennon/McCartney classics, including "Yesterday," "Norwegian Wood," "Across the Universe," and "You've go to Hide Your Love Away," through a combination of video demonstrations, scrolling notation, and live chord diagrams. Complex riffs are broken down into easy-to-master exercises for quick mastery of the music.
Students can hot-link to any lesson or exercise when they want to review a specific technique or fingering pattern, and they can also record and play back their music with the software to check their progress. These features make it possible for users to learn at the own pace.
Classic Rock Guitar, Volume 2 includes 70 lessons, each equivalent to one hour of private instruction, and 174 exercises. Designed by an international team of guitarists and music educators, the multimedia format allows for dynamic interactive instruction at a fraction of the cost of private lessons. Instructional video is synchronized with scrolling music and tablature, chord diagrams, and full-screen zooms that permit students to see the strumming and fingering up close. Each lessons can be customized through looping, fast-forward, and rewind features.
Some of the playing techniques that are covered include pick hand palm-muting, hammer-ons, hammer-on-pull-offs, slide, vibrato, flatpicking, reading tablature, hybrid picking, combining melody with chords, and flat hand damping.
New Features in Volume 2
Digital Recorder
The digital recorder can be activated from the "lessons" section of each song by double-clicking on the recorder icon. When it is activated, the user simply clicks on the record button to record the exercise that he is learning. When the user selects "Play," his recording is played followed by the instructor's version; in this way, he can develop the ability to listen to himself by critiquing his own performance. Recording can be done either by playing into a microphone or by connecting an electric or acoustic electric guitar directly into the sound card (attaching a standard to mini phone jack to your guitar cord plug first)
Help buttons
By right-clicking on any icon in the program, a pop-up bubble will appear to explain the icon's function.
Lesson and Exercise Song Maps
The Lesson and Exercise Song Maps show your progress in completing lessons and exercises in the program. Each time you have completed an exercise recording with the digital recorder, the corresponding bubble in the song map will light up so that you will be able to track exercises that have been completed. The Exercise Song map provides a breakdown by exercise for a given song, while the Lesson Song Map shows all seven songs included by lessons. Once all the exercises in a lesson have been completed, the corresponding bubble in the Lesson Song Map will light up. This information is saved to the user's hard drive so it will pertain only to the user of that computer.
The Lesson and Exercise Song Maps also allow the user to more easily navigate the product by letting him jump directly from the lessons in one song to the lessons in another through the song map.
Digital Metronome
The digital metronome included with Volume 2 now includes a choice of counting options. A user can select among 1) using no metronome, 2) hearing the metronome throughout the entire song, or 3) hearing 3 or 4 introductory beats before a song begins to play. The third option gives users enough time to put their hands on their guitar after clicking "play."
The metronome also allows the user to select between a standard "4/4" beat and a triple beat, and the user can select among three different sounds for the metronome ticks.
Finally, a user can speed up or slow down the speed of each song through the metronome function. If the user lowers a song's speed from 120 beats per minute to 60, for example, and clicks on "play," he will find that all of the programs features will be adjusted accordingly. (Note that sound is not available with this option) In other words, the video will be synchronized t the scrolling music, tablature, and live chord diagrams all at 60 beats per minute. In addition to the step-by-step explanations in the "Lessons" section, this is a great way to practice the song in a slower format.
Customization
Classic Rock Guitar, Volume 2 allows up to 100 users to enter their names in the options screen. By doing this, the program will monitor the progress of each individual user as he completes the various exercises in the program by filling the appropriate bubble on the song and summary maps. This feature is particularly useful when more than one guitarist wishes to use the same CD-ROMs.
Another way that the program can be customized is by selecting the format in which a guitarist's recordings can be save on his hard drive. The program allows one to choose between a more intensive saving setting (with less precise sound quality).
Karaoke Feature
The "Words" section is for guitarists who have learned a song and are ready to demonstrate their mastery of it. By clicking on "play" in this section, the words will light up in temps so that the user can playing along with the words and chord symbols. Like in the music section, the metronome feature can slow down or speed up the rate at which the words will are highlighted.
Lessons-to-Music Jump
A user can jump directly to a particular song segment from the "Lessons" screen by clicking on the corresponding button. For example, if a user is practicing the lessons for the first verse of Michelle, he can click on the "first verse" button and jump to the first verse of the song.
System Requirements
Windows 3.1 or Windows 95, 486DX 66 MHz, 4 MB RAM, 256 color SVGA, MPC compatible sound card, double-speed CD-ROM drive, mouse.
The MSRP for Classic Rock Guitar, Volume 2 is $59.95 For more information, visit their web site at www.ubisoft.com. |
