It is hard not to be excited by today’s news that Native Instruments are on the verge of releasing Guitar Rig 4 Pro, the next generation of its acclaimed guitar studio. The fourth version raises the bar on sonic authenticity with advanced new speaker emulation technology, and further expands on nearly all aspects that sets Guitar Rig apart as the most capable digital guitar solution.
Over the last year we have covered a wide range of Mac focused guitar content. From the ability to record multilayer tracks with Garageband to full professional guitar solutions such as Guitar Rig 3. Apple offer one of the best platforms for budding guitarists to process and record their latest riffs and all at particularly low cost compared to dozens of stomp boxes and fancy amps.
Sometimes you simply have to marvel at some of the apps that arrive on the iTunes Apps Store. My current app love comes in the form of the guitar toolkit. A really simple yet comprehensive suite of tools for guitarists of any level.
One of the best ways to learn the guitar is definitely to study the styles and work of others. Having grown up through the TDK cassette generation before graduating to CD I spent many hours rewinding and repeating guitar solos in an often vain attempt to work the notes out by ear.
Garageband is one of those Apple applications that I appreciate massively. It isn’t the fact that it is one of the most powerful and easy to use podcast creators or audio editors but the appreciation comes for its power as a multitrack recorder. Having played in numerous bands growing up I am no stranger to multitrack tape recorders, I frankly hated them.
I’m definitely no stranger to connecting a guitar to a Mac for some Garageband recording but Aspyr software have come up with a guitar system that completely transforms my playing to a whole new level.
We have been fans of the Guitar Hero & Rockband games for a while but finally they have arrived for the UK Mac market in harmony with one of the biggest rock bands of the last thirty years.
Integrating the power of the Apple Mac into my guitar processing set up has always been a bit of an ambition. I have even addressed Guitar and Garageband in a previous post. Having eyed up the Native Instruments Guitar Rig Session for some time we managed to get our hands on one to put it through it’s paces. Low cost guitar to computer interfaces are becoming more and more popular and although this this is great news it brings with it the challenge of selecting the right device.
The combination of guitar and computer has really come a very long way in the last ten years. Stomp box chains and bags of nine volt batteries have been replaced to some extent by multiprocessor systems.
