But then almost every beginner you see starts with an acoustic, so what the flip?

Today I’ll be going over which one is actually the best to start playing so that you can smash some songs out in no time, which is what we all want, right?

Let’s begin.

Which Will Hurt Your Fingers More?

Ha ha ha, the classic question. And here’s an even more classic, annoying answer… Both.

Electric guitar strings are thinner, which means that they are sharper. As a result, the strings will feel particularly spikey on your wee, uncalloused digits in the beginning.

You’ll probably only be able to play for 5 mins or so before you need a break.

However, acoustic guitar strings are thicker and therefore a bit softer to play. As well as this, acoustic guitars tend to have four wound strings, and electric guitar only have three. This means that you get an additional soft feeling string on acoustics.

But still, you’ll only be able to play for about 10-15 minutes at a time when you first start out before the damned finger pain hits.

That’s because, being thicker, the strings require more effort to push down. This means you have to push into the strings more than on an electric.

At the end of the day though, both will be a little uncomfortable for the first week or two, and your fingers will soon toughen up. Mine nowadays could probably even block a Nerf bullet…

Anyway, I’d say the acoustic still wins the least-finger-pain-whilst-playing-guitar award.

Playtime is everything when you’re starting out, and acoustic will help with that.

Which Is Easier to Play Riffs On?

Alright, so you like riffs and want to play along with tracks of your favourite band asap?

Obviously it depends on the genre, but I’d say electric guitar just pips this one.

The riffs themselves are actually about the same difficulty in most cases. Funk, blues, soul, reggae, rock, indie etc. you won’t be able to feel a noticeable difference.

The only problem occurs when you start playing genres like Metal and Hard Rock, where lots of distortion is used.

You can buy a distortion pedal or an amp with a distortion setting for electric guitar, but you don’t do that for acoustic guitar. At least, not unless you are moderately insane.

So the electric guitar is just a bit more customizable in terms of genre, although you will have to pay for those extra gadgets.

Which Is Easier to Play Notes On?

Electric guitar. Fact.

No offence acoustic, but those thicker strings just make everything require increased effort. More friction makes slides more annoying, hammer ons and pulls offs need more power to sound out clearly, and bends aren’t gonna happen without your fingers needing a burial after.

This is normally the point where people decide that electric is easier than acoustic. Those same licks and solos require a tenth of the effort on an electric guitar than on an acoustic.

And by the time you want to play licks and solos, your fingers are tougher anyway, so the sharper strings aren’t so much of an issue.

However, you’d be more of an intermediate guitarist than a beginner by this point. So in terms of choosing a guitar from a beginner’s perspective, don’t let this worry you too much.

Which Is Easier to Pick Up and Play?

So you’re in a Guitar Centre, overwhelmed by the wall of guitars facing you, and you just wanna know, which can I buy, take home and just play straight away?

Well, the answer to that – my friend – is going to be the acoustic.

You pick it up, tune it with a free app like GuitarTuna, and voilà! You have your own playable, not-terrible sounding instrument.

No knobs, no cables, no amps dials or funny words like “EQ”, “Mid” or “Gain”. That stuff confuses new electric guitar players and gets people frustrated messing about with things they don’t understand. Really, you should just be playing.

The last thing you want is quitting because you got fed up trying to find a “good tone”.

Plus, you’d have to buy an electric guitar, an amp AND a cable, which costs much more than just a simple acoustic.

If you wanna just play, then choose the wooden guitar with hole in the middle.

So Which One Should You Get?

Here’s the thing, they are both the same instrument and teach you the same skills.

Electric will be harder initially, but then easier in the long run, particularly once you have callouses and are at that intermediate stage.

That’s why I recommend that people should start out on acoustic. Learn the chords, play the instrument as much as possible, and don’t worry about anything more complicated than that just yet.

Find out whether you actually even like playing before you dive in with money.

And hey, once you’ve played for a few months and find yourself wanting more, then great! Get yourself an electric guitar & amp and have fun learning the technical stuff.

But obviously, if your mate is offering you an old electric guitar and amp for free, then you should definitely just take that!

Loads of people start out on electric, and if it saves money, then it’s worth it.

I myself started in summer on an old, battered acoustic with a massive split open crack through the middle of it.

I played for a while, got good at chords, then got a 10W Marshall Amp and Squire Telecaster for the following Christmas… Worked for me!

Wrapping It Up

Hopefully that’s been insightful for y’all. Everybody starts differently, so don’t spend too much time dwelling on it.

Some people even start playing bass, realize guitar gets you way more dates, then transition over and do absolutely fine.

I don’t care what you get, as long as you actually play it.

Anyway, I’ve been Sam,

Chow!

P.S. If you want to take your first free guitar lesson and learn how to play guitar for beginners, then click here to start playing!

The post Is Electric Guitar Easier Than Acoustic for Beginners? appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

If you’re changing strings for the first time, then it’s probably because a string snapped on you – Dammit! – or there’s a weekly-string-changing guitarist next-door who looks down on you like a bit of dirt on his shoe.

And I don’t want you to feel like dirt.

So today I’ll be going over how to change electric guitar strings for newbies, how often you should change them and some extra string changing bonus tips too.

Let’s roll.

Changing Strings: Step-by-Step

Step 1: Get ready

1. For all you I-have-never-changed-a-string-before-this-is-really-scary-omg people out there, just chill. Calm your nerves, you aren’t going to break your guitar unless something goes REALLY wrong…

And by REALLY wrong, I mean accidentally dropping it off Mount Everest or something.

2. Also, make sure that you have your guitar laid down flat on a table with a small flannel where they contact. You don’t want any scratches going on there.

But Sam, you’ve laid your guitar on the floor! Yes, that’s because my desk is grim, and you won’t want to see that in a picture.

3. Find out your string gauge. Most guitars will come with 9-42 (aka 9s) or 10-46 (aka 10s, thicker than 9s) strings sets from the factory. These gobbledegook numbers refer to the thickness of each string, with a 10 in the 10-46 set being the high E string, and the 46 being the low E string.

If you put on a different string gauge, then you’ll have to reset your intonation, which probably isn’t what you’re here for.

If you have a caliper at home, then below is a video of how you can check your string gauge using that.

If not, then hand it to an experienced guitar-playing mate or take it to a guitar store, and they should be able to figure it out for you.

4. Get yourself some strings. To restring your guitar, you’re gonna need something to actually resting it with!

Favourites among guitar players include:

1. Ernie Ball Regular Slinky 10-46 (Super Slinky for 9-42)

Used by soooo many bands. Metallica, Paul McCartney, Slash, John Mayer, John Petrucci, Iron Maiden and KISS are just to name a few. You can view the whole roster on their website here.

2. D’Addario Regular Light 10-46 (Super Light for 9-42).

Used by Mark Knopfler, Slipknot, Herman Li, Guthrie Govan (my fav guitar player), Eric Johnson, Joe Satriani etc. You can view their roster here.

Although, my personal recommendation for any fellow Brits out there is Rotosound Yellows 10-46 (Pinks for 9-42).

They cost and feel the same as the strings above, except you get a free extra high E string… Which is awesome because that’s the only string that breaks anyway!

Still, you’ll see me in this post using Rotosound Blues in this post because I’m weird. They’re a hybrid set between 10-46s on the high strings and 12-52s on the low strings. This gives more flexibility for down tuning to Drop D and beyond, but also makes the strings stiffer to play.

To learn more about the best string gauge for different tunings, check out this video here.

You’ll also see people trying to sell you high-end string types for extortionate prices. Don’t worry about all that noise for now, these strings will do the job more than well enough.

But if you are interested in the change to expensive electric guitar strings, then here’s a useful expensive string comparison video on that.

Step 2: Remove the String

You may have noticed in the image for Step 1 that there’s a peculiar tool in the bottom right corner.

This is called a string winder. When restringing, we’re gonna have to do a lot of athritis-inducing peg turning, and that beautiful device basically gives you hacks to speed up the process.

You can also get away with turning with your fingers. But if you ever plan on restringing again, I recommend getting one of these and you’ll never look back.

Either way, you’ll want to turn the peg clockwise until the string becomes loose and floppy.

Then you’ll want to get some wire cutters and snip the string, or- … hey! If you’ve got the same string winder as me, then it’s got a built-in wire cutter already.

After that, just rip the first half of the string off the tuning peg and push the other half out the back, and you’ll be good to go.

PLEASE NOTE: Only restring one string at a time! To change all strings at once upsets the neck tension and disrupts technical electric guitar tuning stuff that neither you nor I understand. So, unless you’re doing fretboard work like cleaning it or replacing frets, stick to one at a time por favor.

Step 3: Add the New String

Now it’s time for the fun part. Find your strings and take a long hard look at that gorgeous string packet…

Either way, the most important part of a string set is the back of the packet!

That’s because it shows you which string needs to go where. The last thing you want is restringing your guitar backwards.

Yes, people have actually done that.

If you have Ernie Ball strings, then never fear because each string will already be in its own mini, labelled packet on the inside anyway.

So open the packet, choose the right string, and thread it through the bridge!

For Fender Strats, you’ll have to thread this through the underneath of the guitar. And on Gibsons, you’ll have a separate section behind the bridge for your strings to chill.

Once it’s through, make sure you pull the string through/over the saddle like the other strings are doing.

If you have a bridge like mine, then pressing your index finger down – like so – will help flick that string upwards through the saddle.

Once you’ve done that, turn your turning peg so that the hole faces towards the bridge.

The string should be able to just slide through it in a straight line.

BONUS STEP: Get a pencil

A handy trick when restringing is to get your all-time favourite pencil, and essentially colour in the string slot.

Since I’m kinda stupid, I forgot to do it on the first 3 strings this time. But that’s only because I’ve done it there before!

Anyway, you should be able to see the graphite in the socket afterwards.

Now, why have I asked you to do this random as frick thing?

Because the graphite acts as a lubricant to the string in the socket. This allows the string to easily move through the nut and gives a 5-star tuning experience.

Step 4: Get ready to tighten

To ensure that we get some nice tuning stability, there are a couple of steps we wanna take.

The first one is making sure that we don’t coil too much string. More string on the peg = more string that can go out of tune.

So a good way to figure out the right amount is to pull the string through the peg, taught.

I appreciate I use the A string in this demo, for some reason the E string pics for this one didn’t turn out well. Either way, it’s the same thing.

You see that D string tuning peg one to the right? Good, your eyes are still working. The next step is to pinch the part of the string you’re holding adjacent to that, using your other hand. I’ve highlighted the section below:

Then, just thread the string backwards until your pinching hand comes into contact with the peg – that’s the amount of slack you want.

Step 5: Tightening the String

Whoop! Whoop! This is the fun part…

Keep the string in position using your right hand, and let go of your left-hand pinch.

Now that your left hand is free, use it to press the string down on the other side of the peg, ideally next to the nut. This will keep the string in place as you tighten it.

Then tighten by turning the tuning peg anticlockwise. This is where a string winder really comes in handy.

As you tighten the string, it’ll start to wrap around the peg, normally forming about two coils. But do you see that annoying bit of string sticking out from the exit of the tuning peg?

Yup, that bit that keeps flicking everywhere and scratching you.

Try to guide the first coil underneath this annoying bit of string, and the second coil above it.

This will clamp it between the two coils, preventing slippage and out-of-tune-ness.

After you’ve tightened up a fair amount, you’ll want to get your tuner out – plug in tuners are the most accurate, but an app like GuitarTuna will also do the job – and tune the string to pitch.

Step 6: Stretching the strings

The fact is, when you change electric guitar strings, tuning to pitch ain’t enough. We need to get them ready for all the mania that we’re going to throw at them.

So to do that, grab the string you’ve just tuned. Then, tug on it upwards.

This will move the guitar a bit, so make sure you hold it in place.

Do a couple of tugs there, then move along a bit and do a couple of tugs there too. Aim to tug all the way along the length of the string a couple of times.

However! Sometimes tugging on the lower frets can pull the string out of the nut, which is a pain in the ass! So to avoid that, just press your thumb down on where the string rests in the nut whilst you’re down there.

Also, the higher strings can be kinda sharp to tug on. So normally I’ll grab them with a clean cloth over my hand to make my fingers happy.

And after a couple of tugs here, there and everywhere, just check your tuner again…

Ohhhhh! That ain’t pretty. But it also is pretty because it means you’re doing stretching right.

Now, you’ll want to tune up to E again. Then, stretch like you did before.

You should see that the string doesn’t go as far out of tune now.

Repeat this process of tuning, stretching, tuning, stretching until eventually the string doesn’t go out of tune anymore when you stretch it. Now your string is ripe!

Just think of stretching strings like kneading dough. You gotta aggressively wack it, toss it about, and throw it at people until the dough just becomes ready.

WATCH OUT: On the higher strings, do not stretch too vigorously! Because I’m a vigorous man, I accidentally snapped my high E string as I stretched it. What a fool!

Thankfully due to Rotosound I had a free backup one anyway… Phew. Either way, just make sure you play it safe and gentle on the unwound strings.

Step 7: Tidy the string up

You know those pokey string bits that I told you to loop your coil around…

Do you like the look of them?

The correct answer is No. If you answered Yes, then your answer is invalid.

Unless you are Tom Morello and like to have all the string bits dangling about like a caretaker’s mop. But he’s Tom Morello, so he’s allowed.

Anyway, to make everything look nice, we’ll want our wire cutters again to snip off the excess.

(Not in the picture, but it helps to hold the part you are cutting off with your other hand so that it doesn’t go flying off into outer space)

But oh my, oh my… Please DO NOT accidentally snip the coiled part of the string.

I once helped one of my friends restring his guitar for the first time, and after we had done the low E string, I gave him my cutters and told him to snip off the pokey bit.

I turned around to get the next string, just to turn back and see that he’d somehow managed to cut the coiled string around the peg whilst he was at it. He looked at me confused, holding the string in two parts, and said, “I think I snipped the wrong bit.”

If there was ever something such as a head in hands moment, then that was it. Just don’t be that guy…

Anyway, now you just need to repeat this restringing process across all the other strings. It’ll take a while on your first go, but in time you’ll be able to restring fully within 15-30 mins.

So buckle up, get a podcast or guitar-related music on in the background and crack on. Then, once it’s all finished, you can step back and admire your hard work:

Mmm, mmm… scrumptious.

And then why not play a chord to test it out?

Awesome Bonus Tip

If you’ve discovered that you hate to change electric guitar strings because it’s annoying, takes a while, and strings seem to bully you, then great. You’re like me!

One way to reduce the amount that you have to change your strings is through a product called GHS Fast Fret.

It’ll basically clean the strings so that they feel nicer and sound better, for longer. Neat, right?

Almost every gigging guitarist under the sun will have one of these to wipe the grime off their guitar strings after a gig, and I can only recommend it.

How Often Should You Change Your Strings?

Alright, alright. You knew this was coming…

But it’s actually good news! Because you can basically change your electric guitar strings whenever you want.

I’ll normally just keep going until either: the high E string breaks, they stop intonating properly, or they become clammy beyond repair.

But that’s because I’m stingy and don’t wanna spend a ton of money on strings.

A lot of people will say once every 3 months is a good number. But in my opinion, for the amateur stay-at-home guitarist, every 6 months or so is fine.

New strings sound bright initially, but after a month they’ll deaden down and stay at that level from then on. So the difference between 3-month and 6-month-old strings just isn’t noticeable tone-wise to me.

As long as they work, I’m happy.

The only time I’d recommend changing strings often is if you’re in the recording studio or on tour, where you constantly want to sound as good as possible. Apart from that though, every 6 months is fine, especially if you’re using Fast Fret to keep them feeling fresh.

Wrapping It Up

Boom! Learning to change electric guitar strings is such a vital skill for guitar. And other stuff like setting action (string height) and intonation will feel a lot less daunting to you in the future now you’ve got your hands dirty.

Plus, I bet you like your new strings…

Feel clean? Yup.

Sound fresh? Yup.

Getting you dates? Not really.

Darn, all that string changing for nothing. Ah well, at least your guitar sounds good.

Anyway, I’ve been Sam Olverson.

See ya!

P.S. If you want to learn how to set your guitar action to make playing guitar easier, click here to view my post on that.

The post How to Change Electric Guitar Strings – 7 Easy Steps appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

You see someone playing something cool and you think, “MAN! I wanna do that! But am I too old? Am I too slow? Am I just past the age where guitar stands on a bridge, puts its foot down and bellows ‘You shall not pass!!!'”

Well, today I’ll be debunking all the myths and going over whether it’s ever too late to learn guitar whether you’re 20, 25, 30, 40, 50 and beyond to help with that.

So let’s rock.

Does Age Weaken Your Ability to Play?

Hmmm, let me quickly think… No! Age means diddly squat to playing guitar. That is, unless you have a severe condition that inhibits your ability to control your fingers. In which case, yeah, guitar probably ain’t gonna work…

You’ll probably want to learn something like the Harmonica instead. But otherwise, you’re good to go.

And golf is a great example of this. Golf is particularly popular with slightly older people because it’s not so demanding on muscles and joints. And do these older people struggle to learn golf at all? Nope.

So guitar is, in a sense, like golf. There’s not much physical effort required, it’s just muscle memory that needs to be trained. And you can do that at any age.

Is it Harder to Learn Guitar As You Get Older?

Okay. So we’ve established that as you get older, there’s nothing stopping you from learning to play. But what about the time it takes to learn?

Well, I think it goes without saying that kids will learn the fastest. That’s just how nature works. And as you get older, it does become gradually harder to learn new things.

So everything will require a little more effort, just like learning a new language.

But many adults who learn guitar late still learn faster than most kids. Hmmm, mysterious… why could that be?

Because they actually want to learn it! Most kids dread guitar lessons like they are Doomsday. They’ll turn up, pray for the lesson to be over, and be sprinting out the door before you can say “Usain Bolt”.

And are you ever gonna learn anything that way? No.

But adults have the power of something called focus and an attention span – I know, pretty radical, right? So if you enjoy playing, and are actively trying to make progress then you’ll still learn at a healthy pace.

And if you still aren’t convinced, then take Kenyan midwife Priscilla Sitienei. She had gone through her whole life without ever learning to read and write. As she grew older she wanted to write down her knowledge for others, and so started attending school. From scratch, she learnt to read and write at the age of 90.

Mic drop!

Proof That Age Doesn’t Matter

Alright, here’s the fun part… I’m gonna list a load of guitarists who are all at least 50 and still absolutely killing it. And hopefully that’ll prove to you that it’s never too late to learn guitar.

And literally so many more that I couldn’t be bothered to write on this list…

Wrapping It Up

Hopefully now you’re feeling nicely inspired to pick up a guitar and start learning. Whether you’re 40, 80, 120, 1000 years old or not even born yet, you have the ability to play guitar like anyone else.

And whoa! What a coincidence… you’re already on a guitar website!

So if you’ve decided you do want to learn guitar, then check out my post on how to play guitar for beginners to take your first guitar lesson today.

Anyway, I’ve been Sam Olverson,

Have fun playing guitar!

The post Is it Ever Too Late to Learn Guitar? appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

Besides, how the frick are action, like, action movies, and action, like, guitar action even related? That just makes no sense to me.

Aaanyway, today I’ll be going over how to adjust and set up the guitar action kind of action on electric guitar, so that you can play better stuff!

Let’s do this.

Check Your Guitar Neck Relief First

Necks warp, alright? This can be down to humidity, string tension, a fit of extreme rage, whatever…

And this can really effect how well you’re able to adjust and set up your electric guitar action. That’s why it’s important to find the type of neck curve we have, so we can correct it and get the action we want later.

So to find out which type of neck warp you possibly have:

1. Press down on the 1st and 15th frets of the low E string simultaneously. (We all have two hands…)

2. Then look closely from the side at where the string touches the frets.

3. If the string touches the top of all the frets in between, then your guitar neck is straight.

However, if the string isn’t in contact with the frets in the middle of the fretboard, you have an up-bow.

If it isn’t in contact with lower frets, but touches the middle frets, then you have a back-bow.

A good way to check this is to prod around on the string with your available pinkie fingers whilst still holding the 1st and 15th fret down. It’s at these points that I wish I had a 3rd hand…

You’re looking to find the places where you have to push the string down to make it touch the top of the metal frets. That’ll show you where the neck has too much of a dip.

You can also use a ruler for this. Just place it across the top of the neck and look for gaps between it and the frets.

If you find that you have a straight neck and have double-checked it, you can skip the truss rod adjustment stuff and go straight to the string height part.

But because “guitar setup” and “easy” don’t fit in the same sentence, you’ve probably noticed some kind of curve. Either an up-bow (dip in the middle) or a back-bow (dip at the low frets/a hump in the middle).

In that case, write down the type on a piece of (preferably) unused toilet paper or something, and move onto the next step!

Adjusting Your Truss Rod

Chill, chill, chill… Yes, I get the thought of adjusting a truss rod makes you want to find some grass, eat it and throw it back up again.

But it’s an essential part of setting up guitar action, and is actually really easy to do.

The truss rod is basically a metal rod that goes through the length of the guitar neck, which is there to reinforce the neck, and help keep its shape. So if you’re worried about breaking it then, err… good luck with that!

But the reason we’d ever want to adjust this, is because a warped neck can make the action feel really high, and puts a cap on how far we can lower the action without fret buzz.

So to solve this:

1. Find the access point to your truss rod

It’ll either be at the tuning peg end, just past the nut (sometimes you’ll have to unscrew a cover), or at the other end of the neck, close to the neck pickup/soundhole (on some electric guitars, you’ll need to take the neck off if you can’t fit a screwdriver into the gap)

2. Get an Allen Key – that’s Allen Wrench for all you Americans out there – that fits the truss rod nut.

BONUS TIP: Place a mark on the top of the truss rod nut before you start turning. That way you’ll have a reference point as to where you started in case you want to go back.

Oh man, the number of times I’ve turned too far, lost where I am and got so frustrated I wanted to throw my guitar on the floor and jump on it… PLEASE do this. For my sake.

3. Adjust the truss rod

Turn 1/8 or 1/4 rotation clockwise if you have an up-bow, to tighten the rod. And turn 1/8 or 1/4 anticlockwise if you have a back-bow, loosening the rod.

It doesn’t require much to straighten out again, so stick to small turns.

4. Check your neck relief again

Those gaps between the string and the fret should’ve now reduced a little.

So keep making any more turns until those gaps are practically gone. A small amount of relief can actually be good, so you don’t have to be too strict.

If you’re getting any buzz now, even though your neck is straight, then don’t worry because we’ll fix that in the next step.

And after that, booyakasha! You’ve just successfully adjusted your truss rod.

Did it break? No. Did it bite? No. Did it make you feel warm and fuzzy on the inside? Probably not, but that’s what the action screws are for!

Adjusting String Height on Electric

Boom, that’s the bit that scares people done… Because adjusting the action on guitar can be actually as easy as pie.

So to adjust and set up action on an electric guitar, you’ll need to:

1. Find the action screws.

On most guitars, these will be the two screws on top of each bridge saddle.

But if you have a Gibson/Tune-o-matic bridge, then these’ll be the two screws either side of the bridge.

And if you have a Floyd Rose, these will be the two screws either side of the bridge too, close to the bridge pickup.

It’s particularly important that you first unlock and detune the strings a little on a Floyd Rose, before you turn any screws.

Changing the action will pull the strings a bit, and you DO NOT want a broken Floyd Rose string on your hands. Oh, no no no, you don’t want that at all…

2. Get an Allen Key or Screwdriver, and turn these screws clockwise to lower the string(s), and anticlockwise to raise it.

On Fender-style bridges you’ll have to do these one string at a time, but on Gibson-style and Floyd Rose, you’ll only have the two screws either side of the bridge to turn.

3. Play around and test the guitar out after each new turn.

Make sure you check every fret on each string for any fret buzz or dead notes.

The last thing you want is to be mid-solo on stage, ripping with your new ultra-awesome action, going for a bend and then… Buzzzz!

The audience will then start running around screaming in panic because they think they’re being attacked by a horde of invisible, flesh-eating bees. And you don’t want that.

So if you find any, you may want to raise it a bit more. Generally speaking, people have higher action of the lower strings for riffiage, and lower action on the higher strings for speedy solos.

And as soon as those strings are at a good height for you, and all notes sound out clearly – even on bends – then you’re good to go!

Set Your Intonation Next

After you adjust and set up electric guitar action, your intonation will need resetting. Intonation is basically about getting your guitar to sound in tune up and down the neck.

Bad intonation will make notes on higher frets sound out of tune, even if your strings are perfectly in tune. And that’s rubbish! It’ll sound like your guitar’s been sat in a derelict Egyptian tomb for the past couple of millennia.

So to fix this, we’ll have to turn a couple of screws to shorten or lengthen the strings, and that’ll be guitar set up complete.

But to ensure we intonate accurately, we’ll need to do a couple of things first…

Preparing to Intonate Your Guitar

When intonating, we want to get the most accurate reading from our tuner as possible, you’ll see why later.

And so some things we can do to help with this is are to:

1. Make sure the strings on your guitar have been stretched out and played in.

So if you’ve changed your strings recently, just make sure you’ve done as follows:

• Tuned the strings to pitch.
• Pulled a new string once you’ve put it on the guitar, tugging upwards all the way along to stretch it.
• This should cause a fresh string to go out of tune. So tune it back up and stretch the string again.
• Each time you do this, the string will go out of tune less and less.
• Finally, you’ll get to a point where you stretch the string, and it doesn’t go out of tune any more. And that my friend, is the sweet spot.

2. Select the neck pickup on your guitar

Not everyone has one, especially you black metal lovers out there… But this’ll give your tuner a clearer signal than the bridge pickup.

3. Intonate your guitar with it on its side, as if you were playing it.

Some gravity mumbo jumbo means the strings are pulled down differently to when laid flat. Hey, we want accuracy!

4. Weird thing to do number 4: mute all the strings & springs on your guitar with elastic bands.

Throw one past the nut and wrap others around the springs in your tremolo system if you have one.

This is all to do with sympathetic vibration. Don’t ask questions, just do it.

5. Mute all the strings that you aren’t currently intonating with your other fingers.

This stops any other strings distorting your signal – and again, sympathetic vibration…

Yup, these demands seem like they’ve come fresh out of a mediocre dance class – and to an extent they have – but you’ll see why all this makes a difference later.

How to Set Up Intonation

Alrighty, so hopefully you’ve enjoyed following doing those wacky things. But now let’s put all that to use.

So to intonate your guitar, follow these steps:

1. Get the best tuner you can find, and tune the low E string to pitch.

Tuners that you can plug your guitar into are the best for this, due to their accuracy.

But clip-on tuners will also work fine, just bear in mind that they won’t be quite as accurate as a plug in one.

2. Play the open low E string, then play the 12th fret of the low E string.

Do you see the needle on the tuner move when you play this E note an octave higher?

If not, you can skip this string and move onto the next string. But for most people, this note will be a slightly different pitch to the string played open.

If the 12th fret note is lower than the open string, then it is flat. If it’s higher than the open string, then it is sharp.

It’s important that you note whether the 12th fret is flat or sharp of the open string for the next step…

3. Find the screws that sit just behind the bridge, and turn them.

If the 12th fret is flat, then turn anticlockwise to push the saddle forwards. This shortens the string, and increases the pitch.

And if the 12th fret is sharp, then turn clockwise to pull the saddle back and lengthen the string. This decreases the pitch.

On Gibson-style bridges these are sometimes just in front of the bridge.

In this case, the direction you have to turn is inverted. (Turn clockwise if it’s flat, anticlockwise if it’s sharp)

But at the end of any adjustment on either bridge, you’ll want to pat down on the top of the saddle you’ve moved with a screwdriver head. This just puts the saddle back into place.

4. Retune the string after moving the saddle, and test the 12th fret note again.

It probably won’t yet be perfectly in tune because then guitar set up would be way too easy, painless and not I-wanna-smash-my-guitar-frustrating.

So you’ll probably have to adjust the screw a couple more times before you get it bang on. You’ll know it’s right when the pitch doesn’t shift at all between the open string and 12th fret note.

5. Repeat this process with all the other strings

And after that, congrats! I hereby decree your guitar set up complete.

If you’re having any problems intonating, then I’ve got a dedicated post on setting up intonation which you can view by clicking here. It includes common problems and how to fix them.

Wrapping It Up

Boom. Your guitar arrived like a rusty 2-person tandem bike with stabilizers… And it’s left like a Lamborghini!

And all you’ve had to do is set up and adjust the action on your electric guitar properly

Even though guitar setup absolutely drives my nut in, I do like the way that a good set up can make an affordable guitar play like an expensive one.

Plus, unless you decide for some reason unbeknown to mankind, to fling your guitar into Niagara Falls, you won’t have to fiddle with anything again for a long time.

I’ve been Sam Olverson,

Have fun!

P.S. If you want to learn the 5 pentatonic scale positions on guitar so that you can play better solos, improvise and write your own too, then click here to view my post on that.

The post No.1 Way to Adjust and Set Up Electric Guitar Action appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

Why am I taking the Ukulele? Because I’ve been driven insane by not knowing whether guitar or bass is easier to learn, and made a misguided choice.

So to make sure you don’t lose your mind like I did, today I’ll be addressing whether bass is easier to learn than guitar or not, and why.

Just don’t succumb to the Ukulele…

Getting Started & Playing Songs

Generally speaking, bass is like a simplified version of guitar when it comes to playing songs. Kind of like Draughts/Checkers is to Chess.

*WARNING: Say that to a bassist at your own peril, they bite...

Bass parts can sometimes be very difficult though, especially fast metal and funk stuff. However, in most cases, the bassist just plays the root note of a chord, rather than the entire chord like a guitar player would do.

And because of this, bass is pretty easy to get to grips with, and you’ll be able to play your first riffs pretty quickly.

You’ll still have to build up some dexterity and strength in your fretting fingers though, and go through the pain of fingertip blisters on your plucking hand for a while… So have fun with that!

But in reality, you’ll get past these problems within your first month of playing. And after that, the world is your tenderly cooked bass oyster!

And Guitar follows a similar path to this. The only difference is that it might take you a couple of weeks longer to get used to learning chords, playing chords and eventually hating chords on a personal level…

But after that, you’ll be able to play loadsss of songs again. Plus, guitar parts will be more fun to play than the bass parts, so I’d say it’s worth it.

Overall though, getting started and playing songs quickly is a little harder on Guitar, so this one goes to the Bass.

Which One is Easier to Master?

Ho ho ho… this’ll be a fun one! If I was to sum the answer to this question up into one word, it would be…

“They-are-both-very-hard-to-master-but-guitar-is-probably-a-bit-harder-although-bass-could-be-just-as-hard”. That counts as one word, right?

The reason why I say this is that a guitar virtuoso is typically expected to be able to do a bunch of techniques really well, and keep everything spotless at the same time.

That means lots of time in front of the metronome, lots of playing and writing solos, and lots of improvising over backing tracks.

But keeping everything clean is easier on bass, since you have fewer strings spoiling the fun and less distortion on your amp.

And as long as you can slap like an absolute beast, play fast at times, and make other guitarists regret not learning bass instead, then you’ll be a bass god!

Easy, right?

Wrong! This takes a lot of hard graft, but MAN it’s cool.

And the reason I say that bass could be as hard to master as guitar, is that you can do all those fancy guitar techniques on bass too if you were crazy enough!

Tapping, chords, bending, sweep picking, legato, speed picking, everythingggggg…

It probably wouldn’t sound as good, but it’s still a flex.

So Sam, does that mean that I could also do all those techniques on Ukulele too?

Ha, I’m just going to pretend I didn’t hear that…

What Makes a Good Guitarist/Bassist?

Although guitar and bass are similar, they’re still two different instruments with different functions within a band…

Bass = Rhythm. Guitar = Rhythm/Lead.

Bassists will try to lock in with the drummer, forming the rhythm section of the band.

A good bassist will also take a simple chord progression, and make an interesting part out of it. You can do this by adding fills, emphasizing particular notes of each chord, and turning your amp up loud enough so that the ground shakes.

They’ll be less emphasis on improvising a solo – like a good guitarist would be able to do – but more on decorating the rhythm part.

But guitarists will play the memorable riffs and melodies, and zone in with the other guitarist in the band.

That way, if you’re playing the same thing, you can make sure you sound in sync.

If you’re playing a lead line, you can follow the backing guitar.

And if your buddy guitarist mucks up, you’ll be there to scream at him for ruining the night and make him pay for it after the show.

Bassists are also more in the background, and so are required to know different rhythms, how chords work and how to enhance the guitar part.

But guitarists tend to be in the spotlight more, and need to know how to play clean, play riffs/chords like a boss, and even spin off a solo if lead is your thing.

Should You Learn Guitar or Bass?

I’m assuming you came here because you either want to prove to your friend that their instrument is easier so they aren’t as epic as you – or because you want to learn one of these instruments and were wondering which one would be easier.

But maybe you’re just lying in bed at 1AM and can’t sleep. In that case, high five!

Anyway, there’s a few questions you’ll have to ask yourself when considering which one is right for you…

Are you comfortable being in the spotlight?

Would you be willing to wait a bit longer and put more practice in to play more complex and interesting parts?

If you want to join a band, then what do your surrounding bands want/need?

Would you ever want to solo?

Who are your idols, and which instrument inspires you more?

It’s also worth mentioning that it’s easy to switch between learning bass and guitar if you wanna change halfway through. Both instruments have similar mechanics, and so choosing one is not a be all and end all decision.

Some people will play bass in one band, and guitar in another. And others will start as a guitar/bass player, and then switch because they’re bored or their band wants one.

But don’t worry about that for now. To begin with, I recommend choosing whichever inspires you more, and sticking at it.

If your choice is guitar, then awesome! That’s the coolest one, and you’re on a guitar website already 🙂 To get started playing, you can view my post on how to play guitar for beginners by clicking here, and take your first guitar lesson, today!

If bass is your choice, then I recommend checking out TalkingBass or talkingbass.net to start learning.

Wrapping It Up

Alright, I’ll say it… Bass is easier to learn than guitar. You ask any bassist and guitarist alike, and they’ll probably say the same thing.

But guitar gets you dates! And that’s the whole reason you learn an instrument in the first place, right?

Plus, you can make a crowd Ooooh and Ahhhh, melt people’s faces with ripping solos and get with the drummer’s girlfriend without him knowing… Betcha can’t do that, bassists!

So make the right choice, people! *And I can assure you, I am 103% not bias.

Anyway, I’ve been Sam Olverson.

Chow!

P.S. If you want to learn how to play guitar for beginners so that you can get playing real songs fast, then click here to view my post on that, and take your first guitar lesson!

The post Is Bass Easier to Learn than Electric Guitar? appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

The amount of times that I’ve fiddled with something on my guitar, ended messing something up, got vigorously annoyed because I couldn’t put it back to how it was, hung my guitar from the ceiling because I’m mad, punched it a few times like Rocky, and then gone and cried in a corner…

Yeah, I’ve just stopped counting at this point.

So today I’ll be going over the best way to set & fix guitar intonation, some common problems & issues and how to deal with them, and how to make the adjustment correctly so that you don’t have to go through all that.

Let’s roll.

Make Sure You’ve Set Up Your Action First!

The last thing you want is going through the effort of intonating, realizing you wanna lower your action, and then having to do the whole god-damn thing again.

That’s because intonation is the LAST part to setting up your guitar after everything else.

But if you’ve already done this or are 100% happy with your action, then you can skip this.

If not, then setting up your truss rod right will allow you to get lower action. It might seem as scary to a first timer as a hippopotamus running at you in speedos, but it ain’t that bad in reality and it’s a quick job.

And what’s the worst that could happen… truss rods don’t (normally) bite!

So here’s a great video on how to easily adjust your truss rod if you’re interested:

And to change your action, they’ll be a couple of smaller screws on top of each string saddle at the bridge on most guitars.

But if you’ve got a Gibson/Tune-o-matic style bridge then these will be the two screws either side of the bridge. NOT the two massive screws either side of where the strings go in! Floyd Rose bridges tend to have a couple of extra steps so click here for a useful video on that.

Turn these screws clockwise/right to lower the action, and left/anticlockwise to raise it.

That’s “counterclockwise” for all you people from the US&A out there. *Little Borat reference for y’all…

If you do decide to lower it then make sure that you test every note on the string you’ve altered to make sure you don’t get any buzzy/dead notes.

And after you’re happy with how everything sounds and feels, you’ll be (almost) ready to intonate…

Things to Do Before Intonating

The reason that we set & fix intonation on our guitar is because we want all the notes, all the way up the neck to be as in tune as possible.

And to ensure we set this up accurately, there’s a few things that we need to do first to obliterate & tear to shreds some of the variables that will scupper our ability to judge that.

The first one is to make sure that your strings are stretched out and played in.

Basically, if you’ve changed your strings recently, then make sure you’ve done as follows:

• Tuned the strings to pitch.
• Pulled each new string once you’ve put it on the guitar, tugging all the way along stretch it.
• This should cause a fresh string to go out of tune. So tune back up and stretch the string again.
• Each time you do this, the string will go out of tune less and less.
• Finally, you’ll get to a point where you stretch the string, and it doesn’t go out of tune any more. Bingo! That’s where you want to be.

You’ll also want to make sure you have the neck pickup on your guitar selected (if you have one).

It’ll give you a purer signal than the bridge pickup, and so’ll increase intonation accuracy down the line. And yes, that will actually make a difference…

Another seemingly odd way to increase intonation accuracy is to set & fix intonation with your guitar stood up on it’s side.

Intonate just like you would if you were playing it. This is because gravity pulls the guitar neck & strings down differently than if it was lying down. Hey – you wanted accuracy!

And my final tip is to keep every string you aren’t currently tampering with muted.

There’s something called sympathetic vibration on guitar, where if you play an E note, the E strings will also very quietly start vibrating too.

Kinda mad, right? So to combat this, use your hand to mute the other strings.

You can even take things to the next level by throwing an elastic band around the strings past the nut and the springs in your tremolo if you have one.

Yes it looks stupid. And no! You should definitely not go out in public like that. But for now, let the elastic band become your best buddy.

And after you’ve got that delicious mutage down, you’ll be ready to actually intonate!

How to Intonate Your Guitar

Alright, welcome to the fun part. As I mentioned earlier, intonation is all about making sure we set & fix the strings so that notes all over the neck are as in tune as possible.

And to do this, we need to make sure the strings are the right length.

So Step 1 is to get yourself the best tuner you can find and tune up the low E string.

Plug in and strobe tuners are best for this, but a clip-on tuner is also fine. This is because you want this string to be as in tune as possible.

Step 2 is to play the 12th fret of the E string, and compare this note with the open E string note.

If the 12th fret note doesn’t move in pitch compared to the open string, even after you’ve tested it a couple of times, then you’re good to go.

It probably won’t be though, so notice whether the note is sharp (higher than) or flat (lower than) the pitch of the string played open. We’ll fix that next.

EPIC TIP: Make sure you hit both notes with consistent power, otherwise you’ll end up knocking one out of tune.

Step 3 is to tighten or loosen the screw behind the bridge saddle.

If the string is flat, then turn anticlockwise to push the saddle forwards. This shortens the string, and increases the pitch.

And if the string is sharp, then turn clockwise to pull the string back and lengthen it. This decreases the pitch.

As Jesus once said, “Righty tighty, lefty loosey”.

And once you’ve made this adjustment, pat the saddle down with the head of your screwdriver to put all its gears back into place.

Some bridges like the Tune-o-matic bridge will have the intonation screws pointing towards the bottom of the guitar instead. In this case, the direction you turn the screw to pull the saddle forwards and backwards is inverted.

E.g. If the string is flat, turn clockwise to pull the saddle forwards instead. We are still shortening the string and increasing the pitch, we just have to turn the screw the other way.

Step 4 is to retune the string after adjustment and test the 12th fret note again.

If you’re lucky, then you might see that the pitch doesn’t waver between the open string and 12 fret anymore.

But that literally happens once in a turquoise moon… which is annoying because turquoise moons don’t actually exist.

So you’ll probably see that the 12th fret note just doesn’t go off pitch as much as it did.

In that case, keep adjusting the saddle forwards or backwards until you no longer see a shift in pitch between the open string and 12th fret.

Step 5 is to repeat this process for each of the other strings.

Once you’ve adjusted the saddles on all the other strings so that the open string and 12th fret line up for each one, then that’s it! Ladies and gentlemen, that is how you set & fix guitar intonation.

You’ll now be ready to shred and riff up high without sounding terrible.

If Your Guitar Sounds Out of Tune, Even After Intonating…

Man, I wish intonating was actually that easy. Sometimes guitar just wants to annoy us, and so throws a bunch of annoying stuff our way.

And one of the problems that you may be having when intonating, is that you’ll intonate and stuff will still sound out of tune.

If this happens, then try lowering the pickup you’re intonating with.

This’ll help get rid of the overtones that may alter the tuner reading a little.

You can lower your pickup by turning the screws either side of the pickup anticlockwise. Make sure you measure how high the pickup is before you do this. That way, you can put it back correctly afterwards.

And if you intonate your guitar again and still have a problem when you play, then it’s probably a tuner problem.

Your tuner may be quite old, be struggling to pick up the signal, or it may at the wrong frequency.

If there is an option to change pitch frequency, then make sure that it’s still on 440Hz as it should already be.

But if that doesn’t work, then I’d recommend getting yourself a tuner pedal or plug in pocket tuner to ensure you’re tuning correctly.

If Your Guitar Won’t Even Intonate…

Another problem that you may run into is that you turn the screws, and the intonation doesn’t change at all.

Your intonation screw could be poking halfway out the back of the guitar and it still won’t frickin’ intonate!

This happened to me when I was intonating for the first time and MAN I had so many mental breakdowns cries of despair that night…

To fix it, I just turned the screw back and tried again and somehow it worked.

But that’s why it’s vital to wack the saddle on the head with the end of your screwdriver each time you adjust it.

This should put the saddle back into position and stop these kinds of oddities from occurring.

My final thing to note is that if you intonate, change string gauge and all the intonation goes off again, then… well… that’s just what happens.

You’ll just have to set & fix guitar intonation again if you do decide to change the string gauge.

Wrapping It Up

Whoop! Whoop! Congratulations on intonating your guitar.

It’s pretty simple at the end of the day, and now know what those screws in the bridge actually do!

Plus, you’ll be able to shred here, there and everywhere without stuff sounding bad for no reason.

Your neighbours will thank you for it, I will thank you for it and most importantly, you will thank you for it. Heart-warming, right? I’m even tearing up a bit here…

Anyway, I’ve been Sam Olverson,

Enjoy intonating!

P.S. If you want to learn the 5 pentatonic postions on guitar and how to use them to play better solos, then click here to view my post on that.

The post The Best Way to Set & Fix Guitar Intonation appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

And then we think…

Man! I wanna do that too!

Then you go grab your phone, prop it up with an unwanted Christmas present, record and…

It sounds rubbish!

All that hard work getting the perfect take, and it seems like it’s been recorded with a half-empty, cheese & onion Pringles tube.

So today I’ll be going over how to record yourself playing guitar for Instagram and any other social media you may want to post on.

I’ll cover the best way to set up audio, video and lighting, so you can start looking and sounding like a pro.

Let’s roll.

You’ll Need an Audio Interface to Record Audio

Audio is just as important as video when it comes to great quality videos.

Mainly because smartphone mics are just soooo bad when it comes to recording guitar stuff.

The difference between smartphone guitar audio and properly recorded audio is like comparing The Rock to a ping-pong ball. They’re the same on the inside but appear very different, you know?.

So for some great sounding audio, you’re gonna need an audio interface to plug your guitar into.

You can then hook this up with a Digital DAW (E.g. GarageBand) on your computer, hit record and go.

And for that, I personally recommend the Focusrite Scarlett Solo.

I actually have one of these, and use it to record all the audio on my blog.

So if you like what you hear, then you’ll love it too.

Plus, Focusrite are kind of the name when it comes to recording audio. And they’ve got over 15,000 amazing reviews on Amazon, so I ain’t the only happy customer.

There are also bigger versions with more inputs like the 2i2 and 4i4 which may be an option if you have a bigger budget.

Normally you’d also have to pay multiple hundreds of dollars, pounds, euros, imperial credits, chickens, whatever currency you use, to pay for a decent DAW to go with it.

But thankfully all Focusrite Interfaces come with Ableton Live Lite and Pro Tools First for completely free. They’re basically smaller versions of their renowned older brothers which still pack in a bunch of features.

I literally use a Focusrite Scarlett Solo with Ableton Live Lite on a day-to-day basis and can happily say I’ve never needed more.

Whatever floats your boat.

Connecting Headphones to Your Interface

As annoying as it is, you’ll need a different shapes jack to plug your headphones into the interface.

Look at the jack of your guitar cable, it’s that kind of jack you need.

But thankfully you can cheaply solve this by getting a jack adapter like this off Amazon.

Then you’ll be good to go if you want to use your existing headphones.

And if you want better quality down the line, you could always get yourself a pair of dedicated Audio-Technica Studio Headphones.

But if you want to just record yourself playing guitar for Instagram, just using an adapter should be fine as you won’t need to properly mix anything.

Actually Recording Your Guitar

Boom! Let’s imagine that you’ve got the interface and headphones ready to go now.

And you want to actually record yourself playing guitar.

Well, there are two ways that you can do this:

1. Record your guitar using a condenser mic

2. Directly plug your guitar into the interface

Both ways are as effective as each other, it just depends on your situation.

So let’s look at using a mic first.

1. Recording Your Guitar With A Mic

Recording using a mic is best for when you play an acoustic/classical guitar.

And it’s also the best option if you don’t have many pedals and get most of the sound effects from your amp.

You just stick it in front of your amp or acoustic guitar, and it captures the exact sound that comes out. As easy as that.

*BEWARE: Condenser mics run on something called “Phantom Power”.

That basically means you need to power your mic by pressing the “48V” button on your interface once it’s plugged in. Otherwise, it won’t work.

You’ll often see these called vocal mics too.

And no, that does not mean you need to sing your guitar part into the mic… Actually, go ahead. That would be kinda funny to watch lol.

But as long as the mic is a condenser mic (best for studio/recording) and not a dynamic mic (best for live gigs) then you can record guitar with it as well.

So here are my top picks for condenser mics:

Overall best condenser mic option: RODE NT1-A

Best value option: AKG P120

On a budget option: Marantz Professional MPM-1000

Positioning Your Mic Correctly

If recording using a mic is the option for you, then you’ll need to make sure that it’s positioned in the right place to get the best sound.

For electric guitar, you’ll want to place it in front of your amp – using a mic stand ideally – like this:

Or you could use a pile of derelict books you haven’t read in a millennia to prop it up:

And there’s also the rather ingenuous way of dangling the mic from above:

Although, I don’t know how enjoyable this would be for the cable.

But you know what, if you wanna try it then knock yourself out. I ain’t gonna call the police on ya, I promise…

The main thing you’ll really want to experiment with, is the mic position in relation to the speaker.

Closer to the centre of the speaker = more highs, closer to the rim = more lows.

Normally a good halfway point between the speaker rim and centre works well.

And for acoustic guitar, a mic stand is probably going to be a must.

It’s best to position your mic about 15-30 cm (6-12 inches) a way from the 12th fret of your guitar.

Like this:

This’ll give you a nice balanced sound, with the sound being not too full of the lows from the sound hole or too thin from the mic being miles away.

But this is obviously just a guideline, so have a play around and see what takes your fancy.

2. Plugging In Your Guitar Directly

This is the number one winner if you want to record yourself playing guitar quietly and on the go.

But the catch is that you’re bypassing the amp, so you’ll need to make all your tones using pedals.

And this is fine if you’ve already got an expansive pedal board, an FX Processor like a Kemper, a BOSS GT-100 or an Amp Simulator.

You literally just plug in from the cable that would normally go to the amp into the interface instead, and you’re ready to rock.

But if you don’t then there is some seriously great Amp Simulator software out there which can help you get ultra-realistic tones for your guitar at a great price.

AmpliTube is one of the best, and has a free version that you can use to test everything out.

Here’s a great video explaining how to get your PC set up with an Amp Simulator if that sounds good to you:

Once you’ve plugged in your FX processors, pedals or loaded your Amp Simulator, you should be able to hear the amp/pedal tones out of your headphones clear as day.

Then you can record all day long to your heart’s content and the only person hearing it will be you.

Tips for Recording Audio Before We Look At Video

When recording audio, it’s very important to set the right amount of gain.

On your interface there will be a “Gain” dial which you can use to adjust this.

If the gain is too high, you’ll hear lots of breakup in the recording, and the track will look like this:

If the gain is too low, the track will be very quiet for listeners and will look like this:

So all you need to do is decrease the gain using the dial until you get a happy medium:

The light around the gain dial tends to flash green when you have enough gain, and amber and red when there’s too much.

And if you have to turn your gain all the way down to stop the breakup, then consider turning the gain down on your amp/FX instead.

“No pain, no gain” – Sam Olverson, sometime in the 21st century AD.

My second tip is a quick one about how to export your audio when you’ve finished recording.

Make sure you’ve got your track in front of you on your DAW that you’re using first. (For me, that’s Ableton)

Scroll to the end of the track and notice what bar it finishes on:

And then click on “File”, and scroll down to “Export” and click that too.

You’ll see numerous options come up, which will differ depending on the software you are using.

Make sure that the “Render start” is set to bar 1, and that the “Render length” is set to whatever the finishing bar was from earlier – in this case, Bar 51.

You’ll also notice an option to select “Render resolution”.

I recommend selecting “44000” for Instagram videos since you can’t hear the difference between that and higher resolutions on a zero-sound-quality phone speaker.

It also prevents the file getting too large, which speeds up the process of editing the video later.

Click export, save it somewhere with the rest of your soon-to-be tracks, and you’re done.

And as long as you can do all that, you’ve got the audio side covered!

So now let’s look at recording some sweet, sweet video…

Is Recording With Your Smartphone Good Enough?

To answer this in one word…

Yes it definitely is.

As long your phone isn’t a throwback to the Jurassic era, and has a decent enough camera (no Nokia Bricks soz) then you should be fine.

If you have a recent phone and your videos still come out looking meh, it’s more often that not to do with the lighting.

At the moment you’ll either have:

Dark lighting = bad

Yellow lighting = grotesque

No lighting = like, what?

We’ll get to fixing that in a minute.

But if you have a massive urge to shell out on an expensive camera to record yourself playing guitar with for background blur and stuff like that, then go for it.

The best cameras like the Sony Alpha 7 III tend to be around $2000 and even good lower end Canon models are around £350/$500.

So that’s not gonna be an option for most people.

And you’ll still need good lighting and a decent camera angle for any kind of camera to work properly.

Plus, the difference between 4K and 1080p on a phone on Instagram will be negligible. I mean, most people – unless you’re a gaming wizard – don’t even have phones or laptops that support 4K.

The moral of the story is that you can make your phone camera look more than good enough with some effective lighting.

So let’s fix that!

How to Set Up Lighting For Great Videos

I must have hyped y’all up for this one now, so buckle up…

Fixing your lighting will make a huge difference to your videos, and getting an LED soft light is what you’ll need.

This’ll give you the ability to properly light up your videos and get rid of graininess, yellowness and outright darkness that makes it look like you record yourself playing guitar on a smartphone.

In a perfect world, you’d have a light either side of the camera you are filming with, with both pointing towards you.

And maybe even a light in the background behind to add some warmth or colour.

All in all, that setup would look a bit like this:

Scrumptious.

But it’s also alright to use just a single light just above the camera when starting out, like this:

You’ll still have more than enough lighting that way and can definitely record some great videos.

Plus, you could always get some coloured LED strip lights or a second LED light later down the line for a bit more luxury if you wanted.

Overall best LED soft light: RALENO LED Video Lighting Kit

Best value LED soft light: RALENO LED Video Light I personally use this light, and it’s served me extremely well.

On a budget LED soft light: RALENO LED Camera Light

Yup, me gusta RALENO.

Just beware that the RALENO Video Light and Camera Light along with many other LED soft lights don’t come with stands.

So you may also want to consider getting a simple stand like this to make life easier for yourself. It’ll be compatible with phone clamps and LED soft lights alike.

Epic Tip: Once you’ve got your lights set up, make sure you close the blinds/curtains in the room you are filming in.

Natural light will muck up the perfect lighting angle you’ve spent years getting and everything will look more amateur.

Besides, you’ll have enough light from the LED to compensate for this anyway.

Choosing a Background

Choosing a background to record yourself playing guitar is always more fiddly than you think.

If you can find a relatively neutral coloured wall (white, grey etc.) in your house with no furniture in the way of it…

Then boom! You can use that as your background.

If you have a really cool array of guitars hung on the wall…

Then boom! You can use that as your background.

If you have an ultra-technical computer & recording setup that could hack into the Pentagon, launch nuclear missiles and end the world…

Yup, you know it! You can also use that as your background.

It honestly doesn’t really matter as long as the background looks relatively guitar related or simple/neutral.

People just don’t really want to see your bed, wardrobe or bathroom, you get me?

Otherwise, they’re gonna feel like they are in your bedroom, and it’ll all be a bit weird.

I mean, personal interaction is good and all, but errr… That’s a bit too much.

And if you don’t have anywhere appropriate which you can use in your home, then you could always get yourself a simple white screen.

How to Set Up A Good Camera Angle For Playing

If you want to record yourself playing guitar and look like a pro, then a solid camera angle is vital.

The camera angle you want to avoid at all costs is the infamous “Propped up against something angle”.

It’ll look very familiar when you see it:

Yuck.

So to avoid that at all costs, using a stand is the way.

An investment into a phone stand like this will make your videos look 10x better overnight.

And it’ll also allow you to put that pile of books you used to film stuff with back on the shelf.

Most of the time, the best camera angles are set level with or facing downwards slightly onto the guitar.

This is a great video by Music is Win which literally shows you the way that 25 different professional online guitarists record themselves.

Notice that the best camera angles are the ones which show both the guitar and the guitarist’s face in the video.

Take Paul Davids for example:

You’ll see many people use this camera angle throughout the video since it just works and looks great.

The only problem is that it isn’t quite as effective on Instagram since everything tends to be portrait rather than landscape.

And since guitar is an instrument that naturally fits landscape stuff, this is as annoying as someone spoiling Avengers Endgame the day after it comes out. There’s always one…

But that’s why on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, it’s totally okay to chop off some guitar either side of you and the part of the fretboard you’re playing.

Sophie Burrell is a great example of bringing this type of angle over to Instagram:

This is a great video because the lighting is good, the camera angle points slightly downwards onto the guitar and the background is nice and neutral.

What she’s playing can clearly be seen in the picture, and her face is clearly visible too.

And that’s so important for getting people to like and follow you on Instagram. It stops you becoming just another faceless Instagram guitarist to them, but someone to connect with.

Sitting down instead of standing up when you record yourself playing is a great advantage in this respect since you fit less torso and more face + guitar into the shot.

Multiple Camera Angles & Action Shots

You wanna really get things spicy?

Then using multiple camera angles to record yourself playing guitar is something wacky you can try out.

And there are two ways that you can do this.

The first way is to film yourself with the same camera, and take multiple videos of you playing the same riff/song/solo etc.

You might set up two phone stands in two different angles. Then you’d play the song twice through, once with the camera in one angle, and the second time with it in another angle.

After that, you’d edit them into each other so that the angles alternate at the end. (I’ll show you how to easily edit stuff later)

Relatively easy, and nice and cheap.

The second way is to use multiple different cameras and record the song once through, with all the cameras recording from their respective angles at the same time.

It’s a bit quicker and easier to record, but you’d have to pay for those extra cameras.

So with that in mind, a couple of shots that work great for recording guitar are:

• The Nut Shot – I could have called it The Headstock Shot, but where’s the fun in that?

If you’ve seen the feature image to literally any of my other blog posts then you will know that, err… I quite like this shot.

• The Bridge Shot

Cool if you’ve got some fast picking, hybrid picking or stumming going on.

• The Fretboard Shot

Not so common, but nice if you want to show off how your fingers move faster than everyone else’s and make them feel really bad about it for fun.

Still, wacky camera angles aren’t necessary and are more performance angles than anything else.

If you want to be instructive to your audience, then you might wanna give the next one a go instead…

Setting Up a Great Instructive Camera Angle

If you’re a warm-hearted fellow who deeply cares about your viewers being able to learn and progress from each piece of content you produce…

Cough cough hellooo???

Then you may want to make it really easy for them to see what you are playing.

So in this case, you’ll want to get your guitar up close to the camera to record yourself playing or vice versa.

It’s still a good idea to avoid the “propped-up phone” camera angle and so try to keep your phone at a similar angle and height as before.

It should look a bit like this:

That way, everything is nice and clear, and there is still space in the video to add a tab on screen for people to follow.

Perform to Make an Entertaining Video

When y’all start to record yourself playing guitar, dance around a bit, jump, wiggle your guitar, do a handstand with your guitar still on!

Just do something, I don’t care!

*Please do not actually attempt a handstand with your guitar on, it will not end well.

The point is that people often go to YouTube or Instagram or TikTok to be entertained.

The less statuesque and the more Hubba Bubba you are, the more likely people are to enjoy your videos.

The more likely they are to enjoy your videos, the more likely they are to follow you.

The more likely they are to follow you, the more likely you are to call the police to stop this random person following everywhere.

Just act like you are having fun and enjoying yourself with some charisma sprinkled in there too. And that ain’t too hard, right?

If you have no idea how to be entertaining, then watch a few of your favourite artists live.

What are the moves and actions they do on stage to keep things moving and entertain the audience?

Add a few of these in whilst you’re filming and the enjoyability factor will increase by a ton.

Recording Whilst Filming Vs. Miming

Fundamentally, there are two different ways that you can record the audio and video to yourself playing guitar.

The first one is to film yourself as you record the track.

And the second one is to record the track, then record yourself pretending to play it later.

Both work but both have certain advantages and disadvantages.

If you record whilst you film, it’ll look and feel more authentic and believable than a mimed track.

However, it’ll take much longer to get the perfect take since you have to get both the video performance and the audio track spot-on at the same time.

That’s why recording both at the same time tends to work great for shorter clips.

But if you “Mime” the guitar part, you can put on a bit more of a show, record different camera angles, and not worry about what your playing becoming messy as you do it. It’s not being recorded after all.

And if you do it well, then people will think that you are recording it as you play anyway.

The only problem is that everything will look very odd if the guitar part doesn’t match up perfectly with the audio.

And getting stuff like vibrato looking right when miming is very difficult too.

But at the end of the day, basically every music video ever is mimed, so it ain’t that difficult to do well.

Have a go at both and see which style you prefer.

How to Transfer Video/Audio Between Your iPhone + PC

Alright, so you’ve got your epic audio and video recorded.

But when you’re making a video, you’ll probably be recording the video on a smartphone/camera, and the audio on your laptop.

So let’s take a look at getting them onto the same device so that you can edit them together.

We’ll get onto how to do to this on Android in a minute.

With an iPhone and MacBook, using AirDrop is probably the fastest and most efficient way to do this.

I recommend watching the video below for a step-by-step tutorial of how to send files from your Mac to your iPhone.

There are a few fiddly bits to it which it’s better to just see, and the guy above explains everything clearly.

You could also set up Wi-Fi syncing, which is something I’ve never tried but could work for you. Apple has a dedicated article on that here.

Or you could do it the old-fashioned way:

• Hook up your iPhone to the computer with a USB
• Load up iTunes
• Look for the iPhone icon in the top left of the window
• Click “File Sharing”
• Click “Add” next to the file you want to send to your phone
• BOOM! You’re ready to go.

And if I’ve left you banging your head against the desk in confuzzlement, then Apple has an article on using USB to transfer files here if that helps.

How to Transfer Audio Between Your Android Phone + PC

Although it’s not quite so seamless as transferring from Apple to Apple, it’s still easy to do between Android phones and PCs.

The first method – which is the one that I personally use – is to download an app called AirDroid on your phone, as well as on your computer.

From there, it’s as simple as loading up AirDroid on both devices, signing in to your account on both, and selecting whichever file you want to share across.

It’ll then quickly pop up on the other device. Bish bash bosh, as easy as that.

It’s not difficult, but for a more comprehensive tutorial, then here’s a great video on setting it up from scratch.

The second way is to use an app like ShareMe to sent files over Wi-Fi to the other device.

I’ve never personally used this one, but it’s really popular may be a great option for you.

Here’s a video showing you step-by-step how to set up ShareMe Wi-Fi transfer.

And the third way, the same as always, is to use a USB connection.

Here’s what you want to do:

1. Use a USB cable like the one you charge your phone with, and plug it into your laptop and your phone.
2. If an error message comes up on your PC, then go to your phone settings. Click on “Blutooth & device connection” and scroll down to the USB section. From there, click on the USB logo, and it should bring up your USB preferences. Click on “File Transfer” and you’ll be good to go.
3. Open File Explorer and find your device in the “This PC” section.
4. Click on your device, and you’ll see a bunch of folders and stuff. Congrats! You’ve just found your phone storage.
5. Then create a new folder for Audio Recordings, and drag across any exported audio you want to get onto your phone, into this folder.

There’s also a great video on how to do this here if you are unsure.

And BAM! You’re done. Pretty easy, right? Meh, not really. But it works, and you’ll soon get the hang of it.

How to Edit Your Recorded Audio and Video

Whoop! Whoop! You’ve now got through the hard part.

So let’s get to the fun part! Sort of…

Make sure you’ve exported and transferred the audio across to your phone using the steps we’ve previously gone through.

And from there, I recommend using a really nifty video editing app for your phone, called InShot – Video Editor.

It’s absolutely packed full of features, completely free to download, and available on both IOS and Android.

Once loaded up, it’s as simple as selecting the video you want to use and clicking on “Music” to import your audio.

From there, you can adjust the video to whatever aspect ratio you want and even add text or a logo/name sticker to the video if you wanted, too.

Make sure you place and cut the audio so that it’s sync with the video and watch it back, just to check everything looks good.

Then hit “Save”. After that, you’re ready to head over to Instagram, select the saved video from your gallery, add a caption and some hashtags, then post.

And just like that, you’ve posted the first video of you playing guitar!

There’s always options like Adobe Premiere Pro if you wanted to use a computer editor, but that costs a lot and is confusing. Free computer editing software options also include Lightworks and Shotcut, but I’ve tried these both before and not had much success.

InShot literally has all the video features you could want anyway, accessible for free.

Wrapping it Up

Phew… That was a whopper of a post.

I feel like my fingers have hammered the keys on my computer so many times that they are slowly shrinking, turning into mangled stumps and my life is becoming a shad-…

Anyway, hopefully by now you’ve released your video to the world and have become the coolest person in town.

It may not go viral straight away but if you post consistently and regularly for a long period of time, you’ll start to see some results.

The key is patience, young one… Patience.

And if your account does somehow blow up, then Psst… you know who to thank for it

I’ve been Sam Olverson,

See you in the next one!

P.S. If you want to learn how to shred on electric guitar for beginners so that you can record more impressive videos, then click here to view my post on that.

The post How to Record Yourself Playing Guitar for Instagram appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

Well, the definitive answer to that is of cour-…

Hahaha, did you really think I was just going to tell you right away?

There’s a couple of different factors to it and I’ll go over all of them today.

If you’re reading this because you want to prove to your best mate that your instrument is harder than his, then you’ve come to the right place!

If you just want to find out how hard they both are so you can choose which one to learn, then you’re also in the right place!

And if you’ve got to the point as a pianist where you want to tear up all the piano keys and throw them at people you don’t like and are wondering whether you could learn guitar instead…

Then you are even more so in the right place!

And yes, I am primarily a guitarist. (I think the name of the blog gives that away a bit lol)

But I’ve had many discussions with my friend who is an excellent pianist about this topic to make it a fair comparison for y’all.

So let’s get going, is guitar really harder than piano?

Getting Started & Their Learning Curves

Many of you will be pleased to hear that guitar and piano are both relatively simple to start.

Hundreds of millions of people all over the world play either piano or guitar or both so neither can be that bad, right?

But I’d say piano is probably the simplest at the very beginning.

I mean, you can play simple stuff like Mary Had a Little Lamb just by pushing keys down with your index finger.

And it doesn’t get much easier than that.

So you could easily be playing some tunes by the end of your first day.

However, it does get a bit more difficult with chords and bringing a second hand into the mix… though it’s still pretty straightforward overall.

But with guitar you have to program your fingers to get used to unnatural and weird-ass chord shapes which make you want to jump on it and throw it in the fire.

Make sure you don’t do that.

You’re just gonna need some patience whilst you build up finger dexterity.

And adding to this, your fingertips may hurt for a bit in the beginning.

You’re telling me! This hurts like hell dude, why didn’t you warn me earlier?

Because I knew you’d be a wimp about it…

Shut up!

You get the idea, the initial learning curve is much steeper than piano.

But within a month of playing, these chords will feel natural, you’ll have tougher tips and you’ll be able to play loads of songs using these chords.

How Long Does it Take To Play Songs?

Alright, so that’s the whole reason you want to play guitar or piano, isn’t it?

And although I think it’s easier to get to grips with piano…

In my opinion, learning songs on it is slightly harder.

Most songs will require you to play the backing chords and the main melody at the same time with different hands.

And this in itself is a skill to train.

Getting good at coordinating your hands to do two different jobs will take some practice but once you’ve got this down, the world will be your oyster.

However, I think guitar is easier because you only really have one part to play.

We tend to play rhythm and lead separately since we don’t have enough hands to do both at the same time.

And if you want a lead vocal melody whilst you play the chords, you can always sing it.

In fact, those chords you’ve learnt in the beginning will let you play almost any pop song.

Whether it’s some up-tempo Guns N’ Roses or high-octane Do You Wanna Build A Snowman?, you can bet those beginner chords will carry you through.

And obviously a technical jazz standard or fiery metal guitar solo would take much more practice, and so would a Chopin piano piece…

But in terms of playing lots of songs fast, I think guitar takes this one.

How Long Do They Take To Master?

I imagine this is where most of the heating debates crawl in…

Is it harder to master guitar or piano?

And the answer is…

The are both as hard as each other, but in completely opposite ways.

To become a piano virtuoso, you’ll need to master the contrast between soft and hard, quiet and loud, massive stretches sounding effortless and everything to sound “just right”.

On top of this, you’ll want to have the ability to spin off some fast, scalic runs when called for and be able to look at a piece of music and play it.

But meh, that ain’t too hard. It only takes a few thousand hours of practice.

However, the demands of guitar virtuosity are very different.

Guitar either sounds loud or loud because you’re often with a band meaning dynamics aren’t as important.

But having the ability to play fast, use a bunch of different fancy techniques like tapping, and keep everything as clean as freshly mopped floor whilst you’re at it are staples of a pro.

And improvisation is also a mahoosive part of guitar.

Being able to solo over chord changes and play impressive stuff all over the fretboard in any key off the top of your head isn’t something that just comes with talent.

In a nutshell, virtuosic guitarists have learnt to make the guitar sing.

Wrapping it Up, Which is Harder?

Here’s the thing, neither guitar nor piano is gonna be as easy as falling down the stairs, unfortunately.

But it won’t take as long as you think to actually start playing stuff.

If you practiced 15 minutes a day for a month then you’d be amazed at how far you’d get.

The long and short of it is, that piano is a bit easier in the beginning but playing proper songs is more difficult.

And guitar is more difficult in the beginning, but once you’re past that, a whole world of songs opens up.

So they are both harder than each other at different points, the choice is yours.

And finally, both are as difficult as each other – but definitely not impossible – to master.

Boom! Now you can go and prove to your best friend that you play the harder instrument and laugh in their face.

Or maybe you’ve made your mind up of which one you want to learn.

Or maybe you’re a traumatised pianist who now realises that you wanna learn guitar and throw your piano in the bin…

Enjoy!

P.S. If you want to take your first guitar lesson and learn how to play guitar for beginners then you can view my post on that by clicking here.

The post Is Guitar Harder than Piano? – Guitar vs Piano appeared first on Beast Mode Guitar.

Nowadays there are apps that teach you guitar, tablature apps, toolbox apps and even recording apps which are completely free. Best of all, you can bring them with you anywhere and access them at the click of a button, like a pizza delivery.

But sometimes, there are just so many apps, it’s hard to know which ones are actually helpful. In this post today, I’ll go over the top 10 best apps that will help you learn guitar.

Also, I have an Android phone, so not all of these are available on iOS. But never fear, I’ll give you some alternatives anyway.

1. Fender Play

Designed by the instrument giant itself, Fender Play has blown up since it’s release. No, you pedantic people… not literally. I mean, in just 3 years it has over 1 million downloads on the Google Play Store alone… yikes!

My favourite part is that you can chose the genres that you want to learn. Whether blues, rock, country, pop or folk is your thing, you can be sure that you will reach a good enough level to get yourself a date with the girl next door.

Each lesson is taught through super high quality videos from experienced teachers too, so you learn plenty of great tips along the way.

The songs section is also great, where there are literally hundreds of videos made by the instructors at Fender to teach you songs from metal to jazz, with a dedicated tab player for each one too.

But I guess if you just want to learn to play guitar and not have to think too much about what path to choose, then it can feel a little daunting.

A bit like choosing between a Bugatti, Ferrari or McLaren when you’ve never driven a car before.

But I’d rather have the choice personally, and this will be one of the best apps to learn guitar for a long time.

Pros:

• Choose what you want to learn
• High quality 1 to 1 video lessons from experienced instructors
• 14 day free trial
• Tabs of songs to learn too
• 10% of all Fender products with the Annual Plan

Cons:

• Nothing

Price from: £7.00/$9.99 per month

2. Justin Guitar Beginner Lessons: Play Real Songs

Made by the cherished YouTuber JustinGuitar himself *Amen*, this app cuts the fluff and gets you playing quickly.

Each lesson is accompanied by an instructional video for that 1 to 1 feel, with multiple exercises and songs to try out as well. This helps makes the app really fun and interactive, whilst also being packed full of expert tips.

My favourite part is the “Playground” section where you can filter the songs it suggests you learn by the chords you know. You can even access the 1st Stage of the app without paying to see if you like it or not.

This app is all about teaching you the basics and getting you playing, fast. Like, really fast.

I found it really hard to find anything I didn’t like about this app. It doesn’t take you to an intermediate or advanced level but that’s not really the point of it anyway. It’s goal is to be one of best apps to learn beginner guitar and it’s achieved just that. All in all, a solid app.

Pros:

• Learn to actually play music
• Useful exercises to take part in
• 1 to 1 feel
• Playground section has loads of skill level based songs to learn

Cons:

• For brand new beginners only

Price: £8.49/$9.99 per month

3. Songsterr

In my opinion, Songsterr is the best app/website out there for learning songs. A controversial statement, I know… but here’s why…

It has hundreds of thousands of tabs from pop to death metal and has many features that I love. Even in the free version you can hit “play” and a guitar will play out the tab in front of you so you can read and hear the notes at the same time.

The tabs are set out in a really aesthetic and organised way too, with note lengths displayed underneath each line of tab.

You can also switch to the other instruments in the band – such as guitar 1, guitar 2, bass guitar and drums – and view the parts for those.

That means you can send your bassist the same tab you’re learning from so he never learns anything in the wrong key again. Genius!

The only fault that I could find for Songsterr is that I prefer the website version to the app.

This is mainly because I prefer the vertical orientation of the website version over the horizontal orientation of the app. That’s just my personal preference though.

Either way, this will always be one of the best apps to help you learn guitar songs quickly.

Pros:

• Free
• Lots of great features
• Tidy and organised
• Hundreds of thousands of songs

Cons:

• Nothing at all

Price: Free or $9.90 per month/$29.99 one-time purchase

4. Yousician

I love this app. When I first started playing guitar Yousician was literally all I used for the first few months.

It’s designed to turn playing guitar into a game, so it’s hooks you to the point where you sort of wanna scream in anger and toss your guitar out the window when your free 30 mins are up… no?…Maybe that was just me…

It works by using your phone/computer’s microphone to listen to the notes you play and compares them to the notes it’s telling you to play on screen – pretty cool if you ask me. You choose between a rhythm or lead path to go down, and get guided lessons and songs to play along each step.

But it’s not all sunshines and daisies.

To play the notes the app is telling you to play during the songs, you need to look at the screen. To look at the screen, you need to look away from the guitar. To look away from your guitar whilst playing in the beginning = big mess.

So you end up flicking your vision between the guitar and the screen like a crowd at a tennis match.

And it’s also not quite so comprehensive as an app like Fender Play.

Nevertheless, Yousician has a proven track record with over 10 million downloads on the Google Play Store alone so I’m not the only who thinks it’s one of the best apps to learn guitar.

Pros:

• Handheld guided course
• Chose between rhythm and lead guitar paths
• 30 mins per day free
• Game-like + interactive
• Can also teach ukulele, bass, singing, piano

Cons:

• Difficult to watch and play at the same time
• Can’t choose to learn specific genres

Price: Free or £10.99/$9.99 per month for Premium

5. Guitar Toolbox

Guitar Toolbox is just one of those must-have apps for guitar players. Having a tuner anywhere you go will help you to no end.

Hot weather made your strings go out of tune? You can tune it and play. Pick an out of tune guitar off the wall in a guitar store? You can tune it and play. Anywhere you go, any guitar you pick up… you can tune it and play.

It’s comes with chord diagrams of every chord you could ever make in every shape possible, a metronome AND the option to tune your guitar to any tuning you want. Now how epic is that? In my opinion, this is the ultimate toolbox app.

It’s so useful and guess what? It’s FREE.

There are the ads however, which is annoying but I prefer that to having to pay for extra features.

Also it’s annoyingly not available for iOS, so I’d recommend downloading Fender Tuner and GuitarTuna (which I mention later) for iOS users. The app is also relatively new so doesn’t yet have the track record of either of the two previously mentioned.

Pros:

• Fantastic features
• Completely free
• Easy to use and simple interface
• Can tune guitar to other tunings

Cons:

• Ads may annoy some people

Price: Free

6. Ultimate Guitar

Ultimate Guitar is the biggest platform for guitar tabs on the planet. As a result, it’s been one of the best apps to learn guitar for many years. Whether you want to learn the chords to a song or how to play a particular solo, you can be sure it’ll be on here.

The features it offers are pretty epic too. It offers backing tracks, “Official” tabs *wolf whistle* made by the Ultimate Guitar team themselves, a loop feature, a metronome, a tab player that you can change the speed of, the ability to select other instrument parts AND a live fretboard display of the notes being played.

The only problem is, to get all this good stuff you have to get the Pro version. The layout on the Pro version is also much tidier and readable than the free version too.

In short, the Pro version is amazing but the free version isn’t so amazing. That’s why I personally prefer Songsterr – you get a lot more without having to pay.

However, these features aren’t exactly expensive to access. It normally costs just a few bucks a month.

Pros:

• Pro version is amazing
• “Official” ultra-accurate tabs
• Packed full of features
• Millions of users

Cons:

• You have to pay for most features
• Free version not so great

Price: Free with different Pro plans available

7. GuitarTuna

Made by the guys over at Yousician, GuitarTuna is another great toolbox app. I mean, the ROFL-worthy pun-based name makes it worthy of being on this list on its own…

But it does have a proven track record, and is many guitarists’ go-to tuner app. It also features a metronome and chord diagrams for every chord shape under the sun. There are also games that you can play on the app to memorize chords and train your musical ear.

However, to get access to alternate tunings and more levels to the games, you have to pay a monthly fee.

I also think that if you want more of the “ear training stuff” then MyEarTraining is gonna be your guy.

Pros:

• Well made app by Yousician
• Proven track record
• Some great features

Cons:

• Limited access without payment

Price: Free with in-app purchases

8. Music Theory Helper

Yes, I knowww. Us guitarists we HATE music theory. But thankfully Music Theory Helper lays everything you need to know out in a (relatively) simple and easy to understand way.

It makes learning music theory as painless as possible with good explanations and pre-recorded chords and notes.

After using this app for a couple of weeks, you’ll be a music theory maestro.

My only criticism is that it doesn’t explain how stuff like scale modes work yet. Every guitar player will run into them at one point and they tend to frazzle our non-theory-competent brains.

It would just be nice if there was a painless explanation for them on here. Also this isn’t available for iOS but Perfect Ear is a great alternative.

Pros:

• Easy to use
• Painless explanations
• 100% free – no ads or paywalls

Cons:

• Doesn’t yet cover how scale modes work

Price: Free

9. GarageBand

If you own an iPhone, iPad or MacBook, then learning to use GarageBand is a no brainer. (If you don’t have an iOS device, then don’t worry, I mention an alternative next).

The interface is simple and easy to use, with recording, mixing and exporting your music being as easy as burning toast. I’ve used GarageBand many times before to compose songs I always have a good time.

It has everything you need and more to get some solid demos down at home or on the go. And it’s free too, which is amazing considering most DAWs cost hundreds.

Obviously, if you want to produce your own music then GarageBand – or any mobile app really – isn’t the way to go.

You would need a computer setup with a DAW like Pro Tools or Ableton for that kinda stuff. But for mere mortals like you and me, GarageBand has everything you would need to write a great song.

Pros:

• 100% free
• Easy to get to grips with
• Record, mix and export music
• App version means you can record on the go

Cons:

• Not great for full-fledged music production

Price: Free

10. BandLab

If you can’t get GarageBand then BandLab is the next best thing, if not better.

It’s interface is really easy to use with many great features too. Recording, mixing and exporting is also a breeze and although it functions similarly to GarageBand, it has some extra features which give it the edge.

A notepad for lyrics, a built in social platform to find other musicians AND the ability to upload your track to a cloud space where your band members can access it and record their parts are all nifty extras.

And guess what? It’s 100% free with no ads or paywalls. *Mind blown…* Try and find me better value than that and I’ll eat my Telecaster.

Like GarageBand though, you’re still better off with something like Pro Tools or Ableton for proper production.

Pros:

• Simple and easy to use
• Connect with other musicians
• Record, mix and export on the go
• 100% free with no paywalls or ads

Cons:

• Not great for proper musical production

Price: Free

Summary

There you have it.

In my humble opinion, these are the best apps to help you learn guitar out at the moment.

Use them wisely and you may even be able to take over the universe.

Anyway, I’ve had a great experience with all of these apps so the chances are they’ll float ya boat too.

Be sure to let me know in the comments if you think I have missed any

Enjoy!

P.S. If you’ve enjoyed this and want to know more about how to learn to play guitar by yourself so that you never need a teacher, then click here to view my post on that.

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