Monday, February 18, 2008

iPerform 3D - yet another way to learn guitar

Posted by Jon in • Guitar Instruction,

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Well just when you thought you had decided which Video Lesson site to invest your hard earned cash comes along a new player and this one is a little different. In order to really illustrate what is going on in the photo to the left you need to go and watch the video on the homepage of iPerform 3D’s site. Done that? Ok so what they have created is an instructional tool that blends motion capture technology usually reserved for games with 3D graphics for a very unique learning experience.

“We’ve applied the same [motion capture] technology to capture the detailed technique of top touring and studio guitarists, turning them into animated instructors as skilled as the pros.”

Because you are viewing a 3D representation of the guitar player you are able to do things you cannot do with a video, you can zoom in and out and rotate the camera around every part of the guitar to watch the players right and left hand technique in detail, you can even go behind the fretboard and see through the neck to watch the finger positioning. You can also slow down the action and the sound to any speed while maintaining pitch, albeit a timestretched version which is going to degrade in quality depending on how slow you want it! You can also set various sections to loop to help you learn a riff, which I think is a pretty cool feature. Another cool feature is Tab on demand which pops up on top of the playback.

The big question, is this better than an instructional video? Well yes and no. The finger representation is good but not perfect so you lose a little of the subtlety but its pretty close. I think you need to download the trial and make sure before you fork out $19.95 a month or $99.95 a year but I think this looks like quite a promising piece of software. The only drawback is that it is PC only, luckily for me I own Parallels and therefore can try it out in a virtual PC but I doubt it will run as well as the native OS.

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