Tips on Learning Guitar: Goals vs Systems
I tripped into this piece today in such accidental fashion that I can’t tell you how it happened, but I’m glad it did. It’s entitled, “Learning Guitar as An Adult, the 5 Obstacles You’ll Face (And How to Beat Them" by Josh Frets. The whole piece is pretty good, but the first point really resonated with me.
The Jamstik at Digital Media Academy, Minneapolis
One of our product specialists, Jarod Hadaway, has been a music production teacher at a local music tech school for the past few years. He had a chance to bring the Jamstik into class on a few occasions and document the experience showing the kids the portable MIDI guitar.
How You Can Apply an “Abbey Road” Philosophy to Your Music
I stumbled onto this article entitled “The Technical Constraints That Made Abbey Road So Good” written by Justin Lancy of The Atlantic thanks to a friend sharing it on Facebook. Said friend is a busy, well-known audio engineer in NashVegas, so I tend to inspect his posts and mentions with a careful eye.
What Is MIDI and How Does the Jamstik Use it?
The acronym MIDI stands for “Musical Instrument Digital Interface.” In the simplest explanation, MIDI is a language (technically speaking, it’s a protocol) that allows digitally-controlled musical instrument devices to communicate to each other. MIDI has been around since the early 1980’s. It was primarily used with synthesizers and sequencers, but quickly got implemented on all kinds of musically-related gear (drum machines, mixers, drum pads, synchronization boxes, etc.)
“The Main Essentials (and Luxuries) You’ll Need for a Live jamstik Rig”
As much as the jamstik has changed how people learn how to play guitar or record their ideas in GarageBand or other recording apps, it’s also a great controller for live performances. As someone who has spent years in guitar-based live bands with no keyboard players, trust me when I say it’s hard to cover three hours of familiar material for an audience in one night without running into a tune that needs a signature keyboard part.
How to Re-Create the Sound of a Pop Song in GarageBand
Recently, I re-created Charli XCX’s song “Boom Clap” using only a MIDI guitar controller (jamstik). We set out to do as much as we could with the jamstik exclusively in GarageBand and the iPhone 6. The iPhone 6 really works well for this, so it’s not really a challenge to work only in the iPhone as a “limitation.” Like we demonstrate in our “GarageBand Loop Recording” video, you can record your ideas without stopping the music if you make your instrument track selections in advance.
Customer Knowledge Base Launch
Wish there was a place where you could search a database of information about the jamstik? Or perhaps a place where you could ask a question, request a feature, or interact with other customers?
Well the day has come.. look no further than our new Customer Knowledge Base. We hope this becomes a valuable resource for everyone with questions and comments on the products. We'll do our best to stay active and help with any issues that come up. Each answered question will remain in the database for future customers with similar issues, so ask away!
The Jamstik Blog has arrived!
Customers and Supporters,
With all of the methods of communication available to us these days, things can get confusing. We wanted to provide you with a single place to get reliable information right from us, the team at Zivix. So, from now on we'll be posting major updates and announcements here on our blog! Subscribe to make sure you stay up to date on production status, firmware updates, app updates and more. Be on the lookout for new videos, app and software demos, contests, events and other fun stuff too!
Our job doesn't end when we ship you the product. It's our goal to make sure you have a great experience with your jamstik and continue to have fun with it for years to come. This is just the beginning, and we hope you'll stay with us on the journey as our technology and products evolve.
We look forward to your participation in the conversation, so feel free to comment on our posts and we'll do our best to get back to you. Thanks for stopping by!
As always you can get in touch with us at jamstik@zivix.net or for support related issues: support@zivix.net
