Hendrix. Clapton. Vaughan. Vai. They all had to start somewhere, right? Well, with the help of RipChord, you and you Android phone could be well on your way to cranking out your very own “Texas Flood” or “Voodoo Chile”. While the app itself may not grant you the rights to become a rock n’ roll god (That’s what deals with the devil are for, right?), it is both an awesome teaching tool for anyone just starting out, and a wonderful reference for even the most seasoned professionals. I had a chance to review this app, courtesy of “Awesome Unlimited”, and would like you to take a small journey with me and my Android phone to The Crossroads.
Once I installed the app from the Market, I opened it up from the menu, and was greeted immediately by a guitar neck that was ready to teach:
When I would tap on the neck anywhere, the app would respond by strumming through the notes listed via an acoustic guitar. I thought that was pretty neat, and then noticed the “1 of 35″ text above the guitar neck. Hitting “Next” cycled me through all 35 ways to play an E major… but that was only via the first fret. I then hit “Dn”, and was greeted with more options and chords that started on the 2nd fret, and even up to the 3rd fret:
I then noticed the different chords available towards the top, and started looking in there. All the standard notes are available, A-G with all the sharps. However, upon bringing down the interval menu (major, minor, etc.), and was greeted with options from the basic:
To the advanced:
There is (as far as I know) every textbook interval for chords available for the user in this app, and it’s all very well laid out.
After backing out of the tuning menus, I went ahead and hit the Menu hard key, and was presented with two options: Settings and Help. Tapping settings brought up options to turn on and off inversions, Colored notes, and even lefty mode. There was also a slider for the Strum speed (mentioned earlier, when you tap on the neck of the guitar), and this is also where I found the settings to change the tuning, which was great for me, because I play one half-step down from standard, as do many others. My only qualm here is that the sharps are not displayed properly in the menu, which could very easily make it difficult for beginners and seasoned players alike to get confused as to whether they mean sharps, flats, or are simply code error. Much like the chord intervals, there are 22 tuning options in the menu, from simple, more standard tunings:
To slightly less known tunings:
To the “Dude, is that a ukulele tuning option?”:
Once I backed out of the settings menu, I took a look at their help option nestled in the menu key popup, and was greeted with the following:
I was pleasantly surprised by this popup. I’m so used to seeing “cold” help menus with little to no personality or anything from the developer. However, here, there is a simple tutorial on using the app, as well as a promise to add functionality as the users see fit and a direct way to contact the dev. What a breath of fresh air!
While there is a free version, the deluxe version of RipChord comes in at an economical $1.99. I, for one, see absolutely no reason to not go ahead and throw the dev a couple dollars for his outstanding work. The battery life on this app was wonderful as well, I saw no change in battery drain with the app open for long periods of time. I would give this app a score of 9.2/10, based on the following:
- Ease of Use: 8/10
- Intuitiveness: 8/10
- Amount of Options: 10/10
- Battery Usage: 10/10
- Pricing: 10/10
- Total: 9.2/10
Final Thoughts:
This app is a wonderful reference for guitar players and newbies alike. It’s a great thing for any guitarist to keep around, has more chords, intervals and mutations than one could probably ever find use for, and comes in at a more-than-reasonable price. Good on you, Awesome Unlimited. I, for one, can’t wait to see what else you come up with.
[An original article by Dustin Karnes]
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