JamPod for guitarists - portable iPod play-along

Related link: http://www.dvforge.com/jampod.shtml

The JamPod by DVForge is about to debut. It's a simple concept - a small module that connects your guitar, your dock connector model iPod, and your ears (through headphones) so that you can jam along with whatever digital tunes your 'Pod is packin'. The amplifier and mixing circuitry inside the unit (which sports the currently required hip 'iPod bandwagon' look) is powered directly by the iPod - no batteries required. Now that's a welcome change. Just plug the JamPod directly into your iPod or iPod mini, add headphones and a guitar or bass, and rock on out the door.

The device isn't perfect, at least for what I would want to use it for (more on that below), but the price is right- $29.95US. And, it'll work with any instrument that outputs a guitar-level signal through a 1/4" plug.

So what would you play along with? Well....everything. There is obviously a strong training and rehearsal application. You could quickly download rough mixes of whatever songs you are working on and do your woodshedding (or woodshredding) privately, wherever and whenever you choose. You could grab quick digital recordings of lessons and rehearse the techniques as needed.

Or, you could use what I believe to be one of the most valuable learning techniques available- play along to recordings.

My nephew was learning guitar and I suggested he do what I spent hours and hours doing - play along with whatever CDs or tapes you have. This approach has some extremely useful qualities:

• It teaches you how to hear what a tune is made of - rhythms, time signatures, chord changes - and transpose that onto your instrument.

• It teaches you to listen and to fit in.

• It provides freedom to improvise over a strong musical base

• You are forced to keep up, improving your speed, listening, and developing your chops

• It's damn fun.

When I was learning, I played along mostly to vinyl records. What made it work was that our old Dual turntable sported a pitch control, so I was always able to compensate for the inevitable tuning differences between what was on the record, and my guitar.

And there's the first problem with a simple system like the JamPod. One option would be to pitch-correct your recordings before you dump them to your iPod. For your own WAV based tracks, you can use whatever software you're running to do the job. For canned tracks, the simplest thing might be to use a pitch control plug-in such as Chronotron for WinAMP which allows both pitch and tempo adjustments. The idea would be to set the plug-in, then dump the playback to a new track. This is admittedly tedious.

There are lots of inexpensive computer-based solutions for play-along practice that allow pitch and tempo correction and add looping, vocal removal, what have you. Renegade Minds' Guitar and Drum Trainer 2 for example, has many options, and is free. And then at the other end of the scale is the Tascam CDGT1 (which I would have killed for 30 years ago, notwithstanding that I would have also had to kill for CDs, which also hadn't been invented yet, to go along with it). This funky red-boy has a built-in CD player, does all the pitch and looping tricks you need, and has a footswitch and tuner built in.

Taking a different approach, I was thrilled that my Zoom 606 multi-effects pedal supports headphones through its output jack. And dismayed when I realized there was no jack to input an additional signal from a CD or MP3 player. It sure has tons of great sounding digital effects but...sometimes you can't just rock and roll all alone - you need Jimi or Stevie Ray along for the ride.

And anyway, where's the real portability in software, or bulky effects or CD-based trainer boxes?

No, the tiny JamPod is on the right track. There's a couple of other things about it... making it self powered would let you use it with any portable mp3 player or sound source. The JamPlug fits this bill nicely for only ten bucks more. Add a portable MP3 player with a built-in pitch control and I guess it would work.

In any case, these are pretty cool little products, and I think DVForge is on the right track.(In fact, they have quite a few cool little products, such as the GuitarPlug and MicPlug, which are small, inexpensive adapters which digitize their inputs and output USB digital audio to plug into your Mac.).

Really, here's what I'd like to see.

Give me a JamPod or JamPlug with some digital audio smarts built right in. Put the pitch correction circuitry on the line input jack, one or two clean and two or three good distortion settings on the instrument input jack and I'd really, really be impressed. I certainly wouldn't expect a $29.95 price tag on such a device, but a guy can dream.

What do you dream about in a portable digital head-phone based guitar amp?