The Guitar Encyclopedia for Windows

User Reviews

• Great idea. Tragic flaw.

  joeosakaAugust 22, 2009

  Pros

  An extensive amount of material available to learn about playing the guitar. The title says it all. This is truly an encyclopedic amount of information.

  Cons

  The window size is locked. Like some Flash apps, you cannot expand the window to full screen. Cannot "play along" with the video clips, because the sheet music does not scroll along. Everything is just too damn small!

  Summary

  Why on Earth, in this day and age of big roomy HD quality monitors, would any software designer limit the size of their application window? Particularly one that relies so heavily on reading from the screen and seeing what the people in the videos are playing. This is the tragically annoying and inexcusable flaw of Guitar Encyclopedia 1.0. I have the Syncmaster 23.6 inch monitor. When I first popped open GE 1.0, the application's window barely took up half the screen. The window is non-expandable and locked at around 1020x740 pixels. Starting at this size for the main window means everything else is only going to be smaller. None of these items could be expanded to a larger more comfortable size: VIDEO CLIPS: 320 pixels wide SHEET MUSIC: Only 3 bars can be seen, and the music only scrolls when playing the midi-clip, not with the video clips. This means that you will be constantly taking your hand off the guitar to drag the mouse to the next section of the music. Horrible. STUDY NOTES: Open in (once again) a non-expandable box only 600 pixels wide. You can't change the size of the text. Serious eye-strain. SHEET MUSIC: Open in the same non-expandable 600 pixel box as PDF files. In addition, unlike other guitar teaching software, you cannot highlight a particular section of the music and play it over and over. You can only jump to a point in the music, and then play it from there. Perhaps the software designers would argue that all the sheet music is printable. But why did I buy SOFTWARE to learn guitar if I have to burn through an encyclopedia's worth of ink and paper on my printer? What a waste. I wouldn't have to print anything out if I could just expand the damn window to see an A4 sized sheet. No luck here. In short, for something released in late 2009 and at a cost of $200, Guitar Encyclopedia 1.0 falls well short of the features and flexibility of other teaching software published five years ago for a fraction of the price (eMedia's $60 Guitar Method series anyone?) Really excited when I found this, but desperately disappointed in its limitations. Try the demo and see for yourself, but save your cash and hope for a better version someday.

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• clear,simple,progressive,quality,very innovative

  francemuxJuly 21, 2009

  Pros

  Fantastic! This is the best mnethod in the world, finally! There are various performance techniques as well as modern styles and interpretations of guitar playing, and you can make a loop or recording your exercise. Very good the quality of contents

  Cons

  A little bit difficoult to find my audio recordings, but i'v writing a mail to assistance and quiqly i'v recive the answer.

  Summary

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