'WildChords' is One of the Coolest Things I've Seen the iPad Do

Hm, I have played the guitar for a few years now and I think this is possibly pretty useful. I'm not sure about the whole game design because I haven't tried WildChords but most people get discouraged when they have to learn all these chords just to play one song and learning where your fingers go and being cramped and the whole mechanics of it all really depresses new people, BUT if this game can get people to move forward even when they think they can't do it, it's totally worth it.

Once someone plays a song and realizes hey this doesn't sound half bad it will go a long way, it's just getting people past that first hump. I was taught 'Sweet Home Alabama' as my first song and I played the heck out of it but knowing that I could play a song and I knew the simple chords that made it happen went a long way.

The biggest thing though is really wanting to do it. I know people that took piano lessons for years but quit when they had the chance even though they could play fairly well. If you don't want to really play then it won't stick. For people that really want to play guitar I think this app could be very useful.

These guys gave a quick demo at an event I held in London. Great guys, fantastic product. The bar that we held the event was pretty busy and very noisy. I thought there's no way it would work accurately in that sort of environment, but it was spot on. Really really impressive.

Does the signal processing tech enable a Guitar Hero with actual guitars?

A problem I found with guitar hero is latency (actually, with the drums, where the discrepancy is more obvious, because you can hear both); a common response I've heard from professional drummers is that these drum games are no right (including from standalone arcade versions).

Is the iPad, as a platform very concerned with minimizing latency for UX, in a position to address this?

Very well done. Their signal processing might not be 100%, but it's probably more likely my fault for playing it with my unplugged electric guitar :)

It's fun and seems like a gentle way to get new players to learn. Users can replay levels as many times as they want to.

Isn't chord detection / polyphonic audio analysis really difficult? And they do it instantly using an iPad, that's really impressive.

It kind of makes me mad that Google "neglects" audio on Android. The well known latency issues are the reason developers choose an iPad/iPhone over any Android device :(

I now want to learn guitar. This is great. It is like Guitar Hero (which I was absolutely addicted to for a while) except it uses the real guitar. Can't wait till this launches in the U.S. I'm wondering if when you add more instruments if you need 2 ipads or if you can play in the same room with one ipad and 2 instruments.

This is awesome design. Good platform choice and integration.

"it feels like a mixture of magic and something you'd see in a sci-fi movie"

Seriously? I mean, this is a neat idea and seems super well executed, and fine tuning that kind of signal processing isn't that easy, but people are still that impressed that a computer can identify guitar chords?

Really the hard part (which from the pitch the guy seems to understand) is the educational aspect.

Rocksmith does this for the PS3, Xbox, and Wii and there are already iPad apps that can detect what notes your guitar is playing.

Is this compatible with Apgogee Jam?

Someone should clone this for PC. Why restrict yourself to the iPad market when you can write cross-platform code?