Apple Online Selling iPhone-Enabled Fender Strat Guitar

AChia said:

My 12 year old son is interested in this guitar. My question is will the combination of this guitar and Garage Band help him learn how to play? I'm not really familiar with the pros and cons of the interface and I would love to know if it will be able to teach the notes and correct him also?

Thanks for the help...

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Not really, no. GarageBand on say, an iPod Touch, isn't the same as on a laptop or desktop. It is basically just a way for him to record stuff quickly. There are ways that he can look at chords and match the notes he hears on a smart instrument to his real instrument, but there are FAR better ways to learn how to play.

Honestly, as a musician who is entirely self taught, this guitar and this app isn't going to do anything for him that cheaper instruments and apps can't, and would be able to do better.

Even a simple pocket guide with scales and chord structures would do more for his ability to play than iOS GarageBand ever could. Now, if he has the touch/phone/iPad already, but doesn't have an amp/computer with GarageBand, or anything like that, then this will definitely be FUN. The amps, the pedals, all the little bells and whistles that the app has would be awesome for a kid to just jam away on.

If he wants it because he thinks it will just be awesome to jam out with headphones on, and maybe record some tracks and stuff, then yeah, go for it. But this isn't a teaching tool that will go over music fundamentals.

b166er said:

I think the big difference here is, there is Fender, and then there is Squire who are a branch of Fender but for the entry level player. Fender has operations in Asia, the US, Mexico, and probably elsewhere. These are licensed through Fender but the guys at Fender really have nothing to do with the production. Toyota, Scion, and Lexus are all the same company- look at the huge quality gaps between those three.

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Of course I know that there's a difference between Apple and Fender in that sense. But my point was that the headline isn't wrong. It is a Fender guitar.
They used to be separate brands, but not anymore.
Gretsch however are not Fender guitars even though they own the brand.

But the essence of that discussion is pretty interesting. It shows how much, or little, that goes into a brand really. How far away can you get from peoples perception of a brand without destroying it?
To some people CIJ and MIM Fenders aren't "true Fender guitars" because they aren't crafted by american hands. But most have accepted that Fender guitars can be made outside of the US now.
So what makes a Fender a Fender then? Is it a certain level of quality? Is it a certain body shape?
Tokai used to make strat copies of exceptional quality. Were they Fenders? No.

A brand is after all just a brand. And yet it's many companies most important assets these days. It's kinda funny when you think about it.

Wow, that's cheap. 20 years ago I bought a Squire Strat to learn on and it was $325. ...and didn't include any of this fancy stuff or the sunburst finish. I mean, it's still just a cheap guitar, but jeez, I played it for 15 years, hacked it all apart and rebuilt it into dozens of weird configurations, gigged with it, dropped it, lent it out, until it was ultimately stolen, & then I didn't even really mind that much. Whereas, I just baby my custom in the room it never leaves by comparison. The squire was probably the best few hundred I ever spent on musical equip.

Nice to see them still at it.

Personally, I'm sticking with my vintage 1990 USA sunburst...

Macman45 said:

Personally, I'm sticking with my vintage 1990 USA sunburst...

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Loved the lace sensor pickups they used to put in those!

Smallworld69 said:

Um, Bluetooth, as well as wifi would offer lag in the low hundred MILISECOND range... Not enough time that the human ear would make much of distinction that there is lag. It is definitely a price/technology issue, NOT a lag issue...

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250 milliseconds is an 8th note at 120 bpm. A guitar player lagging that much behind would be very, very audible except to the most tone deaf listener.