Optek Music Systems, Inc., a leading company dedicated to the development of interactive musical instruments and software, today announced that Macintosh users can now advance their guitar playing skills in significantly less time than learning from books, charts, and endless hours of tedious practice. By combining the power of Apple’s GarageBand music application and the interactive Fretlight guitar, beginning or intermediate level guitar players can quickly and easily become a pro.
Previously available only to PC users, the Fretlight guitar is now Mac-compatible thanks to Optek’s Fretlight guitar plug-in for GarageBand. The plug-in powers the lights that are embedded in the guitars fretboard, which signifies chords and scales. Using the plug-in, Fretlight can be added as a GarageBand instrument to light specific chords and scales, create custom sequence lists and give the user the ability to cycle through them with a footswitch and then drag and drop loops or songs in the timeline.
The Fretlight GarageBand plug-in is compatible with all four Fretlight models – FG-401 Acoustic, FG-405 Acoustic Electric, FG-421 Electric and FG-451 Pro Electric. Systems requirements include Mac OS X with GarageBand, a Fretlight FG-400 series guitar and Fretlight GarageBand Plug-in version 1.0 or higher. The plug-in is free to try for 30 days and $29.95 for a one-user license.
For more information, visit http://www.fretlight.com/
Eddie Van Halen, here I come…
Do groupie chicks come with it?
Does this thing work?
Their guitars are ridiculously overpriced; acoustic & electric.
no they aren’t. Unles you are comparing them to what they sell at Walmart.
Actually, they’re prices are on par for a quality instrument. Couple that with the fact that it is also a learning system, and it’s a nice deal. Will you pay a premium? Sure, but will you get a premium product? Absolutely.
As a Mac user, you should be able to understand this concept rather easily.
Uhhh… I meant “their.” 😮
i’m especially interested in this since i’m a switcher and a mediocre guitar player
I would definitely want to actually play one before buying. If it’s a nice or even decent guitar, this system would be fantastic for learning. I wish I had one back in the day. Or even now. That said, if it’s a quality instrument, the prices are not out of line at all. I’ve paid well over $1000 for a couple guitars and you can spend thousands on a really nice guitar. The $70-$100 Wal-Mart guitars are not instruments. Those are toys, and most people would become frustrated trying to learn on one. With very few exceptions, any guitar that costs less than $300-$400 new is very low-quality. There are a few exceptions though around $200-$300.
It’s true that one can spend thousands on a really good instrument and $600 is nothing for a high-quality acoustic guitar—assuming this one is as nice as it looks. Sounds like a fascinating system.
They just ahd a huge review in Guitar Player, Sep 07 issue. GP gave it total cudo’s – the PRO instrument they reviewd played great, sounded great, and was actually BETTER than a Fender strat of comperable price.
Seems like we all make snap judements of things that sound to good to be true – this may be the case with Fretlight.
I’m getting one based on the GP review.