Customer Reviews

Tascam MPGT1 Portable MP3 Guitar Trainer

5 star:		(17)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Ok, I will do my best to answer everyone's questions that aren't asked here yet, in which I also had before I purchased this item. This trainer is just amazing. It helps you out in so many ways. First off, this CAN be used simply as a portable amp, exactly as the "Dean Stack in the Box". I know I'm not reviewing that item, but I would like to give some information about it. The Dean stack in the box is a great portable headphone amp. It has great volume, great distortion, and most of all (in which no one else covers) it carries through great pinch harmonics great. Unlike the portable pignose amp, where it does not carry through pinch harmonics one bit. The Dean in a box though can be a pain changing the 9v battery, which can lead to the wires breaking, wich is what happened to me. It was still an amazing product though, with amazing sound, and amazing pinch harmonic carry through.

Now, with that said, it leads me to this. THIS guitar trainer, has GREAT sustain also, and carrys through pinch harmonics just like a normal amp, and jsut like dean in the box. They will not die out like the pignose amp. Also, it has a rechargeable battery in it, so there are no wires to rip off, like dean in the box while changing a battery. This is also built like a tank. Super tough and durable. Makes you want to take good care of it right away. The rechargable battery on it also lasts a long time. I would say well over many many hours.

I want to clarify what exactly the guitar cancelling feature does. It does not cancel the guitar out, so you can substitute your own. It instead pushes all other sound (vocals, drums, etc) into the background (which is dim but still heard) while the guitar in the track shines through so you can hear it clearly and study it more, note for note. Let me tell you, it works very very well. Like one reviewer said, you do hear wayyy more than you have heard before. And this is coming from me, a guitarist of many years, whom has an ear for music, and picks up on every single note and plays by ear. I was even very amazed.

I will now do the best I can to break everything down into all the positive parts of owning this trainer, as there are no disadvantages that I have found:

* This trainer CAN be used as a portable headphone amp, without any song playing in the background, and it does have many amp effects, from clean, to overdrive and distortion for metal (which I play). It has great affects like reverb, chorus, flanger, overdrive, etc.

* Is not cheap, like other portable devices, so no wires will break off changing batteries, since you simply dont have any batteries to change.

* Built very strong and durable.

* It DOES let you create sub-folders, so you can put entire folders into it and sort by artist or albums, instead of having one long list ot a thousand tracks.

* Guitar cancelling feature (as described above) works fantastic.

* While playing a track, you can adjust the volume of the track playback, and your guitar volume, so if the track volume, or guitar volume is higher than the other, you can equalize them at the same volume, or make your guitar volume louder, or the track volume louder.

* You can slow the track speed down 50%, which is amazing. You can also keep the pitch the same, so whether you speed the track up or slow it down, it wont sound like a chipmunk, or someone from a horror movie. It keeps the original tone. You can, however, turn this function off.

* You can turn the pitch up or down, so if it is in standard e tuning, you can chance the tuning of the song. Although it WILL NOT drop all the way down to drop d tuning or anything like that, it still works great.

* You can quickly pick a start and stop point for it to start looping, so if there is a solo, or any part like that, that you want to keep going over and over until you learn it, you can loop it.

* You can create a playlist, just like on an mp3 player.

* This can be used as an mp3 player (although I never would, since it's expensive, and I never want to break it.

* Has a ton of storage. About 900 MB worth (actually a hair more.

So all in all, this trainer is simply amazing! It does exactly what it says it does, and a whole lot more. Even if I didn't need it for a trainer, but was simply looking for a portable headphone amp for travelling, I would easily choose this over dean stack in the box or anything else. I was not disappointed one single bit. I love this thing.

Hope this helps! Enjoy!

I'm completely rewriting my review on the MPGT1. I've had it for six months, and use it daily. I've progressed more in the last six months than in 20+ years of playing...why? Because guitar, especially blues guitar, is all about phrasing. In order to really learn phrasing you need to first, slow it down to the point where you can understand exactly which notes are being played. Secondly, you need to get not just the notes, but the timing, volume etc. down cold. Third, you need to repeat the phrase for muscle memory, without- and this is key- without a mistake- over and over again. Finally, increase tempo gradually until you can play it at speed.

This unit does all of these things beautifully. Functions exactly as it should. Has a metronome, tuner, some nice effects- all the standards- and is built like an airliner black box. In other words rugged. I've probably achieved in six months what would take two to three years of weekly lessons. Ya, its that good.

A few minor gripes just so you know I'm balanced. I've had a little confusion trying to create different song folders on the unit. Sometimes the name of the song doesn't show up on the unit (rarely). And with really epic songs- like over 15 minutes- you may need to edit the song into smaller chunks before putting it on the unit (it acted weird a few times with really long songs).

Forget about books, videos, lessons etc. Well, maybe don't forget about them completely- can still be helpful- BUT this thing is THE way to learn. Imagine having BB King, or Dimebag Darrel, or whoever you're into in your living room, repeating phrases over and over, at whatever speed you want, AT WILL. How much would you pay to be able to do this?

The item was well packaged. It was easy to use from the start, although the instructions were somewhat vague when it came to loading and playing songs. So far the unit has worked well. It does what it says, however I have not tried all of the features. I did try the guitar cancel feature and found it to be so so. Being able to slow down songs so you can learn to play them at a slower speed is a great feature and it works well. I have slowed songs to -32% and -50% which is the maximum and the song still played clear. I like the loop feature that allows me to play a portion of a song over and over so I can practice that part, then move on to the next part. The LCD is clear and easy to read, and the controls are easy to navigate. Overall I am pleased and I think it is a great tool to use in learning the guitar.

I agree with all the good reviews on this product. It has increased my abilities more than any method has. But don't expect great sound quality when you slow down MP3's, it's not pleasant sounding, but definately still helps in snagging those quick notes and phrases. Other downside is having to step through the menus everytime you want to slow down or speed up the song, that feature should be available straight from the thumbwheel on the unit. Last complaint is when slowing down, the only increments are -4, -8, -12, -16, -32, -50. Going from -16 to -32 is a huge jump. There needs to be a couple more levels in between. (Going from -32 to -50 is huge as well, but that's just going from very slow to painfully slow.)

Overall I think I'd still recommend this product, just not sure if the lack of more slower speeds will become an issue or not over time.

Perfect for what it does. Great sound even at 1/2 speed. Looping is seemingless, and guitar effects (distortion/overdrive) are surprisingly nice. However it does not read files converted by Mac softwares such as itune. I recommnend using Realplayer for all MP3 conversions; beside that this little gadget is my best nonhuman friend. Now George Benson, Joe Satriani and other guitar monsters make perfect sense to my ears.

As the reviewers (with more talent than me have said), this is a very good product. I was immediately impressed with the quality of the machined aluminum case, very sturdy. It works as intended, and when you use the slow function in all but the slowest settings, the sound remains very good. It is also very versatile, you can listen through headphone and play acoustic along, you can plug electric through the Tascam and listen through phones, and you can plug your guitar into your practice amp and use a separate cable to plug the Tascam into the import jack of the amp. I use the same cable I use to plug my iPod into the input of my pickup stereo. In fact, sometimes at lunchtime, I go out and play my guitar into trainer, and the trainer into my truck stereo and play through my Bose in the parking lot. Like I said, very versatile.

Here are the two reasons that I cannot give it five stars: first the user interface is good for the song (or playlist) you are playing at the time, but other parts of the menu system are very cumbersome. And secondly, you will have to buy the power supply separately. You can charge it through a USB port and you cannot use it while it is charging. The rechargeable feature is nice but does not last long. It seems like it is always out of power when I want to use it. The power supply is not cheap either.

I agree with other reviewers. Yes, it is very easy to use. No one seems to talk about the FX features. You can add special FX to your guitar sounds - metal, reverb, chorus, crunch, etc. I find that aspect of this rather cumbersome because you need to drill down in to several menus in order to change a setting.

I own two of these. I am a music teacher and a performing musician. I use one for teaching and one for band songs. The speed control makes it possible to slow the tempo down for students. The sound quality suffers when adjustments are made, but it is still good enough to play along with. For my band practice, I am able to put the song in the singer's key, and also to make fine adjustments for recordings that are not exactly tuned to standard pitch. You can plug your instrument directly into it,listen through headphones, and not disturb anyone with the noise. There are a lot of built in effects for the guitar, but I rarely use them because their quality is mediocre. This unit is a great learning tool, but the sound quality suffers when adjustments are made, so I only gave it four stars. I would love to hear something like this that sounds normal when changes are made in tempo and pitch!

Believe the reviews, this is a great little gadget that is a blast to play with. It has so many features- tough construction, tuner, mp3 player, slow-down song ability (without changing the pitch) and some really great sounding preset guitar tones. I like the guitar tones on this better than my old Rockman! Highly recomended for any electric guitar player, beginner or experienced. It's not only great to learn solos and songs with, it's just fun to play anywhere with headphones. I would also recomend the ac adapter (though I still don't have one), the charge in the rechargable battery does drain fairly quickly and does take hours to fully recharge. That's a minor gripe, this thing is really awesome. If only they made this 20 years ago.......

Great product would highly recommend it. I use it alot for practice when I don't want to use an amp has a lot of effecrs which are nice. It is great for learning lead riffs. I really enjoy owning the MP-GT1 and would buy another one if anything happened to mine. Last thing I would recomend is buying the charger also it will charge on the computer but it takes about six hours. Hope this review helps you in your decision.