PocketGuitar - Virtual Guitar in Your Pocket for Android

I’m a professional guitarist who teaches, and I have toured many countries, so it’s reasonable for the casual observer to assume I play the guitar a lot. It’s also reasonable to say that I think about the guitar a lot. In the same vein, one may correctly assume that I wish I could play the guitar all the time. PocketGuitar allows you to play guitar when one isn’t right next to you. Granted, I would advise against using this - or really, any other app while, say, driving. But if you want to run down an idea while waiting in line at the bank or the coffee shop, you can - thanks to this app. I should also mention that even though I have perfect pitch, PocketGuitar is tremendously useful. Sometimes you need to see the grid, you know? That way, when you get back to a non-virtual instrument, the ideas are fresh in your mind. I wish PocketGuitar had been around when I was daydreaming in high school... actually, no. I’m fine with the way my grades turned out with fewer distractions. Highly recommended!

This is a visually pretty guitar app with decent sounds and even some playability. I’m amazed it’s still on the App Store and not broken by iOS updates. However: It’s never going to be like a real guitar. You have to play with it from the perspective of knowing and accepting this. The menus are clumsy (tiny targets, and you have to hold & drag, like the behavior of classic Android OS 7 and earlier menus). Also, as of today (January 6th, 2020), I’m noticing note fluctuation bugs. I have to restart the app to get it to stop doing this. It seems to be some mode that particular samples get stuck in where it flips back and forth between the normal sustained note sample and something else (maybe a different sample or playback rate). I assume this is due to iOS changes because it never did this to me before (though I don’t use the app much at all, I think I would’ve noticed it years ago if it happens this quickly in a session of use). It’s kind of an iOS classic, and it still works, but it could stand to be updated.

I have had this app for many years - Android 4, Android 5s, and now, on my Android 7 Plus - it still works! What I like most is being able to change the tunings to experiment - especially open tunings and even “custom tuning”. With built- in effects, it can real wail (reverb, distortion)! You can hold and bend notes, etc. Great sustain. Fun to jam on - especially when you don’t have a guitar handy. You want chords? Play chords. This is for guitarists - not a “toy”. You have all 6 strings and 7 frets - strum or hammer-on or both. Seems to work well with the larger sized screen of my 7 plus. I hold it just like a guitar. Crazy!

The app could have gone far, the fact a user can move up and down the neck is terrific. I would rather see an app like this that anchors at nut where the head stock is and has frets sized respectively. Obviously you have to reduce size, but for heaven sake distances have to be proportional from fret to fret. Now that I would buy, I bought this piece of 2nd rate dev crap and I am actually amazed it still loads on current ios. Doubt that would still apply if implementation were par for the cours(e) and PocketGuitar had been a playable iGuitarAPP. Peace, Halmummy

I like picking don’t get me wrong but It would be cooler to be able to play chords