Tascam Guitar Trainers

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

The GTI has been out for a while. Now, they're being sold for about $80 and they've introduced the GTII for about $140.

Do any of you guys have any experience with either of these units? Opinions?

Are there any other "trainers" that play cd's and/or mp3's? I'm looking for something that will drive headphones so I can practice without bothering anybody.

Justin Brown · From: Chicago, Illinois, USA

I have the mp3 one. It's really handy. I use the loop, "guitar cancel", and fine tuning features a lot. It can also slow stuff down but keep the pitch the same - the sound quality gets terrible, of course, but it's useful for figuring things out. I also use that feature to practice stuff I can't quite pull off at full speed, and gradually speed it up.

The only problem I've had with it is that my Emmons sounds like junk when plugged directly in - really muffled and dull. I assume it's designed to see an electric guitar pickup and its an impedance-related thing. I wish it had some kind of onboard eq, but it doesn't. So I run though an eq pedal and it sounds pretty good.

Gary Baker · From: Charlotte, North Carolina

Lee Baucum · From: McAllen, Texas (Extreme South) The Final Frontier

Bo - Yes, I'm looking for a portable unit. One that I can plug my steel into and play along with tracks or instruction material.

Thanks.

Keith Murrow · From: Wichita, KS

I have one of the older, original models and I love it. It has literally helped me take my playing to a whole new level. Quality wise, I've had no trouble with mine, and it has been used for literally hundreds of hours. I've even stuck it in my pack seat on road gigs so that I can work on more tunes in my spare time. It IS plastic, so if you drop it on concrete, it would surely break, but under regular use, mine has held up fine.

The sound quality does degrade as you slow down tracks or change key, but the point is to use it as a learning tool, not like a Walkman or Ipod. At regular speed, though, the CD playback quality is fine. The loop feature is fantastic.

Running a steel direct into it is quite dry and lifeless sounding, and the onboard effects (on my older model, anyway) are useless, obviously aimed at fifteen year old boys playing rock. But things sound great if I insert my Digitech RP50 between and use an amp model patch.

You might find the power output in the headphone section lacking a bit. When I use it at home, I run it into a small Behringer mixer and use the mixer's more powerful headphone output to listen through.

Jonathan Shacklock · From: London, UK

Lee, I've been using the MP-GT1 for about six months, love it, use it every day for practice – it's great having all your practice tracks in one place and the ability to either dial out the steel (more or less) or focus in on it, is invaluable. The battery holds its charge when not in use and it's certainly portable.

I wouldn't describe the construction as "light", in fact it's a good deal more sturdy than the CD version, with the exception of the "power on" slider which is the cheapest, worst designed piece of plastic cr@p ever. You won't believe quite how bad this is in use, until you use it Mad

. Also be warned that the menu system leaves a lot to be desired and I think I'm right in saying there is a number-of-tracks limit – which you may reach way before you hit the 1 gig ceiling if you have lots of short learn-a-lick type tracks.

I also run it through a mini mixer but that's not to say I find the play-through sound quality unacceptable. Overall, minor complaints aside, it's a really useful gadget. I would buy another one straight away if it broke.

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