Planet Waves Guitar Tools

Prior to the launch of Planet Waves Guitar Tools, I had several different apps on my iPhone dedicated to one of my most passionate hobbies. A tuner app, a different app for my chord library and so on. But now, thanks to D'Addario & Company, Inc., a company featuring a family of world-renowned musical instrument accessory brands, I'm able to remove these apps and replace them with one that consolidates all of my needs into one app.

Planet Waves Guitar Tools is comparable to the genre of multi-purpose apps containing several, useful utilities, all wrapped up in one, nice package, as opposed to 20 separate apps. It's geared toward guitar players/enthusiasts and contains all the tools one would need while enjoying this popular past-time and more.

Guitar Tools has a simplified user interface: A comprehensive list of 7 popular tools (necessities), each identified by a different-colored guitar pick:

1. Chords: A catalogue of over 7,000 interactive guitar chords.
2. Chord Finder: Learn the proper names of your chords, via an interactive fret board.
3. Scales: Thousands of scales for you to practice to help you hone your technique.
4. Tuner: What else? A professional-grade guitar tuner!
5. Metronome: A built-in metronome which allows you to keep in time.
6. Teachers Near Me: Find an instructor near you, by accessing domestic and international lists of music instructors.
7. Stores Near Me: Much like the above, find a music store near you for all your equipment needs.

The main screen interface for each feature is standardized, user-friendly fare, consisting of arrows, touch gestures (swipes, taps, etc.) and dials: Each tool displays an interactive fretboard which users can use to make, play or find chords, arrows that progress the user through various functions, such as chord families and a pop-up dial, which is used to select a chord class, scale, etc., among others.

Users can further customize each tool to their liking, with standard settings such as play orientation, tuning, detune, etc.

The Teachers/Stores tools use your device's built-in location-based capabilities. That said, the only real complaint I have about this app is that it could be a tad more accurate. I searched for teachers in my town I know exist, but the app couldn't find them. The stores in my town, however, all showed. Tapping on a teacher pulls up a surprising amount of contact info, while tapping on a store pulls up the phone number and address. Teachers can be imported into your Contacts and tapping on an address opens the iDevice's native Google Maps program, allowing you to find/map your route easily.

In all, this app is as well-designed and comprehensive as they come. It's fun to use, works exactly as advertised and covers all the bases, giving you a "we-got-this" feeling hard to find in most other apps. This one's a keeper.