Script:
I am so tired of all these subscriptions. Yousician, Rocksmith Unlimited, Simply Piano, and so many more applications require monthly to yearly payments. And that’s just in the realm of learning music. Need I go on with video streaming? I still got my Quibi subscription boys! I just wish we could go back in time to before there were all these subscriptions. Like, say… 2013. Ah yes, back when I was still in high school! I didn’t have to pay for anything other than food and gas back then. Luckily, the company EMedia published their old software back in 2016 on the steam page. Look at EMedia’s Interactive Rock Guitar for PCs and certain mac computers.
[Intro]
I know you can see the game footage behind me; yes, that is what the software looks like. Interactive Rock Guitar is basically an interactive PowerPoint that aims to teach you how to play the guitar. It looks and runs a lot older than it actually is, especially when considering Rocksmith original came out a year before and Rocksmith 2014 came out a year prior. From the looks of it, all of EMedia’s teaching software is based on the same engine so it’s probably way older than the copy right date.
As far as the content goes… I will say each slide is pretty great with a ton of information on getting started with guitar. The content ranges the parts of a guitar to power chords to playing tons of different songs through interactive sheet music. I will so the contents page on the screen now, go ahead and pause to read through what the software contains. The website has these screenshots as well but in supper low resolution… yes, I will rant about the company in a few moments… stay tuned for that.
You can see from the footage behind the basic layout of the slides. There is a number at the top and the header. Below that is the content, and on the left will be any interactive information I will cover in a second. Lastly, at the bottom, you can click the left and right buttons to continue. I believe the slides are vector images as they resize very nicely on my 4k monitor without any blur. It’s a good, forward-thinking move on the developer’s part.
Now for the interactive part in EMedia Interactive Rock Guitar. On some slides, you will see a group of buttons. First is the projector button. Clicking that will open up a QuickTime video containing the instructor who has one of the most 2000’s rock beards I have seen. The bassist from System of a Down has nothing on this guy… he has three of them! The instructor is Charles McCrone, who is still making music with the Kaleidoscope school of music. Good to know that the man is still rocking on to this day.
Another button you will see is a face with an exclamation mark. Clicking that will play a voiceover containing additional information based on the slide you are reading. Usually, it’s just a thirty-second clip or less going on a tangent. There isn’t a button that reads the whole slide to you. That’s what I originally thought that button did. Why isn’t that an option as well? It just baffles me.
Two other buttons appearing when there is music on the page are the speaker and backing band buttons. The speaker button plays the entire song that is on the page. A little visual guitar will also show up, highlighting the finger and string placement. It’s a good feature for learning to place everything when rocking out. Once you learn, you are ready to begin practicing. The backing band buttons will play just the rhythm section so you can better hear yourself and keep beat. There are always two backing band buttons, one going slow and the other going fast. I would prefer if it was more of a sliding system due to sometimes needing to practice between these two speeds.
When doing the backing track, the software could supposedly read if you are playing the notes correctly or not and highlight them as it could with Rocksmith. I say supposedly because it didn’t work for me at all. I used both the Rocksmith cables and a USB Guitar cable interface, and neither of them worked. There really isn’t any direction on how to get it working on any of the menus, so I assume it’s an issue with the drivers. The software is made and supports windows XP. I am running this on Windows 11, so that discrepancy is there. As I was editing this script, they updated the site and Windows 11 was added as a system requirement but who knows how accurate that is. I mean it still lists CD-ROM as an option like it’s 2015.
That leads me to my biggest issue with this software. How completely out of date the entire software feels. It looks and runs like some XP freeware software and features no substantial updates or versions to fix it. The issues even extend out to the company. The company feels like it’s been abandoned from time to only now just being fixed as I edit this script. Originally, while doing this review, the website looked like it does behind me. That was in 2021. Since then, they luckily updated the site to a more modern design, but it’s a little telling. Their YouTube channel has been abandoned, with the last video uploaded back in 2019. The last video is an updated product, Ear Trainer, that still looks incredibly dated for coming out just a few years ago. The company completely missed the pandemic, which was a huge mistake for them as everyone is stuck inside wanting to learn something as at least it’s something to do.
The biggest neglect I feel is in the product line. Many of the software they sell all look like the interactive rock guitar, which is outdated. In fact, the software only runs 32-bit, which is a big mistake. On the website, there is a disclaimer about how MacOS 10.15 Catalina disabled the 32-bit apps. That was three years ago. They recommend using macOS Mojave, which is at the end of its life. As a software developer, it is my duty to protect customers’ computers, and part of that is ensuring we build using up-to-date and supported frameworks. The fact that the company still has this disclaimer for over a year is irresponsible.
That brings me to the biggest reason you should not purchase these companies learning software. When I installed the EMedia Interactive rock guitar, one thing that had to be installed with it was QuickTime 7. QuickTime for windows is severely out of date. In fact, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure security agency recommends all computers uninstall it. Apple removed support in April 2016. Why would a company put out an app a month after it expired that requires it and never update it? I tell you, it’s a lazy kind of scummy company that I regret purchasing from.
If you want to learn guitar, buy Rocksmith 2014 or a Yousician or Simply Guitar subscription. Do not buy from eMedia. Despite the security risks, the software is so pitifully outdated compared to its competition. The software was released a year after Rock smith’s original but looks and runs ten years older. I was incredibly disappointed since I wanted to go through the companies’ other items but it doesn’t seem like their active enough to get my money.
So, guys, thank you so much for watching this video slash rant. I won’t review any of these companies’ products, so don’t ask. However, I will review other products without hesitation. To do so, please leave a comment on what you want me to do next below. Subscribe to the YouTube channel for more videos. Like all of my videos for the YouTube Algorithm. Trying to become the next Logan Paul, everyone. Fun fact, I am a year older than him as I am recording this, which shows the power of obesity. Follow me on Twitter @truejackjenk. Lastly, have an amazing day, everyone! All you guys watching are the true rock gods!