“One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain.” – Bob Marley.
Here are some gadgets for all you music lovers out there.
Sol Republic Master Tracks
These noticeably big, over-ear headphones are comfy and come with excellent sound. The ‘big’ parts of these headphones are the over-ear cups that essentially encircle your entire ear, comfortably. The Master Tracks are not wireless or Bluetooth-enabled but the Sonicsoft speaker pads create an unparalleled and immersive sound experience. The Master Tracks feature a few color options such as electric blue, gunmetal and white.
Available at RadioShack fro $149.99
gTar
For any student that has some time on their hands or want to learn a new skill, gTar provides them with a great pastime. gTar is an app-enabled smart guitar equipped with a multi-touch LED fret board that indicates where to place your fingers and smart strings that have sensors that detect notes by using a regular pick, the SmartPick or your fingers. Users dock their iPhone into the gTar’s body and using the gTar app, or numerous other compatible apps, the guitar teaches the user their favorite songs using three modes of difficulty. All sounds made by the gTar play through your iPhone, including backup instruments and effects. The gTar tracks how well you are learning each song in real-time and also has the ability to be set to “FreePlay” played like a regular guitar. Pre-orders only, $399
Watch how it works and to order here.
For the engineer, the gTar is fully hackable, find out how at incidentgtar.com.
Ultimate Ears Boom (UE Boom)
The UE Boom portable bluetooth speaker is great for every occasion. With a water and stain resistant acoustic skin, the UE Boom is perfect for the beach and pool party. Its cylindrical shape allows for a 360-degree sound output. A subsidiary of Logitech, the UE Boom is able to provide high quality music with a sleek beautiful design. You can enjoy 15 hours of playback on one charge and users can pair two speakers together using the UE Boom app for iOS and Android devices for stereo output.
$199.99 Available in 6 colors ultimateears.com
Outdoor Tech Tuis
The Tuis from Outdoor Tech are a set of completely wireless headphones that fold to fit easily into the pouch given in the box. With a matte black color scheme (also comes in gray), the Tuis are comfy, fully portable, and capable of pairing with any Bluetooth-enabled device like your laptop, smartphone, or tablet. The crystal-clear audio has a range of up to 30 feet and the headphones allow an individual to place hands-free phone calls. A 3.5mm auxiliary jack comes standard in the box and allows you to use them in situations that don’t allow for Bluetooth connectivity, like on an airplane or with a device that lacks wireless capability.
Available on Outdoor Tech’s website for $149.95
QuNeo
QuNeo by Keith McMillen Instruments is a pad controller created for electronic musicians, such as DJs and VJs. The pad has switches, pads, sliders and rotary sensors, which are all pressure, velocity and location sensitive. These allow for scrubbing, triggering, stretch, pinching and playing phrases and sound files. The QuNeo is the size of an iPad and works with USB, MIDI or OSC and is compatible with popular music software, such as Ableton Live, Serate Scratch Live, Traktor, Apple Logic Pro and more. The pad features 251 programmable multi-colored LEDs with 16 levels of brightness. It is Windows, MAC and Android compatible. $199 keithmcmillen.com
Check out the QuNeo in action here.
