• The Gibson app now features the ability to create a custom tone for your guitar no matter where you are.
• The Gibson Digital Amp features three acoustic mic presets, four electric amp presets, and six effect pedals.
• This feature looks like a useful tool for beginners but not much beyond that.

Ubisoft’s Rocksmith is a game that teaches you how to play the guitar but it demands you be at home and lugging your PC around isn’t convenient.

Enter the Gibson app which we only recently learned about despite it being released a few months ago. The app has a number of features but its most notable, until now, was that it offered a way to learn to play the guitar. The app offers free and premium lessons, a built-in guitar tuner, and a metronome.

This week Gibson has added a new feature to its app: a digital amp.

Before we dive into this we need to discuss how Gibson picks up your guitar. As you might know, without an amp, electric guitars don’t really work. The Gibson app reportedly listens to you play, picks that up and turns the audio into a guitar tone that you hear through your headphones.

It seems like this could be very hit-and-miss especially if you’re not in a quiet room.

“The Gibson App uses “audio augmented reality” to provide dynamic feedback to students as they learn and play. As you pluck a note or strum a chord, the Gibson App listens to your guitar and gives you real-time feedback on your playing,” Gibson explains in a press release.

With that in mind, on to the digital amp. With this feature, Gibson is giving guitarists the ability to take a custom amp on the road. Unfortunately, customisation only includes three acoustic mic presets, four electric amp presets, and six effect pedals. You can customise each of these effects to get the tone and sound you want.

While Gibson says this is the “ultimate starting amplifier” we don’t see any serious guitarist using this app long-term. Sure, a digital amp on the go may seem attractive at first blush but as you scratch at the surface it starts to feel less and less like something we need.

For instance, professional guitarists will more than likely have their setup committed to memory or their guitar tech will. Importantly, pros also carry their equipment with them.

For beginners, this seems nice but we’d argue that Rocksmith+ is a better tool for learning that doesn’t require you to sit in absolute silence so your smartphone can hear you.

The other glaring issue is that the Gibson app is available exclusively for iOS and iPadOS. While the guitar maker says the Android app is coming in 2023, for now, there is no Android app and links to the Play Store on the Gibson website direct to the App Store.

If you’re a guitarist, it can’t hurt to download this app and try it out but if you’re a beginner we do recommend Rocksmith+ even if it is a pricey alternative that requires a special cable.

[Image – CC 0 Pixabay]