Photo Credit: Ray Larsen IMG_0357.tif

Over its storied 30-year history, Tascam has designed and built dozens of products—from cassette four-tracks to digital multitrackers—that made the casual act of noodling on the couch a much more creative proposition. The company’s Portastudios helped define and unleash the home recording revolution, but Tascam has also long been a leader in guitar trainers—those handy portable devices that play music at variable speeds and keys, and loop sections so you can learn a song, a solo, or a fragment at your own speed.

The MP-GT1, which unites an MP3 player with guitar-trainer functions, is among Tascam’s latest offerings on the guitar-trainer market. And by adopting the now-near-ubiquitous MP3 as its medium, the unit gives the player the ability to build an expansive and easy-to-manage music library that can be applied to guitar practice through the MP-GT1’s extensive list of training features.

NO DEGREE IN COMPUTER SCIENCE NECESSARY

At just over three by four inches, the MP-GT1 is a ruggedly built, pocket-size device with a manageable user interface that simplifies downloading files from your computer and makes functions easy to navigate. The housing, made from aluminum and high-impact plastic, feels reassuringly sturdy, and the unit’s weight helps minimizes the risk of dragging it across the table and onto the floor when you stand up with your headphones on.

Downloading tunes into the MP-GT1 is as easy as downloading to an iPod. I plugged the MP-GT1 into my computer’s USB port with the supplied cable; “connected…USB” appeared on the screen of the MP-GT1 and an external drive named “MP-GT1” appeared on my computer. Clicking on the external drive led me to the MP-GT1’ s “Music” folder, where files could be dragged from my computer’s music library. (The MP-GT1 holds up to 240 songs, more than I’ve needed to learn in several years.)

The bottom of the MP-GT1 features a combined ⅛-inch headphone/line out jack, a ¼-inch guitar input jack, and input volume control. The side of the unit sports a power jack (an AC adapter is optional), a power switch, and a USB port. The MP-GT1 also uses a rechargeable lithium ion battery that’s recharged via USB from your computer. While there were no problems with low battery levels the entire time I auditioned the MP-GT1, the case opens easily, enabling access to the battery for replacement or recycling.

The LCD is easy to read and, although a bit pixelated, provides plenty of information without resorting to run-to-the-manual abbreviations. For example, the “loop” icon looks like a loop and submenus display full words like Information, Browse, and Playlist, rather than cryptic abbreviations.

The touch wheel, which handles scrolling and value-changing chores, has a brushed aluminum surface with little plastic bumps for traction. Dedicated Reverse, Play/Pause, and Fast Forward buttons make scanning through a tune easy, and key-based selection of oft-used functions like Loop, Menu, Loop “in” and “out” points (I/O), and guitar effects (FX) allows for quick and intuitive navigation without much frantic manual-thumbing.

TRAINING LITTLE FINGERS TO PLAY … LED ZEPPELIN!

I put the MP-GT1 to work while arranging Led Zeppelin’s “Going to California” for voice and solo guitar. Zep’s performance is in dropped-D tuning and Robert Plant’s high tenor is way above my voice, so I used the MP-GT1’ s Playback Pitch control to drop the song from D down to C. Much more manageable!

Working through the transposition of the signature mandolin and lead guitar lines on my guitar, I quickly found that I could nail most of the lines at −16 percent of the original speed. At these slowed-down tempos, the MP-GT1 still sounded clear and free of ugly digital artifacts, although you’ll get some underwater-sounding stutter when you push the speed to −32 or −50 percent. The compression used on MP3 files became evident when I focused on bass frequencies—they seem to disappear beneath peaks in the voice and other prominent instruments—but the guitar and mandolin lines I was working on were largely unaffected.

As my work on “Going to California” progressed, I occasionally employed the Guitar Cancel function. This feature cancels signals at specific selectable frequencies and locations in the stereo field, and while it never quite made the guitar disappear, it effectively dropped the volume of the guitar frequencies enough on certain lines to help highlight my accompaniment and nurture my confidence. Looping short segments of the song for repeated practice was a simple matter of hitting the I/O key and selecting a start and end point for the section. I found the onboard effects of minimal use on acoustic guitar, except for their high entertainment value. While I’ll never use massive distortion and flanging on an acoustic guitar gig, it was fun to occasionally play rock and metal riffs between my more serious practice sessions.

THE WRAP

The MP-GT1 was a pleasure to use. After passing it among several students, ranging from iPod-addicted teens to cell phone—phobic adults, their reactions confirmed that the Tascam MP-GT1 is a well-conceived and solidly executed learning tool—one that’s not just intuitive to use, but brimming with enough music storage capability and tutorial tools to make it a practice feature for years down the road.