Jam Sessions

A year ago I was introduced to "Sing & Play DS Guitar M-06," a guitar simulator for the Nintendo DS available in Japan. Huh? Yes, that's what I thought, especially because the video I viewed didn't make it look too exciting. I vowed to play guitar on my guitar, and forgot about it.

Fast forward one year, and the title is now available in the USA as Jam Sessions. I took look-see on the tubes of the Interweb, and was a bit more intrigued by what I saw. The reviews are beyond polarized: people either hate it, because it isn't a game like Guitar Hero, and they cannot "play" it to save their life. Or they love it, because they're a guitar player, and they can see the value in having something insanely portable that pretends to be a guitar. So I of course caved and bought it.

Frankly, I'm amazed at what it can do. Jam Sessions is capable of playing just about any chord you can think of by "fretting" with the DS's direction pad (you can alter this "palette" with an editor that allows one to drag-and-drop chords onto it) then "strumming" by moving your stylus or finger across the strum bar depicted on the touch screen. If you move fast across the strum bar, the guitar sound is louder and more aggressive. You can get up-strokes (the strings will ring out from high to low) by moving the other way across the strum bar. You can simulate muted strings by simply not pressing the direction pad. Hell, you can even add effects: among them is distortion, chorus, flanger, delay, and tremolo (all completely configurable).

Anyone who plays guitar can sort of play Guitar Hero, but that doesn't compare to Jam Sessions. If you are a guitarist, you will be rocking with this "game" in almost no time flat, mouth agape because you won't believe that it's actually akin to playing a real guitar, realistically reacting to nuances in your playing. If you don't play guitar, it'll be almost useless and you'll probably through your DS against the wall. It does have a tutorial which plays some popular songs at you and explains how to choose a chord and strum along, but I think it's only going to be minimally helpful to a novice. Basically, you need to know how to play the guitar already, else you're climbing Mount Everest.

At first I screwed around just stringing chords together, then played a bit of "Desire" by U2 (three chords and the truth, baby), and the rhythm to "She Sells Sanctuary" by The Cult. Experience with the thing has shown that Jam Sessions works best with slower songs that don't need tons of fast strumming action, so the other day I decided to learn "Pigs On the Wing" by Pink Floyd (which, by the way, I've never played on a real guitar). And lo, it worked. It has enough chord changes that it's not as boring to listen to as some of the videos you'll find on the web. I dig!

No, it can't do power chords or single notes, but it does a damn fine job of allowing one to play chords with individual style. If you're not a guitar player, then it might be better to pick up Guitar Hero or learn how to play guitar instead. But if you're a musician that owns a DS, I highly recommend Jam Sessions.

Short Takes: The Joshua Tree Limited Edition

I picked up my Limited Edition tonight and got to quickly examine it.

First off: the packaging. A fair amount of work has gone into its presentation. This limited set is housed in a cardboard shoebox style container which has a small, but nice looking "widescreen" version of the original art. Lifting the lid reveals a hardcover book that has the Joshua Tree symbol embossed on the front. The book contains essays, lyrics, photos, and album credits. Underneath the book is a brown envelope (with a raised Joshua Tree symbol on the front) containing five lithographs of U2 photos by Anton Corbijn. Both of these items are extracted via tugging on a strap of black ribbon.

Underneath these items is the heart of the matter: the discs. They are all housed in individual cardboard sleeves that are recessed into the box. Let me get this out of the way: as nice looking as these are, cardboard sleeves suck because it's far too easy to scratch the discs when extracting them from these envelopes.

I'm not going to comment on the music itself because a zillion people have already reviewed The Joshua Tree plus a majority of the extra songs that are contained on the second disc. I haven't had time to explore the DVD yet, so no words there. What I'm after is the sound quality: "How does the remaster compare to the original CD?"

I was beyond surprised to discover that these are by no means loud discs. This is shocking because the last two U2 releases, Atomic Bomb and U218, are beyond loud. I've compared the waveforms of the 1987 disc and this release, and the first six or seven songs on The Joshua Tree remaster are only marginally louder than the older release. For some bizarre reason, from "Trip Through Your Wires" on, the album appears to have been bumped a little further in volume. It's not a "the dynamic range is destroyed" or "the waveforms are clipped" type of boost mind you, just a small increase in overall loudness compared to the first portion of the CD.

I'm at a loss to understand why this is case. Perhaps they wanted people to not have to turn the volume knob up quite so much to hear the beginning of "Exit" and the entirety of "Mothers of the Disappeared". Perhaps the new engineer decided that the original person mastered the second half of the original too quietly, and that it should be rocking harder so people don't fall asleep in the last twenty minutes.

Regardless, it is fact that none of the songs are anywhere near as loud as current CD releases. This is a pretty astonishing achievement, and I applaud the efforts of the people responsible. Someone over at the Popmart realized that people would buy this set no matter what, so why not make the music sound good regardless of what the suits want? "We're all winners!"

Fancy Pants Joshua Tree

This year marks the 20th anniversary of U2's The Joshua Tree, and to celebrate, Island has released more than a few remasters of it. All include the art that graced the original vinyl and cassette cover, rather than the old CD booklet picture of their blurry faces.

• Boring Edition: remastered CD
  
• Uber Edition: remastered CD, extra CD of rarities and B-sides, and mega-paged booklet
  
• L33t Overpriced Edition: the above 2 CDs, a DVD of videos and Joshua Tree era concert, plus a hardcover book
  
• Nerdy Vinyl Edition: Original album spanned across two pieces of vinyl

The Joshua Tree was in fact the first CD I ever purchased (yeah, I'm sure you're all really surprised to get an idea of how old I am). I bought it before I even owned a CD player, so for once I don't feel so bad about rebuying the same thing I already own. I'm stupid enough to go for the L33t (this makes up for the fact that I didn't buy the extra expanded version of Atomic Bomb), and will report back on how bad the remastering is.

The Master Control Knob Is a Lie

Hot off the presses is Gibson's Robot Guitar, which has electronics in it that automatically turns the tuning pegs to pitch. Words fail me (it's both pure genius and mind-numbing stupidity), so decide for yourself by watching it in action.

The worst thing about it is the steps you have to go through in order to get certain tunings. The number of different colors the Master Control Knob gives off, plus the manner in which you have to twiddle it, is mind-boggling:

"Turn the MCK to the 'E' position. Push twice. Wait until it glows blue. Turn 1/4 rotation until illuminated amber. Wait until coffee is served by guitar. Pull until the MCK glows red, then immerse in water. If not electrocuted, strum lightly. That was great!"

Weekly Album Rundown

Here's some albums (besides the ones I've already mentioned this week) that have been on my radar screen for the past seven days. Get 'em while they're hot.

Puscifer - V Is For Vagina - Tool's Maynard James Keenan's solo release. An unusual array of tribal beats and alternative weirdness, with guest talent Herb (Primus) and Milla Jovovich (yes, that Milla, of Fifth Element and Resident Evil fame). Good mood music, and a winner for CD packaging that parodies aircraft safety cards.

Circus Diablo - One of those supergroups of assembled rock star talent, featuring The Cult's Billy Duffy and former GnR skins player Matt Sorum. An entertaining listen, but nothing that's making me beyond excited. Curiously enough, if going with assembled bands, I much prefer the 3/4s Jane's Addiction hellspawn The Panic Channel, even though no one else on the planet agrees with me.

Freeheat - Don't Worry, Be Happy - Jesus and Mary Chain's Jim Reid's side project. This EP is a winner for those who miss the stylized noise of the Chain. Also be sure to pick up the longer release, Back On the Water, which includes both studio and live tracks.

KMFDM - Tohuvabohu - These industrial pioneers are still pumping it out. Their latest is no Nihil, but it sounds great cranked up to eleven nonetheless. Leave it to the Germans to remind us that thrash, complete with intelligible lyrics and guitar solos, is still cool ("Saft und Kraft").

Twin Peaks: Season Two Music and More - Why it took so long for this to be released is beyond me, but fanboys finally rejoice. You'll have to buy the first soundtrack to get this groundbreaking TV show's haunting main theme, but this follow-up disc also comes highly recommended. Spin it in the background and enjoy a cup of damn fine coffee. And buy the show's DVDs while you're at it, dammit.

Monster Magnet - 4-Way Diablo - On deck for me, but I expect good things. Dave Wynforf is out of rehab and ready to r0ck. Kiddies: you can't kill the metal.

Prince More Hated Than George Lucas?

The Bizarre One has just gotten more bizarre. Prince is apparently moving to sue a bunch of fan web sites for the "heinous" act of publishing his images (even album art) and lyrics. Apparently he's also upset about pictures of tattoos based on him and his logos, and even license plate photos.

George Lucas used to get upset at such things, but after getting such bad press about it, he relented, and now embraces the culture. As near as I can tell, it's been 100% to his benefit to allow fans to use Star Wars everything on their web pages, in their fan-made movies...you name it. If anything it's made the brand stronger rather than water it down.

I'm not quite sure what Prince is thinking by doing this. It could end up being as bad for him as when Metallica got all hot and bothered by Napster. True Napster went the way of the dodo, but that whole fiasco still caused irreparable damage to their image, as fans accused them of being out of touch with their listeners.

I guess I should be fearful that he'll come after me because of the Planet Earth image, huh? Come and get me!

Shaking the Porcupine Tree

Porcupine Tree really pushes all the right buttons for me. I was originally turned onto them because the Rush fanboys were going on about their music. That alone wasn't enough to get me interested, but once Alex decided to guest-play on their Fear of a Blank Planet, I sat up and took notice. The album title is terribly annoying, but the music is quite exceptional. A crazy combination of Tool, Pink Floyd, and Rush; now that's progressive. And having Robert Fripp play from time-to-time doesn't hurt.

What's more, these guys care about their sound quality. The discs I own aren't overly loud, and the instruments have plenty of space to move around in. Many of their releases are available as a true high resolution DVD-Audio (with both stereo and 5.1 mixes). They also sell flac files and high quality vinyl via Burning Shed. Thus, no matter what format you prefer, they'll sell it to you.

Their latest release, Nil Recurring, is a 30 minute EP originally only available for purchase at their concerts. It is currently being sold via their on-line store as a limited edition CD or by way of digital music files (mp3 or flac). It's also included in the Blank Planet DVD-A (high resolution 5.1 only).

Reznor Comments On Producing Saul Williams, Speaks of New Release Via Interscope

Reuters has a Q&A with Trent and Saul Williams where they talk about all things music. So if you want to learn about downloading mp3s, plus Interscope's plans for a nin greatest hits and remix disc, there ya go. And if you want to download/buy Saul's album, do it here.

I downloaded the 192 CBR files for free (might as well get a taste before paying) and so far it's good. "Convict Colony" (and many others) is very nin-y, and "Tr(n)igger" uses Public Enemy samples. And you can't beat the cover of "Sunday Bloody Sunday" with samples of Larry's drums plus a very industrial/nin-y guitar. Trent sings and plays on so much of this that it's almost like having another nin album.

I may have to buy the flac files.