Fretlight limits

ok I've had another good play around with my fretlight and I am starting to form the opinion, that its a bit hmmmm.

Its very handy for learning chords and scales, quite brilliant for that, my fretboard knowledge is expanding greatly, which lucky for me is why I bought it.


But for trying to learn songs.....nah...at least not with the software that comes with it. Its a wee bit like trying to play guitar hero with an unknown song set to hard level.

And I realised why, when you read tab, you do at least take in a couple of notes at a time and therefore know whats coming up, with the fretlight...its all in your face, there's the note, hit it hit hit ..too late..gone.

Of course you can slow down playback and watch 1st, but really reading the tab, playing back slowly and then trying to follow the lights is the best way, which tbh you don't need to follow the lights because you can hear if you played it right or not.

What it needs is something GarageBand does quite well, a way to analyse what you play back to see how close it matches the song, perhaps even waiting till you hit the right note before moving on to the next...This needs an audio input into the computer but those are easy to come by and am sure Fretlight could brand something from China to do the job.

Also I discovered a major quality issue last night, well a couple in fact, when wire plugged into an amp, and the usb side hooked up I got incredible computer noise back through the amp..I mean really bad. I hooked it up wirelessly to cut the link between amp and computer becuase it was soo bad.
2nd the nut is rubbish, I was learning SRV's Mary had a little lamb, which needs a 1st string 3rd fret bend and every single time the string popped out of the nut. Even my cheapest guitar does not do that. Grr
I attempted a little home repair to deepen the nut groove, which then caused a major 1st fret buzz, so I had to raise the action at the bridge on 1 string...hmmmm

Well its not good is it, but its a teaching aid not a real guitar regardless of what they may say.

I'm also not terribly impressed with the teaser emails Fretlight send out, free play along videos (they play a vid and light up the fretboard as the notes are hot)...only they are not free videos, they are 30-40sec samples of a full video they are selling..I hate that...supply the songs for free, the full songs. Stop trying to make post sale sales, stand by your product and use the vids to promote and enhance it not make money out of those.

Oh and to top it all off, Dutch Customs have still not sent me a refund or contacted me about the overpayment!!! Another letter I think.


Ahthankyew