Gigajam News

Our
musical instrument partner, One Man Band of Banbury (OMB), has secured a supply of
EZ-AG guitars for UK schools.

OMB’s David Cooper said “We are really pleased to continue to support Gigajam by supplying
the hugely popular Yamaha EZ-AG guitars for Gigajam’s school users. We have made arrangements
to supplement our existing stock with a further 100 guitars arriving in March ‘08.
More guitars can be sourced to meet demand and any school interested in the EZ-AG
for their music department just needs to get  in touch with the Gigajam team.”

Gigajam’s Brian Greene said “We are into our third year now with David and his team
at One Man Band. It is great news for our customers for us to have such a great partner
- we started with the supply of 150 Yamaha instruments to the 30 participating schools
in the Buckinghamshire VLE project and OMB have now become our preferred supplier.
We created an online musical instrument store together for our Independent Newspaper
‘Learn to play the keyboard’ promotion in April ‘07,  and have continued to supply
instruments online through Gigajam’s Online Store (www.gigajam.com)
and TV Station (www.gigajam.tv).

Instruments are available for purchase by retail customers at www.gigajam.com and
by schools at http://schools.gigajam.com.
We like to support our customers in their development of learning spaces in music
classrooms, so please feel free to call 0800 055 6797, or email schools@gigajam.com 
to discuss your requirements.

We
often recommend the Yamaha EZ-AG as a way for a beginning guitarist to get the most
from their Gigajam lessons and software. Here’s a quick rundown on the pros and cons.

Pros

1. Is a midi controller- can be used as an input device for notation and sequencing
programs –guitarists do not have to input via a keyboard.

2. Has built in hardware synthesiser.

3. Is a very cheap midi input solution (approximately £140 ex VAT + £40 for Midi-USB
interface).

4. Is funky – kids like it

5. The buttons on the fret board do not hurt fingers – many children give up on the
guitar because the strings hurt their fingers. With the EZ-AG, they learn the fingering
and patterns, etc and succeed without sore fingers. They are then more willing to
‘put up with the sore fingers’ when transferring to a ‘real’ guitar.

6. It is always in tune.

7. It has a range of sounds

8. Can be used as a Bass guitar:

• It has a number of Bass voices – when used with a bass voice the sounds are transposed
to the correct octave and the midi data when analysed appears in the bass clef.

• The frets are closer together and smaller hands can manage it better.

• The bass patterns and knowledge can be learned and acquired and practised on the
EZ-AG.

• The performances can be analysed using Xtractor and Analyser.

• The learner can quickly adapt to the ‘proper bass’ fret spacing and feel.

9. Can be used with batteries/or with a mains power supply.

10. Can be used with a standard guitar ¼ inch jack lead to connect to an amp – for
performance purposes.

11. Has a built in ‘Capo’ function.

12. It works.

Cons


1. Is not a ‘real’ guitar – this poses some problems for some music teachers (esp.
guitarists).

2. Constantly sends ‘System Exclusive’ data as well as midi performance data which
can cause problems with various combinations of interfaces/OS/SequenceXtra (in Xtractor)
– e.g. will only work with MOTU Fastlane on Mac version of Xtractor.

3. Needs a power supply/batteries.

4. Is a bit ‘plasticky’.

5. Controls are in a daft place on the neck where everyone picks up the instrument
and triggers several keys at once causing the device to need a re-set (power OFF/ON).

6. Has only 12 frets.

7. Can’t bend strings.

8. Can’t glissando in an analogue manner – can do a ‘digital (i.e. stepped)’ glissando.

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