Gigajam News

Welcome to the launch of the new Xtractor X5, the award winning Gigajam practise engine for guitar, bass, keyboard and drum lessons. X5 is a major re-development from the ground up, offering you greater stability, responsiveness, and compatibility. Not to mention additional functionality.

New MIDI engine

X5 has a whole new MIDI engine at it’s core. We now have an engine with which we have been able to create a fantastic practice and recording experience for our users. It also allows us to continually develop in response to our customer needs.

Easy to connect

Thanks to the new MIDI engine, connecting to instrument hardware is now easier. No longer do instruments’ MIDI clocks have to be configured every time you use them. You can also select both Input and Output devices for ultimate flexibility.

Instrument compatibility

X5 is compatible with more instruments, particularly those that do not allow their internal MIDI clocks to be disabled. X5 is also able to enable General MIDI mode on instruments where GM is not the default.

Customisable views

Built upon Microsoft’s .NET 3.5 and the Windows Presentation Framework, X5 has been adorned with a fresh new interface. It’s possible for the user to toggle various parts of the interface and customise it to their needs.

Automatic updates

X5 has user configurable automatic updates. You’ll now be told when a new version is available and asked if you want to install and download it.

Error Reporting

A big challenge to developers is the constant evolution of software and hardware environments that computers operate in. X5 allows users to automatically report any unexpected errors and stay up to date, maintaining X5’s performance.    

Download X5 now

Existing customers download Xtractor X5 now.

Gigajam is an affordable ICT based instrumental tuition programme that provides a scalable solution to teaching and learning the guitar, bass, keyboard and drums. If you would like to know more about Gigajam and how it is helping create musicians, then please feel free to get in touch.

Gigajam can provide stand alone, network and Learning Platform VLE solutions for Primary Schools, Secondary Schools and Local Authorities.

http://schools.gigajam.com
Freephone 0800 055 6797
brian.greene@gigajam.com
john.hillier@gigajam.com

Open College Network Credit4Learning, one of the UK’s national accreditation services
for learning and skills, has announced that Gigajam’s Essential Skills Courses for
the guitar, bass, keyboards and drums can now be studied to earn credits to gain entry
into further and higher education courses.

The courses contain learning outcomes, detailed lesson instructions that are supported
by ‘how to’ videos by professional musicians; play-along and record software to encourage
practice; and Analyser, Gigajam’s eAssessment software. This provides students with
a graphical representation of their performances and a score out of 100. Students
can then store their Analyser files in a personal e-portfolio.

The OCNcredit4learning credits will be awarded to students who complete each Gigajam
lesson. Students have to reach a required percentage score for each exercise to gain
the credits; and each lesson has been awarded a ‘credits score’ based on the number
of hours the average learner would take to complete the lesson. All students have
to do is present their performance to the required standard and have certain key exercises
witnessed by an approved assessor, who could be their school teacher, a private music
tutor, or by submitting performances via webcam to Gigajam.

Brian Greene, managing director at Gigajam said: “Gaining accreditation from OCNcredit4learning
is a major step forward for us. Studying and learning to play a musical instrument
is enough for many students, but giving them the recognition for their hard work that
can be put forward for future studies is a great incentive to continue learning. Many
of our students are school-based and a number of schools have expressed an interest
in some form of qualification or certification from us.”

Katherine Gillard, chief executive, OCNcredit4learning said: “We have worked closely
with Gigajam to establish the correct levels of attainment. For each completed Gigajam
level, students will be able to accumulate 14 credits at the corresponding National
Qualifications Framework level. Completion of each level is the equivalent of 140
hours of study recognised by the National Qualification Framework. Students completing
all three levels of a Gigajam course will now have achieved 14 OCN credits at each
of Entry Level, Level One and Level Two, forming part of the credits required for
entry into Further and Higher education.”

Schools, colleges and other organisations are able to register for accreditation of
the Gigajam Essential Skills courses through OCNcredit4learning. More details are
available on schools.gigajam.com or www.credit4learning.com

Schools across London have become the first in England to receive a Gigajam upgrade
via their local broadband network. London Grid for Learning hosts the first five lessons
of Gigajam’s Essential Skills Courses for guitar, bass, keyboards and drums, which
are freely available to schools.

The new-look lessons have been adapted in response to feedback from schools and were
developed to meet with the technical standards of Learning Platforms and anytime,
anywhere learning.

The five significant changes are:
• lessons now load much quicker, as they are presented through a web browser instead
of PDF files

• the ‘how to’ videos of professional musicians are embedded in the web pages, which
speeds up streaming
• all lessons are narrated, so that students can listen and read the instructions
• there are four lesson approaches to suit different learning styles;

o fully narrated lessons
o video and exercises only
o printable PDF book format

o TV shows

If your school is within the London Grid for Learning you are invited to use the new
lessons at www.lgfl.org.uk (http://cms.lgfl.net/lgfl/web/content/grid)

Today Gigajam released their new Analyser 2.7 music assessment software.

Analyser is a unique tool that takes music files recorded by a student during a Gigajam
lesson exercise and generates a graphical display of how well the student did, along
with a percentage assessment rating.

It does this by comparing the student’s recorded performance with the professionally
written lesson content supplied as part of the the Gigajam Essential Skills courses.

The courses are geared around contemporary music for Guitar, Bass, Keyboards and Drums
and are ideally suited to beginners and intermediate players alike.

A student first reads through the professionally written lesson notes, watches a video
of the exercise in question and then hears the music played back in the Gigajam Xtractor
software - which also allows the student to adjust the tempo and fade particular instruments
in and out of the mix. They are also able to isolate parts of an exercise by setting
loop points, so that they may focus on a particular number of bars.

If the student is using a MIDI enabled instrument, they can also record their own
performance alongside the exercise, save it to disk and play it back to hear how they
did. They may then push the “A” button to perform an analysis using Gigajam Analyser.

The student can also send the saved performance to their tutor or teacher via e-mail
so that a remote assessment can be performed using another copy of Gigajam Analyser
and Xtractor - without having to have any musical equipment hooked up whatsoever.
The remote tutor is also able to play back the recorded file to hear the students
performance using a PC whilst they visually assess the recording using Analyser.

Analyser forms part of a “closed loop” approach to education as part of Gigajam’s
policy to supply Key Stage 2 and 3 classrooms with an interactive music education
platform - which is also available for purchase using e-learning credits through the
Curriculum Online service.

It is also available on the Gigajam website to the general public as a single user
licence.