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

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.