Existing users, 
Someone obviously put a great deal of effort into making this product, but I'm not sure that it addresses the needs of many guitar players. Opening the application causes at least five small windows to appear. These windows show notes on a guitar neck, keyboard, and sequencer at the same time. The images are too small to look at while holding a guitar. I had to put the guitar down and peer intently at each image over the top of my glasses. A magnifying glass is a recommended accessory.
The program comes with several demo music like things with and extension of .fret. Opening one of them causes the computer to begin playing and the notes to flash on the guitar neck, etc. The demo music is rather mechanical sounding and uninteresting. As the chords change the display also shows mode changes from Ionic to Dorian to Myxolidian, etc. If I wanted to learn to play guitar so that I sounded like a machine this program could teach me in minutes.
I am sure that I am being unfair in my criticism. I think that this application could be a tremendous resource for someone that could learn how to use it. For an old fashioned guy who is uninterested in the modes of the major scale Fretpet is perhaps overkill. For example: Suppose I have a midi file of a Lester Young or Charlie Parker sax solo. I can already play the song in garage band and learn it by ear, but suppose I want to work out the most efficient fingering with a guitar neck display. Fretpet may allow such work, but I could not figure out how.
All in all it may be a lot quicker and easier to learn to read sheet music instead.
FretPet X
Music sequencer with a guitar-based interface.
Version: 1.1.1
A lot of thought and effort.
Feedback Type: Review
Contributed by: rayk86ss Saturday, November 17 2007 @ 05:15 PM PST
Product Platform: MacOSX
Used Product For: Less than a month
Recommend Product: NO
Overall Rating:
Ease of Use:
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Quality / Stability:
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A lot of thought and effort. - slurslee
Someone also put a great deal of time and effort into writing a manual with a brief tutorial in its early pages. While I appreciate your comments about the viewing size (FretPet was written at a time when giant megapixel displays were rare) it is clear you did not approach the program on its own merits, but applied criteria beyond the program's intent to rate it.For those who can take this program on its own merits, FretPet is a very useful tool that can provide all kinds of coherent compositional elements, if not whole compositions. It has a steep learning curve, which is why I recommend reading the manual thoroughly at least once through and taking advantage of extended tooltips.
I grant you that playing sequences through the built-in Quicktime synthesizer is far from an organic experience. Quicktime is included as a baseline due to its ubiquity and ease of support. For those who have external synth software like GarageBand and Absynth, the program plays far from "mechanically" - and there is a lot to be said for the choice of tempo and your personal compositional style as well.
I appreciate your taking time to write your impressions, but you completely missed the spirit and intent of this program. It is a program for playing, experimenting, and discovering, which is not everyone;s cup of tea. I have created several very interesting pieces of music using FretPet with more powerful synths like GarageBand, Absynth, and even an external Alesis Nano.
For those more willing to make the effort, I think you will find that FretPet opens up a world of musical surprises and insights.
- Scott "Somebody" Lahteine, developer
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Friday, November 30 2007 @ 10:52 PM PST