Blind-Summit
THE GUITAR PLAYERS COMMUNITY

Fret2Fret Software Review

Every good site should contain a full mix of both good and bad reviews. This is one for the latter I’m afraid. I have Google’s Adsense setup on the website to deliver you the users, some targeted adverts. Whilst any advert is something I can’t really stand - I had faith in Google to deliver us something good. I have looked at many different sites that these ads link to - and some are great. Infact, I have another great review to follow shortly. However, the software I am going to talk to you about is not the case.

Many times we will see adverts claiming to provide you with a “secret” or some sort of special speed training to make you play like a pro. This was one such site. The main page was awash with feedback from past customers that have loved the software. The owner of the site and the software claims to be an “Advanced Guitarist, Instructor, and Celebrated Inventor”

“95% of the worlds guitarists do not have the one skill it takes to become very good at playing the guitar, the other 5% have spent many years learning it. I will show you how to master that very same skill in less than 60 minutes”.

This is the title of the main page at www.fret2fret.com. Like many normal people, I would have just avoided this like the plague. I decided in the interests of putting to rest these daft claim, I would pay up the $28 (about £16) and just see for myself.

How I was right! After paying over PayPal, which I was happy about, I received the link to download the Fret2Fret software as well as a host of other bonus items worth some $300. I dived into the exe file and found it to be a simply made flash application.

I would like to just say that although I had my reservations about it - I did try and keep an open mind and give it a chance. I’m not going to print a load of screenshots of the software and give it away, but I will explain the concept.

The idea was basically to assign a celebrity name, or someone well know to yourself, to each note letter A to G. For example A would be Arnold Schwarzenegger, B would be Brian May and so on. You then would need to remember the note pattern that you may or may not know - over each string on one fret - A, D, G, C, F, A#, D#, G#, C#, F#, B, E, A. So the “secret” here is to make up a story that allows you to replace the notes with peoples names - and then remember the not locations relative to each other by means of this story. The first line was “Arnold Schwarzenegger is holding Danny Devito up by the scruff of his neck. Danny Devito is desperately trying to kick a football out of Gary Linnekers hand but his legs just can’t make it….” This would help you (?) to remember that the A note on a fret would have the D note on the same fret but one string up (so the A note - 5th fret of the low E has a D note on the 5th fret of the A string below)

To me - this just seems like a more confusing way to learn the same amount of information. If you can remember a long story about what celebrity is doing what then you can easily remember that initial pattern of notes (A, D, G, C, F, A#, D#, G#, C#, F#, B, E, A) without the need for a story from some ladies gossip magazine.

To be fair - I can see if you were heavily into soaps like Eastenders or something and having a list of Celebrities or famous people to get you along then fair enough. Personally, it’s not for me and when I was starting out - it’s just not the right way to learn theory. I am open to discussion about this - so please go to the forums and tell me I’m wrong. I do think that given enough time to learn the story - you could feel happy with it and be able to navigate the notes over the fretboard. He is also on the mark when he describes that the best players will know where the notes are at the drop of a hat - this is still very important.

But again, personally - I think learning each end every note isn’t too difficult given time of just playing songs. You learn a new chord - you notice the notes and then after a while - you start to pickup on where things are. Power chords will very quickly teach you the root notes - and hence the location of notes on the low E and the A string.

Before I talk about the other material included in the download, I would like to say that Mike does kindly offer a 30 day return policy and true to his word he did refund my money. I am removing the software from my system because I have no use for it. You will lose about £1 or so from PayPal for the refund and perhaps some in the exchange rate if you live outside the US, but by all means try this out for yourself.

So next up, the free gifts. I don’t want to go too into detail here as these are just little extras. The software does include a bass version - just the same as the guitar package. You also get a tuner/metronome/drum loop program - nothing at all special here. A scale tool which is reasonable - but then to save yourself $24.99 for the original software - there are a host of other totally free scale tools out there. Same goes for the tuner/metronome/drum loop program. We have these on blind-summit.co.uk for you to use free anyway! The fretboard warrior software - also for mac, allows you to test the speed you can name notes. This is really dire - you basically hear a note and see it’s location - then have to name it by clicking the right note name. This is not going to help anyone - apart from lose the will to live.

The next item is a document about how to get the right tone from your effects. This is quite interesting to read - but I’m not sure how he’s able to give it away for free? Likewise with the huge collection of tabs. He places a $99.99 value on them - yet these are clearly downloaded from OLGA style tab sites. I didn’t look into this much - but I was able to find some up to date album tabs but for the sake of a 50MB ish download - you may as well just google the song you are after instead.

This is basically all I want to say. I don’t feel ripped off as I got a full refund (minus the cut that PayPal took) but I think this is, as I knew it would be, just another scam. Again - feel free to argue this with me on the forums.