ANYONE WHO has ever played guitar at a party might want to catch the Music Show in the RDS in Dublin this weekend, where they will get a sneak preview of a new portable device that will mean they never have to remember how American Pie goes.
The i-tab is a touchscreen player that scrolls chords and lyrics on its display, saving amateur musicians from having to leaf through sheets of music or memorise songs outright.
Although it won’t be officially launched until next January at the prestigious NAMM trade show in California, the i-tab is being previewed in Ireland because the technology was developed by a company in Maynooth, Co Kildare.
The hardware will be available in three different models – a 5in screen lite version (expected selling price €175), a 7in pro option (€349) and 12in max (€599), which can play full music scores.
The product will be backed by www.i-tab.com, where customers can download legal tablature, or tab, a form of musical notation that uses chords and lyrics rather than traditional sheet music.
The site will also have video guitar lessons and MP3 backing tracks that can be downloaded and put on to the player through software on the user’s PC. A version is being developed for the iPhone.
According to i-tab chief executive Andy Hirst, i-tab is aimed at the amateur strummer rather than session players. “Right now, this is about the 95 per cent of guys who play guitar and want to see G, C and D above the words,” he says.
Anyone who buys the i-tab will receive €30 of credit for their account to buy tabs, backing tracks or video covers. Each song tab is priced at about 15c each.
Although there are many free tab websites, they are illegal. Hirst says i-tab is fully legal and will pay artists’ royalties. “It’s really important that we become known as a trusted source of quality tabs.”
The site includes an option for customers to submit tabs to songs they have worked out. In return they will receive credit that can be redeemed at the online store.
I-tab, which employs 19 people, will have in-house experts checking all tabs in its song library for accuracy. The company has two patents pending for its technology.
Each device comes with 32 gigabytes of memory. A single gigabyte holds about 16,000 tabs.
“The device is quite simple because a tab is just a rich text file and you just need to scroll it along,” Hirst adds. “We tell the i-tab what tempo the song is at in terms of beats per minute, but anyone learning a song for the first time has the option to slow down the playback until they get the hang of the melody.”
The company is already planning further upgrades to the i-tab. “We’ve identified about three years of product development ahead of us,” he says.
