By Mike Riley
Sun, 08/19/2012
Looking for a variable audio playback program that will help you learn a challenging guitar solo or complicated keyboard harmony? AnyTune Pro HQ has come to the rescue. Going far beyond other trainers bundled in guitar or vocalist apps, AnyTune Pro HQ is strictly dedicated to flawless audio speed manipulation and instrument training. Is it worth the asking price? Read on to find out.
Having used a number of audio apps on both the desktop and portable devices (and back in the analog days of LP turntables, manually spinning records clockwise and counter-clockwise to learn a lick), I was already quite familiar with what AnyTune Pro HQ had to offer. However, my jaded expectations were blown away when I heard the quality of the speed and pitch playback settings.
Unlike other audio trainer apps that I have used (especially on the iOS platform), Anystone Technologies, the developer of AnyTune Pro HQ, has hit the sweet spot by not only allowing me to target a specific passage from any song in my sync'd iTunes music library, but also hearing the playback in a minimally garbled form even on the slowest or fastest playback speed was a pleasant surprise. Even more appreciative is the fact that AnyTune smartly includes a pause timer when playing back loops so that you're not constantly disoriented and trying to catch up when playing along with a interlude you're trying to teach yourself. It's small feature inclusions like these that got me excited about using AnyTune Pro HQ, and raised it above the myriad of other audio trainers I've used in the past.
The app also includes Anystone's 'FineTouch' EQ editor that helps you isolate a particular audio frequency and enhance or mute it accordingly. Say for example you're trying to learn a rhythm guitar part of a song. You can isolate and amplify that guitar frequency to more easily discern the instrument and the notes being played. Then, once you have mastered the passage, you can mute the recorded guitar and jam along as the guitarist's replacement. Doing so is easy thanks to the intuitive waveform editing point controls that AnyTune Pro HQ provides.
Overall, AnyTune Pro HQ is an incredibly useful application for musicians and music students alike. While a bit more expensive than other audio manipulation programs, Anystone obviously knows the annoyances with the current crop of competing apps and has done a spectacular job of overcoming those issues. Of all the universal iOS apps designed to slow down audio for music practice, AnyTune Pro HQ is the current top recommendation on my list.
Product: Anytune Pro HQ
Developer: Anystone Technologies
Price: $14.99
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
