COOL GEAR ALERT: Yonac steel guitar app for iPhone

Published July 30, 2009 | By Peter Hodgson

Extreme cool gear alert. This just arrived in my email from Yonac Software (follow them on Twitter here).

Yonac Software Releases Steel Guitar, Innovative Guitar App for iPhone and iPod Touch

Steel Guitar is the first steel guitar application for iPhone and iPod Touch to use unique interface that allows anyone to create music.

(New York, NY – July 29, 2009) Yonac Software is pleased to announce the release of Steel Guitar. Steel Guitar started as an idea of bringing a beloved instrument to the iPhone. The result is an incredible user interface that allows users to play with ease and unique settings to customize the sound. Steel Guitar utilizes several features to empower the guitarist including:

• Slide guitar emulator with “pedal” bending and multiple instruments

• 4 instruments:
Lap Steel (6-String)
Eight-String
Nashville (10-String with E9 tuning)
Texas (10-String with C6 tuning)

• 4 different tones per instrument:
Clean
Tweed
Tolex
Brit

• Easy fretboard scrolling

• Built-in common tunings and/or pedal-hookups for each instrument

• Volume/pitch bend pedals hooked up with 4 axes of the iPhone/iPod Touch Accelerometer

• Adjustable fret width, pickup height and string spacing

• Chorus/Vibrato effect

• Compatible for iPod play along

CEO and Steel head designer James Yonac remarks:
“The Guitar has always been my first love…after working on a good deal of musical apps, [one] gets to know the iPhone interface inside and out. For some time, we have been working on emulating an instrument that would fit the iPhone interface like the proverbial glove. One of my personal favorites is the pedal steel. The most interesting thing about [the iPhone] is how well it is suited to emulate something like a lap or a pedal steel. You control the actual instrument with a so-called ‘bar’, with which you slide from fret to fret, and use your dominant hand to pluck, and pretty much take it from there. It’s much easier than attempting to play a conventional guitar on such a small screen, and in my opinion, much more musical. This carried over very well to the iPhone platform, and I think we hit the spot with how we implemented the emulation. This also sets Steel Guitar apart from most of the guitar apps out there: it’s something unique in this arena of instrumentation, and
not something you’re going to see many likes of.”

Steel Guitar is now available at the Apple iTunes app store for $.99.

Yonac Software was founded in New York City in 2008. The company mainly focuses on the development of music and sound related software. In September 2008, they released the hugely successful miniSynth, the app store’s first synthesizer. Yonac’s other iPhone applications include MegaSynth, one of the most powerful polyphonic synthesizers available, TuneORama, an easy-to-use guitar tuner, and Thereminator, a touch screen theremin.