guitars and computers

[WPIEngineer]

I'm starting to find myself very interested in learning to master the guitar; both electric and accoustic. In my recent thoughts, I was wondering what I could actually do with my computer to help me learn on my own faster. An idea popped into my head that I could write some software (maybe in VBasic) to display the frequency spectrum taken from the guitar's signal. Being an engineering student, when I hear sound (music or otherwise), to fully understand the structure of it, I need to see exactly what's going on in the frequency spectrum.

I think the hardest part for me would be to figure out how to use the signal coming directly out of the guitar and converting it into something useful. I'm sure it's just a simple waveform, but I'd need to explore it more. There's an abundance of good algorithms to compute FFTs and the software shouldn't be too hard to code if I plan ahead well. This would make a pretty good project to keep me away from my PS2 video games over Christmas break :). Maybe some software like this already exists, but I haven't done any research into it. Anyone have ideas or good resources I could use?

~Jay

ps - While I'm writing this, I might as well ask if anyone knows where I can find a wav or midi file so I can tune the 6th string without a tuning fork. I did a quick search on google, but came up short.

[steveo]

You could try here (http://www.jamcenter.com/tuner.html)

You may try this (http://www.worldguitar.com/tuner.html)

Or this (http://www.guitarnotes.com/guitar/instruction.shtml#tunings)


Depending on your soundcard you may already have the means to tune up. The Soundblaster Live! series software comes with a internal sound engine which features some goodies that will enable you to tune just about anything.


good luck