Shred Training app

[Maniacal]

Hey all,

I have a few questions and would be grateful if you could give me your opinion.

Me and another ss.org member are currently building a guitar practice app.

The app will have hundreds of exercises for picking, legato, sweep picking, tapping, riffs, licks, chords, scales etc

You will be able to favourite an exercise and add it to your own routine, a great way of instantly creating productive practice sessions.

All of the exercises will use MIDI and have options to speed up/slow down as well as a metronome.

There will be weekly/monthly updates to the app and you will never run out of things to practice. Hopefully there will also be a "lick of the week" too.

Would an app like this be of interest to you?

How much would you be willing to spend on such an app?

Thanks!

 

[Mr. Big Noodles]

Sounds cool. I don't know how much these things normally go for, but whatever is appropriate is a good price. I see guitar apps run anywhere from. $1-10 USD, and I'm sure there are more that are free or more than that. I'm no help on pricing, I know.

 

[GlxyDs]

I would prefer this as a web based app on your computer to be honest. I would easily pay $10 monthly, if not a bit more than that.

 

[Maniacal]

I would prefer this as a web based app on your computer to be honest. I would easily pay $10 monthly, if not a bit more than that.

Please can you elaborate on that? I am not entirely sure what you mean.

 

[GlxyDs]

Basically the entire thing is the same, only developed for a website.

You log in where you can manage your subscription, your schedule, etc. You could include a metronome as well. There is a place for the "Lick of the Week" as well as what is next in your schedule. You can view the logs of your practice there was well.

It'd be easy to pull up the tabs of your lesson or exercise on a nice large screen.

Print out your schedule too if you like to remind you what to do on certain days!

 

[Maniacal]

I am planning doing a subscription website next year.

It will be similar to the app except using videos.

The videos will be "practice with" lessons, probably levelled 1 - 10. Basically you get yourself set up, open the lesson tab and literally practice along to the video. I will guide you through entire practice sessions.

The videos will be roughly 10 - 20 minutes long and cover specific techniques and technical issues.

It will be easy to create a practice playlist of videos, so you can easily make effective routines plus following along to the video will make sure you don't get distracted.

It will be roughly $25 a month... although this may vary a lot depending on the final price of the website.

In order for this to be financially viable, I will probably need to actually promote myself at some point.

Any suggestions for the site would be great.

 

[wespaul]

Couple of questions:

1 - When you say app, for what platform are you talking about? (Mac, iphone, ipad, Android)

2 - Are you looking for a one-time fee, or a subscription?

I know on my ipad, Guitar World has a "Lick of the Day" app that delivers a lick every day, with a video demonstration (full speed and half speed), along with instructions. It also comes with text of each lick, as well as notation/tab. They charge $4.99 a month subscription.

Truefire also has a series of apps on the ipad called 50 Licks You Must Know, and you can choose whether to get the jazz, metal, country, blues, etc versions. Those are $4.99 a piece, and come with video demonstrations, instructions, and notation/tab as well, but they're only a one-time fee (some of them are $9.99 too, not sure why some are priced differently than others, maybe release date?).

So there's two ways you can go about pricing it. You can charge a one-time fee for the actual app, and I would suggest a $4.99 - $9.99 price point (although $9.99 may price you out of the competition - beware going too high). Or you can create a series of apps aimed at a specific technique (like, a sweeping app, or a riff training app) and charge a one-time fee for them ($1.99 - $2.99). Or create one app, make it free, and within it, have a store where users can purchase a "sweep bundle," or a "tapping bundle" for certain price-points (like $1.99).

Or you can go for a subscription fee. Make the app itself fee to download, with a couple of free exercises to give the user an idea of what they're like. Then charge a monthly subscription fee of $0.99 - $1.99. If you go through route, I'd suggest a 99 cent subscription fee, since you're just getting the ball rolling. Once you have an established user base, and are offering a lot of content, then you can go about raising the price to $1.99, or offer tiered subscription plans.

I do a lot of my guitar practicing at my ipad. I purchased all of Truefire's 50 licks series, and have also dabbled in GW's Lick of the Day app. I really hated having a monthly fee for the Lick of the Day app, especially when sometimes I'd get shitty riffs from some band I'd never heard of before. 80% of the stuff I got was awful, imo. I'm not saying yours will be awful, but just illustrating the point that all it takes is one bad month for a user to cancel their subscription, so you really need to be sure of yourself if you go the subscription route.

That said, I'm extremely interested in this app you have in development. I'm your target audience, so feel free to ask anymore questions.

 

[AscendingMatt]

IMO you should give it away for free and just have a couple lessons. if the person likes it enough they could buy the app. so i would say depending on how much features you have thats how you should price it out. i say 5-7 bucks for starters

 

[Maniacal]

Thanks very much for the suggestions.

wespaul - 1) the app will initially be for Android although we may end up building the app for Apple products too. This will depend purely on its success, or lack of.

2) I am still not sure about pricing. I like the idea of making the app free then charging for each section - tapping, sweep picking etc but I don't know how many people would go for that. I for one am not a fan of this kind of marketing. This could make the app quite expensive if you wanted all of the sections.

Lick of the week will be a small part of the app. The real use of this app will be the practice routines/diary and hundreds of useful exercises grouped beginner, intermediate and advanced. You will also be able to refer to the app for scales, chords, arpeggios etc.

 

[wespaul]

Thanks very much for the suggestions.

wespaul - 1) the app will initially be for Android although we may end up building the app for Apple products too. This will depend purely on its success, or lack of.

2) I am still not sure about pricing. I like the idea of making the app free then charging for each section - tapping, sweep picking etc but I don't know how many people would go for that. I for one am not a fan of this kind of marketing. This could make the app quite expensive if you wanted all of the sections.

Lick of the week will be a small part of the app. The real use of this app will be the practice routines/diary and hundreds of useful exercises grouped beginner, intermediate and advanced. You will also be able to refer to the app for scales, chords, arpeggios etc.

Android? No bueno I'm definitely a buyer if you ever release it for Apple.

Be aware that people may not want to buy every section. It may be expensive to purchase every section, but it's not like they have to buy them all at once. That's sort of a perk of having things split up --you can buy them one at a time, work on them, and then purchase another one down the road if you want, depending on what you want to work on. As long as the actual content is worth your price point for each one, then it's a moot point if buying each and every one will total a high number.

I like having a diary of what I've worked on, and being able to go look back and see where I've started, and sort of have a visual documentation of progress. It may sound stupid, but social media could play a big part in this app, too. Kind of like those weightloss sites that track your progress and update for your friends, this could do a similar thing. You could add a friend, and you could be updated on their progress of a particular technique. If I sat down and completed 10 minutes of a sweep picking exercise at various tempos, I could add it to my diary, and my friends could see it once I've updated it, and be able to check out the exercise themselves (if they've purchased the bundle I'm working on). It could also lead to sort of friendly competitions if you have a friend who is similar in skill (and could lead to more sales if you want to practice what your buddy is practicing).

I'm sort of going off track. But, yeah, I don't think there's anything wrong with having a core app, and then offering in-app purchases geared toward a specific style and/or technique. If it's priced right, it doesn't matter how much separate content you have, imo.

 

[Maniacal]

Yeah, you are probably right. It is also means I won't need to spend the next 2 months tabbing out thousands of exercises prior to release. Instead, I can focus on a few then gradually release them next year.

The social media idea is great, I will talk this through with the other guy.

Great input, cheers!

 

[Osorio]

I need to go back an read the whole thing, but just wanted to point out some stuff that have stood out to me as a programming student and having done some extensive research on market on the past 2 years, regarding the mobile environment.

Price: For what you are describing, I would go for 5 bucks. A lot of people would go for 10, but I find that there are 3 break points in pricing. 99 cents, 5 bucks and 10 bucks. I personally haven't bought a single thing worth 10 bucks on any kind of app store, I have my limit at 5.

I don't like the idea of a subscription fee and I know a lot of people don't either. The nickel and dime strategy works wonders, but I also think it is a dirty business tactic. But hey, it WORKS. And certainly has upsides (specially in regards to development time and cost efficiency).

As far as a web based subscription service, I'm not very receptive to that idea and I don't think a lot of people would be either. In my experience, a desktop experience could be used in smaller scale to catapult the interest of any visitors to aforementioned mobile application.
I would also advise on thinking out how you plan on storing content. If the connection needs to be made every time you need to access something, that could steer a lot of people off the application. One of the downsides of having it desktop/web-broswer based.

EDIT 1:
25 Bucks for a website subscription is probably not very realistic unless you can amount some HUGE quantity of content. And this time, it is actually about quantity (not over quality, but with). That's the same subscription price as Lynda.com. I doubt a lot of people would go for it. Anything you can do to make the subscription under 10 bucks is a good thing, even if it means content reduction or taking things slower.

 

[Maniacal]

Yeah, I will have to find out how much the subscription site costs to setup first.

All of the apps content will be on the app and not online.

 

[revlover]

Some sort of diary or follow up would be great. Social networking, no, but I'm relatively old at 45 yrs, younger ppl may appreciate this more. If you are considering this it cannot be intrusive suggesting friends etc. If feel that FB and twitter is enough

 

[GuitaristOfHell]

Free app . I don't usually mind adds in apps if they're free. But $8.99 sounds fair.

 

[Maniacal]

I was thinking of including a calendar that you can use to plan out your routine and log your progress.

 

[GlxyDs]

Just thought I'd stop in again. Once again, especially since Apple devices won't be supported, I suggest focusing your efforts on the web app. You will bring in a lot more users (everyone has the internet, or the ability to use it).

Sticking only to android, you are getting into a more risky situation, and potential flop. If you developed the web app to it's full potential, you could build a massive following online.

Once the online presence is build, you can focus on getting phone apps out for those web users, free (or $1.99 or something) apps for them to access all of their online account lessons/schedules/etc.

It sucks that I may never see the light of day of this project since I don't have an Android!

 

[Maniacal]

It is likely that it will be available on Apple eventually

 

[tripguitar]

i normally dont download apps unless they are free, but i'd be all about this app if it were $5 or less. i would not however pay a subscription for any app. don't take offense, im just one of those "musicians on a budget" kinda people...

this is a great idea though. i'll be keeping tabs (pardon my lame pun ) on this!

 

[Maniacal]

The app will not be subscription. I am not into that idea at all.

It will probably end up like this:
App = $5 - this will include picking, legato, scales, lick of the week etc
Additional lessons = $1 - this may be a particular series of exercises or routines.

Hopefully this will make the app cheap, ad free and a reliable source for scales, chords, arpeggios, techniques, routines etc. Very handy to have on a phone or tablet.

I will however be making a subscription website next year. But this will have nothing to do with the app. The website will be play along practice videos, so you literally practice along with me.