Guitar Superstars Review
Guitar Super Stars is an online streaming video guitar lesson site. This site offer guitar lessons for players beginner through advanced. Currently they offer 62 separate video lessons from 6 instructors. The price is $47 for “Platinum Master Class” membership.
We took a look at the website and were interested to find promises like “Play Insane Guitar Overnight!” and “Learn how to play all these notes (20 notes pictured) in ONE second”. Also the site exclaims “Remember you must learn guitar and learning it with this site is downright BABY EASY”. Baby easy. How about: Become an expert guitarist in three days and play the most complicated solos and leads. There were more but we’ll stop here. So despite all the hyperbole we kept an open mind. After all we’re here to find guitar courses that will indeed help people interested in playing guitar learn how.
The site did include 62 lessons from 6 instructors and the GSS Jam Machine. The Jam Machine is a web-based sequencing program for making beats. We believe it to be included here for making drum tracks to play along with. In comparison to many other online guitar learning systems the offering here was minimal. We were hopeful that the individual lessons provided something unique to justify the price. After all, there are many other competitive options in the online guitar lesson niche.
FEATURES:
Course Organization
There isn’t really a course or curriculum to follow on Guitar Super Stars. Each instructor has their own specialty so it’s up to the student to read through each video list to find the instructor most suitable for them. The videos run the gamut from beginning guitar familiarization courses to advanced soloing techniques with scales. At first we tried to choose a lesson based off the lesson title and tone. However this didn’t always prove accurate. In the long run, we found the most effective way to choose a lesson for us was simply to pick an instructor. Scan through all of their videos, and then revisit the ones we believed relevant to our skill level.
The instructors were all very skilled guitar players. Each of their bios spoke to their educational and/or stage experience. All instructors had something to offer, but not something for every skill level. So if you found an instructor that you particularly connected with they might not offer lessons at your level of play. Further exacerbating this problem was the inconsistency of the instructional quality. Not all of these talented musicians proved to be effective teachers (even of their own signature techniques). This was a shame because we were mesmerized by the skill of these musicians. To make matters worse, no supplemental materials were included. We really could have used a workbook or lesson outline to follow.
Video quality was generally poor and the clips tended to be short (under 5 minutes). 1 camera handled all the shots, so there was no split-screen or close-ups on the hands. Shots like this are a big help when illustrating technique. Yet there were none. There were also no graphics or titling on the videos we reviewed either. Our final critique of the video was that they would not expand to full screen. This forced us to sit very closely to the computer monitor while holding the guitar in an uncomfortable position. Decisions like not allowing full screen video should not be overlooked.
Sound was not normalized between the instructors voice and the guitar playing so most of the time the guitar was too loud and the instructor too soft. Since the course is video only (no workbooks or cheat sheets), these shortcomings were amplified. Often we had to stop and rewind a video just to hear what the instructor was saying.
Lesson Format
Guitar Super Stars.com video is in Adobe Flash format. The videos play in your web browser and are compatible with all web browser software (Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox, Opera, and Chrome). If you can watch a YouTube video, chances are these videos will appear jut fine for you.
Community
There is no community here to speak of.
Extra Tools & Features
Guitar Super Stars.com includes just one extra feature. That is access to the GSS Jam Machine. This is an online 16 track sequencer used for making beats to Jam-along to. We would have much preferred pre-recorded Jam-along tracks as making our own took a lot of extra time.
Support
Guitar Super Stars.com offers customer support via email. We were unable to locate a telephone number.
Ordering Information
A Guitar Super Stars.com membership costs $47.00. Payment can be made with any major credit card or with PayPal.
We searched the Guitar Super Stars website for guarantee or refund information and found none. Without a published refund policy the buyer is 100% exposed to risk if he or she doesn’t find the product as advertised. Credit card chargeback may be the buyer’s only recourse if they’re not satisfied.
Conclusion
Teaching music is more than playing guitar and talking about it. A clear curriculum that follows educational best practices is a must. This course doesn’t do that. It is a series of videos of great guitarists playing smoking guitar that we would love to listen to all day. There is educational value in watching and taking notes, just don’t expect to achieve the heights boasted by the website.
As with most guitar lessons systems that make outrageous claims, Guitar Super Stars.com doesn’t live up to their own hype. It doesn’t even come close. Your $47.00 can be much better spent on other courses. As far as Guitar Super Stars.com goes, well for the excellent guitar players in the videos we’ll give Guitar Super Stars a score bump, but that still only makes 3 of 5 stars. So don’t bother.
While Guitar Super Stars have some amazingly talented guitarists the lack of organized instruction makes it a challenge for someone just starting out learning guitar. If you’re looking for a better solution we recommend Jamplay or Guitar Tricks. Both are solid offerings and have some of the largest guitar lesson video libraries available online..
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