Pick of the Week Review by "Power Downloader" - Nov 14, 1998

On those rare evenings when Power Downloader has the Power Pad all to himself, he'll often pour himself a glass of fine port, sit down on the corner of his easy chair, and pluck away at his prized Silvertone six-string. OK, so our man's no Eddie Van Halen, but Power still considers himself a fair guitarist. He knows all the basic chords and scales and can strum along with most of his favorite tunes. Problem is, our busy hero doesn't have a whole lot of free time to practice his guitar playing.

But now, thanks to FretPet, Power can do the next best thing: study everything about playing guitar, save the actual fingering techniques. Granted, our caped crusader would have to be a musicologist to comprehend all the different chord names, scales, and chord analysis jargon the program has to offer. However, it only took him a few minutes to get the program going. Power simply picked a scale, clicked notes on the guitar neck, saved the chords he created, sequenced a fingering technique, and clicked Play.

FretPet (which is both QuickTime and OMS compatible) can play back his tunes through his Mac's audio output, or via MIDI. The program also offers a slew of different instrument voices, including drums, synths, strings, and more. Power could write a book (well, maybe a short book) on all of FretPet's various tools, but he'll spare you the gory details. Besides, the program offers extensive balloon help, as well as a helpful HTML manual. So watch out, Eddie--with the help of FretPet, Power Downloader's gonna be nipping at your heels in no time flat.