Man, I love all the guitars you are using. Would you consider showing us your collection?

Nothing beats in person lessons. I am self taught and didn't take a formal lesson for 30 years. I learned more in 6 months than I ever did on my own. He took the mystery out of theory and made it simple. That's something that can't be done by reading a book or watching a video.

I think it does not matter, how you are learning, but the learning method must motivate and engage you. The best real teacher can not help, when the pupil don't want to learn. So if somebody loves to learn with Yousician there is nothing wrong with it.

As someone who lives in regional Australia, I think the new age of learning on line is an amazing resource. As a kid I outgrew the teachers available to me at a young age and a couple of years ago as a 38 year old, I tried a local teacher. After a few lessons, they told me they weren't able to teach me the things I was needing to learn, which I was appreciative of. But it does leave us regional guitarists a bit stranded. Something I've always been disappointed about.

I prefer Rocksmitth bc it has separate things for teaching certain techniques, and it has a performance mode which gets rid of the notes on the screen, having you play it from memory

When I'm learning a song I try to memorize it first, so even if I'm using a software I'm always stop everything I'm doing to play it all by myself, no back tracks, no metronome, no concern about time, just focus on memorize the part I'm learning. That's how it works for me, after I learn every note by heart then I try to play on time, so I'm not dependent on a Tab or a app.

I wonder if James or the guides talk to you about down picking palm muting exercises or why James uses the 3 finger technique. I get way.... and tried it for 2 weeks but just could not get used to it. I didfeel the control but my playing got worse as my wrists were locking up.

I was very curious about this. Thank you for your review!

Great review! I have a student that has wondered how to get out of looking at the screen in Yousician to become a better guitar player. You're review is right on Mike. Thanks.

We love your total honesty. This is a great review on a great channel.

I really love the honesty and depth of your videos. Always super informative, without being overstated or dragging, and also not leaving important bits out either! Would love to pick your brain in real time someday with regards to some of my technical questions/challenges 🙂

Excellent comments! I have been glued to my computer over the past few days after signing up for this program. I believe that ensuring I’m not screening dependent is great advice.

You are spot on with your evaluation of the program. I am a beginner guitar play and started to learn with Youisician. It is a super fun way to learn guitar but it misses some of the fundamentals that are needed, I found after a while I needed more and tried a few other programs and some private lessons to fill in the gaps. It makes me dizzy too if I use it to long. I do still find it useful as it makes me want to pick up the guitar and jam along to songs on it, I figure anytime the guitar is in my hands being played is a win.

Glad you made this video. I constantly get the “So, you wanna play like Metallica?” Ads, and have been on the fence about Yousician. I’ll stick with what I’m currently doing though.

Good job, Mike. You took the time to consider - and explain nicely -, some of the potential downsides that are not obvious, like dizzyness from the side scrolling screen, and your brain getting indoctinated to follow the screen so much that you don't recall how to play the song on your own without the screen. Very valuable insights, thank you

i know its not for everyone but ill always be fond of rocksmith. its what brought me into guitar and its what taught my the basics and its how i had fun getting my hands up to skill around the guitar. now i teach myself and i have a lot of fun and take it more seriously now and ive been making music because of it

Now here is an actual rockstar teaching the lesson in depth. Always loved this lesson vid!

Thanks for the honest review Mike! I was hoping the course would have more hands on with James and Kirk; like you I would love to have the personalized instruction from the guys themselves just to get those insider pointers for how to really play their songs.

New Course is Up! Can’t wait to play!

Ok, my personal experience with Yousician (and with the Metallica courses so far): 42 years old guy here, picked a guitar for the very first time when I was like 19, but never really got into it. I was practicing by myself like 2 hours a week, never really felt any progress. Now, during last year pandemic period I tried Yousician at home, since I had an acoustic guitar. Surprisingly, and as you mentioned, it got me engaged immediately due the nature of game-like interface. After that, got more and more interested in practice and learning. Short story, during this year I have advanced more than all my previous attempts. Now I can play lots of songs that I never could before, I can play some leads (also an impossible task for me before). But one important note, as you also mentioned in your video: this should not, by any means, be your only source of learning. Currently I use Yousician for 20 min like some kind of warm-up session and has helped me mostly to develop a lot of muscle memory and some techniques here and there. With the new Metallica course, I don't have any problem with the videos whatsoever (I connect my guitar to a Samsung Galaxy Tab 6, using an iRig device). All the videos load and play immediately. They are quite shorts clips with 'tips' from James or Kirk, where they talk about the importance of the 'riff' in a song, or about the downstroke technique from James, etc. The lesson video that plays just before each exercise is performed (I think) by someone from Yousician (you only see the hands and the guitar, not the face) but still is quite good in my opinion. In the intro video for 'Enter Sandman'. for example, it shows the way James actually place his fingers for the main riff, instead of the way many of us do it. And that's a nice touch in my book. Overall, I have a good experience with the app and I recommend it to my friends usually, but always explaining that it will never replace a real teacher and it should not be the source to 'learn' songs (I still use the good old tabs for that). Thanks for all your videos Mike, I really enjoy and learn a lot with them. Also, excuse my poor English grammar (not my primary language).

Thanks for posting this video on the Facebook group. This kind of explanation is all I was asking about lol.

I just picked up the guitar again after many years and I’m still a beginner. I’ve watched your videos and countless others on KZfaq to try and get started and they’ve certainly helped a lot. I started using Guitar Tuna while I waited for an actual tuner to come in, which in turn led me to Yousician. I agree with everything you said in this video. It’s a great and affordable tool for people like me who can’t afford lessons because of time and/or money, but the adverse effects of using your iPad to study music could end up doing more harm than good. It’s good to remember to take a break from the screen and try to play it on your own and that’s a really good way to learn and apply what the app is teaching. Yousician should include a feature like this in their app between lessons.

OH MY GAWD THIS IS THE BEST VIDEO ABOUT THIS!! THANK YOU!!!!

Great information on that program, thank you

you seriously upload everything i want to see, best guitar youtuber out there

Learning by ear is still the best way. Even if you don’t figure something out note for note you’re still using your ear to get as close as you can. Over time you’ll just know where on the fretboard to start when learning a new song.

This is a fantastic video Mike!

I love your videos . Thanks for this video and you transparency about this METALLICA collaboration with YOUSICIAN . All your thoughts about it are on point !

Songster has a pretty awesome program, transcribed in tab, abilities to control speed/tempo, supports all instruments including vocals. Also you have the ability to correct incorrect tablature in which updates on their main server. Their music catalog features thousands of songs from all genres. In my opinion it's an excellent tool to add into your music theory studies. Thanks for sharing this information 😊

That's excellent mate. Can't believe you got the review done so quickly after the release date. I really wanted to see someone I respected review it so well done. Also, now I know that you study BJJ I have even more respect for you. Greetings from the North of England and have a good weekend. Keep up the good work

Excellent review!

Great review, well said!

I just watched your video on the yousician mettalica lesson program. I've learned to play guitar primarily through yousician with a mix of other online guitar programs and KZfaq channels like yours and I feel like this has been a very good tool through out my guitar journey over the past 3 years. As far as the yousician app I have realy needed to fine tune my setup with a audio interface, monitors, microphone and then I play my guitar through a boss katana more then the audio interface. You really have to make sure that the audio setup and latency calibration is done properly and frequent. And going though the learning process you learn palm muting, pinch harmonics and vibrato but unfortunately these are things that are not included when the song is scrolling so you have to be a little intuitive. Bends, slides and sometimes strumming patterns are included so you just have to be aware of some of the subtle variations when you're learning songs. The Bobby effect is totally spot on, to not have that be a problem I've really had to practice the song over and over and memorize chunks of the song and play it with out the assistance of the app. But in my opinion the featured artist section is great for guitarist that are in the beginning stages of learning. I absolutely love mettalica and will most likely finish the featured artist path, but having enough experience to play all the songs in their entirety I jumped right into the harder stuff. Ultimately I think this is a great way to learn guitar, especially for people that grew up playing video games but the biggest problem is the "Bobby effect" you have to practice other methods and play with out the aid of the little bouncing ball as much as you can. Thanks for doing a piece on this, I think your videos are amazing and especially love hearing your personal guitar stories!

Thanks so much for this, and all your Metallica vids. I remember being upstairs at a church in Chicago with that old school “Master of Puppets” tab book trying to learn the riffs way back in the day. I appreciate your experience 🤘

Haven't tried this yet but I'm hoping to when I have a bit more free time. I've played a tonne of Rocksmith though and the "Bobby Effect" is definitely real there, although I think the "master mode" helps a little by removing the visual cues once the game detects that you're comfortable enough with certain sections, which might be a cool feature to have here too

Excellent take. I thought about getting it. I’ve had the same issues with Rocksmith. Thank you for your take.

You have surprising variety in your topics!and always entertaining 👍

Thanks for the review. It was helpful.

I learned how to play off musician 4 years ago and now I can play rhythm to every Metallica song. I think it’s great for teaching basic chords but after you get that down, it’s best to go off on your own afterwards

The Rygar clip just made me love this channel even more :D

Jame's commentary is really cool! I have been using Yousician since first starting to learn (almost 2 yrs now), it's been a great experience. I agree though, I suppliment it with content lioke yours, and other musicians on youtube

love your stuff bro !!!

I like it a lot, I noticed you have to hit the notes just a bit early do to latency. But it is definitely helping me with not looking at the fretboard while playing, so it's better for me in that aspect. I payed the 97.00 for the year, I think it's worth it. Being able to start slow and speed up when your ready is nice. 👍

I’ve played intermittently for 20 years. I have started Yousician and I think it’s pretty awesome. It’s like learning songs by reading tab but with my own band with me at all times!! My fingers have never been this nimble or my timing better! Love it!

love this video lol, just bought my very first guitar about a week ago (fender squire strat hss) & tried yousician just so it could tell me i wasn't playing certain notes correctly! i kept thinking my guitar was out of key, although it wasn't needless to say so glad you included this in your video as a very experienced player!!

Guitar AND jiujitsu? You're a legend, man!!

I do most of my playing these days using Rocksmith, and I can definitely confirm the problem of becoming reliant on the note highway. I've been playing for around 30 years now, so it's not an issue of being inexperienced, but if I don't actually spend time committing things to memory, it's very easy to be completely lost when I don't have the notes in front of me. I don't know if I would recommend solely using something like Rocksmith for learning guitar, but what I find it really good at is making it fun to play, which is like 75% of learning. You'll still want something more instructive to fill in the gaps and to make sure you aren't reinforcing bad habits.

I really like Rocksmith as it has dynamic learning, so as you progress learning the game removes the tab so you have to learn the song and memorise it but I'm someone who used to learn by way of online tab sites and playing along to the actual song, so Rocksmith I feel has really helped me. There's also lessons on techniques and some fun game modes.

Lol, of all of this, what I loved the most was that you showed Rygar. I feel you and could be great friends.

Thank you so much for doing this!!!!!

amazing video keep on going the metallica videos are great thankyou

As soon as I clicked on ur video a Yousician ad came on haha how ironic. I remember back in 2013 when my parents got me my first guitar, they let me take guitar lessons at school. 6 months in and all I learned was what power cords were. I stopped all leasons and never looked back. 9 years later and I could say I've reached professional level. Learning songs by ear is so much easier for me. Everything I know now is pretty much self taught

Clicked on this video and the ad was literally for Metallica’s yousician. Lol too good. Thanks for the review! Sounds about right.

Honestly, whether or not they’re doing it for their fans or just for the sake of money I still like the idea that the band is letting us play their songs just like them

245 hrs on youcisian, here’s my pros and cons (for beginners) Pros: Color coded chords, helps you get shapes down Individual notes are color coded depending on which fingers you are meant to use The courses in “Learn” tab are honestly amazing, help me get techniques down before I even come across songs that use them Gamification and leaderboards , really motivate me to improve Cons: I still barely know how to read real tabs. Not very helpful for memorizing songs (the few songs I have learned off tabs, I memorized very easily in comparison) Requires room with good acoustics and a computer or phone with good microphone. If your audio input sucks, it will struggle to register your notes. Overall , I recommend but you must be cognizant of the fact that you will need to put additional effort in to learn to read real tablature and eventually memorize songs, unless you wanna be like Bobby.

The Bobby effect is real dude! I had a lot of trouble with it when I picked the guitar back up but I found a solution to it.

I'd love to see your guitar collection brotha

You happen to be wearing my favorite t-shirt, from my favorite Sabbath album... KUDOS!

I find these lessons like driving with your GPS on.. You start to become reliant on what the map is telling you instead of remembering the way to go, or finding different ways to go. It's the same here, the skill you learn is guitar karaoke, not learning..

I just wanted to say, I played Rocksmith 2014 everyday for about 6 months before I took lessons. It was a great starting point. I was also curious about this Metallica program. Keep us posted.

Great review! It's a promising app but still leaves room for more improvements. I still prefer learning from channels like you tho, kinda prefer some human element when I'm learning.

I thought that the whole idea was to have access to videos of James Hetfield explaining in detail how he plays Master of Puppets for example.... without that it just sounds like following Guitar Pro with extra steps

Props for the Rygar clip!! Not the biggest Metallica fan,, but I can appreciate their music and guitar work.

The Bobby Effect is something that I will try to keep in mind. I think that this will be a good way to develop dexterity and build up callouses on your fingers, but it should encourage you to memorize the songs and not look at the screen. Maybe it should have a mode to teach you the riff, have you practice it, and then gradually take away the visuals so that you can remember it. Remembering the sequence is one of the harder parts of learning riffs, for me.

I’ve tried it out on my phone, James does sort of mention palm muting on the video before Sandman, he calls it anchoring and shows the difference between putting his palm on the bridge vs just letting your arm flail about

I was a loser in highschool. Learning metal riffs was necessary to fill my day. No computer. No lessons. Just Guitar World/ Player mags. Still have a stack waist high. Sometimes I look at them for nostalgia and all

Hey thanks for the video. Where did you get your Sabbath t-shirt from?

This update was mixed for me, it’s way buggier on mobile but it added a lot of cool songs. I hope they work out the bugs soon tho

I tried it also and I agree with everything you said

Yousician is great, been using it for more than 4 years and it’s the only one I go back to!

I am a beginner guitar player and I use Yousician and Trufire. Trufire is actually great because I can follow along with actual instructors. Yousician just seems to helps me warm up for a song and makes my string picking more accurate. It serves a purpose but I believe Trufire is more likely a better way to learn. Depends on the person's preference! I do like the James Hetfield video on anchoring the picking hand for accuracy on Yousician. Must see!

Robotron marquee spotted! You have great taste in guitars and games! 😄🍻

I have been using yousician since mid 2020 daily and agree with the review. With a 50 hour a week job + toddler + trying to keep my mind and body healthy, being able to grab my guitar and get time in without the time in travel, waiting, and a 30 min lesson once a week plus practice. Having said that. Yousician has progressed my guitar playing dramatically and in a way that would not have happened without it for all the reasons listed above. For the record, I believe in real life music lessons. I have spent many nearest engaged in voice coaching, and learned several other instruments with the benefit of direct instruction starting in my early teens. To me, it is all about the right tool for the right person at the right time. :)

When the ad on the Metallica Yousician Review video is for Metallica Youscian. Nice

I had a similar experience with the program not registering correctly when just using a microphone. However, after plugging my guitar directly into the device that Yousician was running on, everything was registered perfectly. I think it's a great practice tool because it offers very direct feedback exactly when i want to play and have time to do so, but like you mention, the best option will always be to also have a real tutor

I haven't used yousician, but I used to play rocksmith fairly often. I think it's great if you use it as a fun way to practice alongside more conventional ways of learning - like learning a technique or song myself and then using rocksmith as a fun way to practice.

Cons: 1) Had connection issues on my PC but had no problem on the mobile. 2) No video of James teaching any riffs note for note 3) Guitar techniques like plam mutes are missing. 4) Having been an avid Rocksmith user the UI is not easy to look at. 5) The UI of the app sometimes does not work at all Result: Cancelled my trail. (Rocksmith 2014 is far better if you have a PC)

I think you got it spot on. Screens have their place in learning, but they usually have to go away after a while. And as usual, your videos principles apply to all of life. Screens have their place but they shouldn't replace real life.

Thanks, Mike! I was wondering what this Yousician thing was all about. I already know how to play the songs but I was curious what it was like.

I liked your review and can understand how disappointed you were not getting a ‘private lesson’ from James. I loved that you included ‘Rygar’ as the arcade game. Not many people know about that one.

Yousician helped me tremendously, I do have “The Bobby Effect” every now on then, but I had the hardest time playing in time to anything before Yousician.

Mike is the best teacher!

Thank you bro for this review!! in my opinion the "Bobby effect" happens also when musicians play reading from music sheets, it pretty much does the same effect. Keep up the good work bro!

Thanks for the review! Metallica on Yousician perked the ears of a few guitarists, so good to see it before trying it out🔥🤘🔥

I have Rocksmith and I agree with what you were saying about the "Bobby Effect". I have trouble playing songs without the screen in front of me too.

This review an opinions really helped me with guitar since I'm new, not just relying on a screen since I've learned Free Bird and Scar Tissue from yousician and only have the intro to Free Bird memorized. Really helpful but more of a filling time kinda thing for me where I should've worked on chords or something instead of just flying into music

the program works really well with a real tone rocksmith cable the feedback is 99 .9% correct

I got a Yousician Metallica ad right before this video. Nice

The intro video and other videos you tried to open worked perfectly on my new nord one plus 3 came out this year and all videos worked flawless and even made some cables my self to make my cell phone into a interface to be able to play and use yousician pn my phonr for practicing and elarning songs on the road its a great program jsut to get use and learn the notes and chorfs to new songs. And i wish it was like guitar hero style scroll coming at you instead of from the side scroll

I have been using yousician for around 3 months and i have learned a lot from it, i have managed to learn refuse/resist alright. I do think face to face learning is better, but with self taught learning you can learn at your own pace.

Sick Explorer dude

Man you hit the nail on the head about these apps and games taking your focus away. I have the same problem as your student. I can play songs on Rocksmith but then I cannot without the game. I agree 100% with you on that.

Still using Rocksmith myself. I've learned more and improved the most using Rocksmith than any other way of learning.

Was alrady playing for a couple of years before I stumbled on Rocksmith and it just makes playing guitar enjoyable when I dont feel like practicing.

Since using Yousician and following the leaning program and tossing in scales before I play any of the songs has helped me a ton. I tried guitar on rocksmith and never really got it. 12 weeks using Yousician and finally making it to level 2 on guitar I can hear myself getting better. But the chords have been my biggest problem do to short term memory problems in addition to the I have short fat fingers which means I am doing 2 finger chords rather then 3 for the E and 1 finger for Em for the C chord I found that I am using second finger to cover the 2 and 3 string and my third finger has to cover 1st and 2nd string.

I've been learning guitar since 2012 through primarily rocksmith, it took me a long time but yeah i finally started memorizing songs, solos are still tough for me to memorize but i can play just a lot of riffs from memory, more difficult techiques the game doesn't teach you are still a bit beyond me (like sweep picking for instance, i can do very simple sweep picking with down strokes, up stroke sweep picking.. i cant do at all) and i've loved every minute of it. Sad but True and Fear of the Dark are my favorite songs to play by far. Got most of sad but true memorized.

I play Rocksmith myself and I always practice what I attempted to learn away from the screen so it is muscle memory and not so much screen needing

Good video, i am using youcisian because i am more of self taught kind of guy find it hard when someone teaches me something. Just small comments : 1- for 100% accuracy it is better with an audio interface like scarlett. 2- it is true that you get more dependent on the screen than memorizing the song. But with the practice option it gives the possibility to pause and then memorize it. 3- the major advantages of digital program is that it get your muscle memory to follow the exact rhythm and tempo of the song instead of being too fast or too slow. Thanks for the video

I’m so glad I found your guitar channel John Cusack…

for me, i had a back ground in Flamenco and Classical guitar, but picked up Rocksmith 2014 during the pandemic to learn how to play songs on the bass. i now play bass better than i do on guitar. however what you mentioned about the "Bobby Effect" is very true. i have recently though been playing in our church band and breaking out of hte bobby effect some. its simular to how alot of classical guitarist need to have sheet music / TAB in front of them while they play. one thing i LOVE about rocksmith though, is it feels like "Battle of the Bands" every time i play, which is super fun. it makes you feel like a rockstar when you get 99-100%. it has become my all time favorite game.