500+ Best Licks – Intuitive Guitar - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

Yes. I learned how to code at the age of 11. I didn’t have access to the internet because it was not a thing yet and had to learn from books. So, it was a process that involved figuring things out just by myself, but it was fun.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

For “Best Licks – Intuitive Guitar” we wanted an app that would dynamically grow in content but was at the same time a native app to be able to do some heavy sound processing easily. That was a challenge that involved two major factors, the development of an internal flexible enough data format for containing several audio tracks in sync with partiture and tablature in one single file, and the development of the content itself which required professional guitar transcription work.

_{Juan Reina}

Juan Reina is a Colombian entrepreneur and CEO of amparoSoft. Electronic Engineer by qualification with an M.Sc. in Physics. He is a self-taught programmer who learned how to code at the age of 11. Moreover, he is the former Senior Embedded Systems Engineer and electric guitar enthusiast, founded amparoSoft in 2012 and went on to develop apps for music education full time in 2015. In 2004, he invented a new method for the simulation of the Kronig-Penney-Ising model and a new technique for the simulation of magnetic systems. In 2013 both of his apps, “Creative Rhythm Metronome” and “Shred Guitar Mastery” were chosen by Amazon as the free app of the day. In 2015 “Creative Rhythm Metronome” was chosen again by Amazon to participate in their Underground project. (www.amparosoft.com)

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

Blender 3D is an open source 3D creation suite that seems to be able to do just anything. I have used it to automate the video creation process for many of our apps thanks to the powerful embedded python scripting feature.
Transcribe is a simple and nice software for transcribing music, it’s simple to use and provides all the necessary tools.
Inkscape is also another great open source software for drawing vector graphics. It has come handy for drawing assets for our apps.

How long have you been working on this app?

It was first released in August 2018 and required at least one year of full time development work. This app also inherited features and code from our prior apps. So I’d say we have been working on this app for about 5 years considering that it evolved from our older apps and that it requires constant addition of new content.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

Guitar players are constantly being thrown excessive amounts of educational information, which is great, but one of the major drawbacks here is that the quality of this information -while free in most cases- is not good. In order to solve this problem, we provided an original collection of professionally transcribed guitar licks of the best guitar players in the world in one single app, while also providing advanced learning tools such as loops and a speed trainer. So, we aimed at the quality and quantity of content, convenience, and simplicity.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

Most similar apps on the market are only for beginner level guitar players, so this usually means that they are too simple, their content is too generic and easily found somewhere else. Seasoned guitar players looking to improve their skills and their inspiration alive are left out of their target audience. For “Best Licks – Intuitive Guitar” we worked for years transcribing only the best licks from the best guitar players in the world. Another one-of-a-kind feature is our advanced tab/audio section where the user is able to set loops, change tempo and speed, use a speed trainer, listen and play along with the audio completely in sync with the tab.

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

We are continually expanding the amount of content available for the app, as of today we have 500+ guitar licks and we expect to grow even further. We also plan on improving its user interface to be more visually appealing.

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

I would like new users of the app to share the app with fellow guitar players and also to leave a nice review if they like and enjoy the app to help us keep growing in content and features.