My No-BS Just Acoustic Review:

I’ve found the thing all guitar players have in common, regardless of their skill level or experience, is the desire to get better. Chances are that’s why you are viewing this website right now. Just Acoustic promises to make you a better guitarist if you use their product or your money back. They offer a system that leads you step by step through learning the guitar so there is never any ambiguity about where to start or what to work on next. The program is a web tutorial that includes over 450 song lessons and hundreds of guitar lessons, with audio, video, detailed instruction and downloads.

 

My favorite part of this website was the “community feel” it had. They had a well used forum where members could dispense wisdom, ask questions or just chat. Members could also connect to the larger Guitar Alliance forum if they so desired. There is also a frequently asked questions section and a free newsletter, both of which I found to be informative.

 

Another thing I liked about this website was the library of song lessons; everything from modern to classical and from country to rock. Of particular interest to me was the “request-a-lesson” feature that allowed members to request songs to be added to the website. With a song selection this large and diverse it’s likely this website includes lessons on how to play many of your favorite acoustic songs. However the song lessons did have their drawbacks. I found the video clips to be pretty mediocre, they were generally 20 seconds or shorter and taken from Youtube or some other forum where you could have gotten them for free. A beginning guitarist would presumably have a tough time extrapolating 20 seconds of chords into a three or four minute song.

 

There is a lot of free content on this site, so if you are looking for some tips but lack the funds to purchase an instructional program, this would be a good site to visit. They offer mini-lessons on subjects ranging from finger-picking to strumming to stringing and tuning your guitar. In addition they also offer a number of song lessons for free. With this much free content it is hard to figure out what the point is in paying the $34.95 a year for member status. That question can be answered when one looks at the bonus products that get thrown in with the membership to JustAcoustic.

 

The website lists eight bonus products that are included with membership: Becoming a Better Singer, Marketing Your Band, Songwriting 101, Drummer-on-Demand, E-Z Acoustic Collection, 56 Classical Zips, 1200+ Chord Database, and finally 1000+ Acoustic PTBs. Lets take these extras one at a time to determine whether there is actually over $150 worth of value like the website claims.

 

Becoming a better singer is a comprehensive singing tutorial that covers proper dieting, creating vibrato, and breathing exercises among other things. Marketing your band deals with how to take your band from obscurity to the big time, and is superfluous to any guitarists that don’t have grand inspirations of rock stardom. I found Songwriting 101 to be interesting despite not aiming to be a professional songwriter. It sheds some light on the mystical art of songwriting and in reality it’s not as hard as you think. Drummer-on-Demand is what amounts to a computerized metronome. E-Z acoustic collection is a collection of 10 bonus song lessons. 56 Classical Zips is a collection of 56 classical guitar tabs, great for any classical music aficionados. 1200+ chord database is self-explanatory. 1000+ Acoustic PTBs are a collection of tabs that are accurate and fun to play.

 

Conclusion: