Speaker 1: The internet is a wonderful repository of tutorial videos. I'm trying to learn how to play guitar, but I find it cumbersome to have to reach over to the computer keyboard, to play and rewind videos while I'm practicing. That's where these handy hands-free foot pedals come in today. I'm gonna show you how to put your feet to work while your hands are busy doing something else Today, we're gonna talk about a couple different products from a company called Dami and another one from El Gado. Recently, I bought my first [00:00:30] electric guitar. The J MACU Telecaster from vendor. Once I got this guitar in my hands, I figured it was time to actually learn how to play it. I've tried playing along with lessons on YouTube And, and during their early stages of the pandemic fender was offering free memberships on their fender play service. And I tried some mu ukulele lessons on there, but here's the situation I kept running into. I'd get all set up with my computer and my instrument on my lap. I'd reach over and hit play, and then watch the lesson and play along.
Speaker 2: You're targeting the top,
Speaker 1: [00:01:00] But if there was something I missed or wanted to see over, I had to reach over, find my spot. Probably I got my front hand in the process. Then pick up my pick and try and get back in time with the video.
Speaker 1: Sure. It's not the end of the world, but it is annoying. And probably part of the reason I haven't practiced as much as I want to enter the VMI YouTube blooper pet. This is the original VMI, YouTube blooper, as they call it. But it does a lot more than that at its most basic. The USB version of the [00:01:30] VMI is designed to duplicate some of the keyboard functions you would use to control a video player, but to operate them with your foot instead of your hand, actually the computer recognizes the VMI as another keyboard. So the buttons are just assigned to various keystrokes. It works with YouTube, been a Chrome or safari browser. And with over 35 other music teaching platforms from teachers like Marty music, guitar lessons, 365, just in guitar and more today, I've got a lesson on YouTube from Lauren Bateman cud up here. So I'll use that to show you how Tamimi works. I've got a plugged on my MacBook pro [00:02:00] and I've installed all the drivers. You need to get it working. The Tamimi features buttons, play pause to start and stop the video back to rewind. 10 seconds forward to jump ahead. 10 seconds
Speaker 1: Speed to change the playback speed And loop to replay just a section of the video. So now I can start watching Lauren's video by hitting play.
Speaker 3: So now to get back to,
Speaker 1: And she's showing me the E minor cord, an easy version of that, I can pause it [00:02:30] and play it again.
Speaker 3: And our first finger is gonna go to the top string.
Speaker 1: Uh, if I missed that instruction, I can rewind. I can fast forward. She's going a little too fast for me. Not really, but just bear with me. So I'll hit the speed button to slow down,
Speaker 4: Go to the second fret, put that second finger
Speaker 5: Right below.
Speaker 1: [00:03:00] If I wanna repeat this section, I can hit loop
Speaker 3: Here. All right. So our
Speaker 1: Second thing play for a while
Speaker 3: Is going to stay put. The only thing we're gonna do is maybe slide it back a little in the front
Speaker 1: And then loop again.
Speaker 3: Okay. Point here. All right.
Speaker 1: And it'll just keep playing that section over and over until I stop to stay put, and I can do all those things without taking my hands off the guitar For many people that may be enough to help you get your hands off the keyboard and back onto your instrument. That is until you see this, the VMI blue, [00:03:30] The VMI blue has all the same functionalities, the original VMI pedal, but in a wireless package, Bluetooth allows you to connect not only your laptop or desktop computer, but also phones and tablets. Plus they've added support for sheep, music apps and tab sites like on song and ultimate guitar tabs. So you can turn pages and scroll through songs. Hands free. There are even settings for helping with recording music as well. Dami blue supports many digital audio workstations or dos, including garage band pro [00:04:00] tools. And more. That means if I'm hearing garage band, I can get my hands set up the way there need to be hit, play on the drum track And then hit this button to record my guitar part. There are also functions for loops, adding tracks, setting markers, and more For me, the wireless version is the way to go. If I'm working on my laptop like this, I've already got my USB dongle [00:04:30] and the audio interface so I can plug my guitar directly into the computer. Not to mention the pedals. I already have set up by my feet. Having one less cord to worry about makes it set up at least a little bit cleaner
Speaker 1: Around the same time I was reaching out to ademi to get these demo units for this video, I saw that El Gado had announced a new product, the stream deck pedal. I have a stream deck of my own that I use for editing and streaming. So I was familiar with how you can customize the buttons to serve a variety of functions. But I was curious to see if the stream deck pedal could be useful in my guitar practice setup too, [00:05:00] as it turns, the El Gado pedal is a viable option. If you don't expect too much where the VMI has five buttons on their pedals, the stream deck pedal only has three though. I assume it was designed to work in conjunction with a desktop stream deck. It is able to run on its own. It does have to connect to your computer with the USB cable.
Speaker 1: So if you're hoping to use it with the phone or a tablet, I think you're outta look as the name implies stream decks are used by a lot of streamers, as well as other kinds of video professionals within the stream deck software, there are a lot of built in functions that you can assign to the buttons [00:05:30] and a huge selections of plugins available for download. The one I'm looking for is right here under the system category, hot key. If I add the hot key function to each of the pedals, three buttons, I can assign the keys stroke. I want one to activate. So if I want to use the pedal with a YouTube player, I'll make the middle button, the letter K, which is the keyboard shortcut to toggle between play and pause. Then I'll assign the letter L to the right button and I can skip forward 10 seconds. [00:06:00] And the letter J on the left button sends me back 10 seconds. If you prefer smaller increments, you can use the right and left arrow keys, just skip forward and back by five second jumps for right now, I feel like those are the basic functions I would use most often. Plus the larger pedals, make it easier to find the button I'm looking for compared to the smaller switches on the Dami. And when I'm not practicing guitar, I'm gonna put the stream deck pedal to use while editing [00:06:30] for work, like making this video,
Speaker 1: As you probably figure it out by now, these pedals could be used for a lot more and just learning how to play guitar. Since they're already set up to control YouTube videos, you could use them for any kind of tutorial, really, especially anything that requires you to use your hands. One use I thought of was in the kitchen when you're trying to learn how to cook something, but don't want to get your dirty hands all over your phone or iPads. I've also thought about taking up kniting I could see it being really helpful to navigate YouTube with my feet while hands are full of ya, or if you're a crafter and [00:07:00] like to watch TV or videos while you're working, the pedals can be useful for that too. I like to have a show on while I'm sewing something I can listen to, even if I'm not paying attention to the screen, the YouTube keyboard shortcuts work for a lot of other video players too, like Hulu, Netflix, and HBO max, though, for the last one, I did have to install the HBO max, go shortcuts or extension for the Chrome browser. Now, if I'm working and here's something that sounds interesting or worth repeating, I can jump back and pay attention without putting everything down.
Speaker 1: I've already talked about all the plugins available for the stream deck pedal, [00:07:30] but I've also found a way to customize the Vida pedals so they can be used for other things. Mac users can download a program called carer elements and it's counterpart carer event. Viewer carer elements is a keyboard customizer that allows you to create your own keyboard shortcuts. And it can be used to assign new functionality to the buttons on the Vidam pedals. For example, a lot of programs use the arrow keys to move forward and backward in whenever you're doing using the carer event. Viewer, I can see here that when I press the forward button on the Vidam, the computer recognizes [00:08:00] that as the closed bracket key to create a new shortcut, I'll go into Caribbean or elements and add a new modification that says change the closed bracket key to the right arrow key. I'll do the same and change the open bracket to the left arrow key. And just for fun, I'm going to switch the K key to the space bar. Now, when I open up apple music and my favorite eighties hip hop playlist, I can press the forward button on the VHA to skip to the next track back to go back. [00:08:30] And since I switch K to the space bar, the play pause button will do just that.
Speaker 1: For another example, here's my amazing keynote presentation. Once I go into play mode, I, I can use the forward and back buttons on the Tami to go forward and back in my slides, those are some simple changes you can make to the Tamimi buttons to make it useful. In other applications, of course, Caribbean can do a lot more than that. So check it out. If you wanna try some more advanced shortcuts. If this all seems a little too complicated, alga does have plugins for keynote [00:09:00] and apple music plus many more to choose from. So those are a few different ways you can put your feet to work. So your hands can focus in the task at hand, a special thanks to Lauren Bateman and Marty music for letting me borrow some of their tutorial video was in this one. Let me know if you can think of any other ways foot pedals might make your life easier, or if you've got any other tips for learning how to play guitar, as you can probably tell, I need all the help I can get. Thanks for watching. And we'll see you next time.
