Bill Holton
Two years ago I used my renewed interest in playing the guitar to explore the ways YouTube, smartphone apps and other modern technologies could make pursuing a hobby more accessible. Well--as my family is known to say--“He’s at it again.”
In this article I’m going to use those same guitars as a springboard to talk about the benefits and limitations of an ever-growing trend in the consumer electronics marketplace—pairing, accessing, and controlling a physical device with a smartphone app or smart speaker.
If you’re like me, you’ve already had experience in this realm. Myself, I operate my thermostat and yard sprinklers entirely via my iPhone and Alexa and/or Hey Google. Each of these offers me complete access to controls which would otherwise be touch screen only. At the other end of the access spectrum, however, when I needed to purchase a new washer and drier I paid extra for smartphone and Alexa compatibility, and since you can’t test large appliances in the store it wasn’t until after the set was delivered that I learned the smartphone app wasn’t accessible and Alexa offered few commands other than “Check status.”
In my very first article for AccessWorld, Reaching Out: How You Can Help App Developers Improve Accessibility I discussed reaching out to developers when you encounter issues of app accessibility. In the article I mentioned that the smaller the company, the easier this would likely be. Sure enough, when the initial release of the control app for my sprinkler system had a few VoiceOver quirks I was actually able to speak to one of the developers, who fixed the issues in short order. The appliance company was a different story altogether. I tried several times to report my issues, but the response was, say it with me: “I will happily pass your comments and suggestions to the members of our team.”
So, back to guitars. My first guitar was an acoustic, but it wasn’t long before I, like Dylan before me, was ready to go electric. So I bought a relatively inexpensive used guitar, and an even cheaper amplifier to “make it go.” Needless to say, the amp sounded as terrible as my playing.
Obviously, I could cure both problems with a new, more powerful amp. And after many hours of research, comparing prices, features and YouTube amp demos I settled on Fender’s Mustang GT, an earlier model of their current Mustang GTX. The amp featured a collection of physical switches, knobs and buttons, but it also connected via Bluetooth with the Fender Tone app, and offered smartphone access and control to nearly every feature.
Unfortunately, no guitar store in the area stocked the GT or GTX, and the Fender Tone app required a Bluetooth connection to an amp to fully function. When I called Fender’s customer support I could find no one who was familiar with VoiceOver. But I did find one customer rep who was willing to learn the basics from me over the phone and put the app through its paces. She spent nearly 30 minutes tapping and swiping with me listening in, and the app seemed quite accessible. That is until I purchased the amp, set it up, and discovered the one hidden accessibility glitch that limited its functionality by half.
To understand the glitch, I need first to explain just a bit about how guitar players achieve the nearly infinite variety of sound profiles, usually called tones. First, most classic amps have their own distinctive sound. This sound can be modified using either the tone and volume controls on an electric guitar, or onboard controls to control EQ, reverb and gain. Professional players take these controls even further, however, with at least one and perhaps an entire series of foot pedals that modify the signal in various ways to add effects, such as tremolo, fuzz, tape delay and compression. Each of these effects offer their own adjustments—a half second delay, for example, versus a quarter second delay. These are the sorts of adjustments that provide the bubbling tremolo of Tommy James’ Crimson and Clover, the in-your-face bulldozer of Black Sabbath’s Iron Man, and Jimi Hendrix’s, well, everything.
(Yes, I know all my music examples are quite old. But so am I, and—excuse me for a second—“Hey you kids out there! Get off my lawn!” OK, let’s continue.)
Most professional guitarists still use their favorite amps and collection of foot pedals to create their unique sound. However for the rest of us technology has given us a new option. DSPs (digital signal processing chips) have given manufactures the ability to emulate the sound profiles of various amps, and effect and modulation pedals, and combine them into what’s known as a modeling amp.
The Fender GT and GTX are both modeling amps. They can emulate dozens of classic amplifiers, and offer a host of effects and modulation settings available both on the physical, hardware knobs and buttons, or via the Fender Tone app, available for both iOS and Android.
The GT and GTX offer 100 preset tones, with names such as Basic Clean, Ethereal and Country Deluxe. Each can be accessed either by a physical amplifier knob or by scrolling through the various choices on the main Fender Tone app screen. The default tones run the gamut from blues to rock to country to jazz. You can also log onto Fender’s Tone Cloud and download and install other company and user generated tones with descriptive names such as Almost Santana Smooth and Nashville Gospel.
Accessibility-wise, this is where the issues began.
Along with using the predefined tone profiles you can create your own, or modify a pre-existing tone. Each can be modified with any number of effects and modulations, and each of these allows at least one and often several parameters to be changed. For example, if you want to add Ambient reverb you can either accept the defaults or set specific parameters including Level, Decay, Dwell and Tone. The trouble is, once you tried adding Ambient Reverb to your effects chain the parameter screens were utterly invisible to VoiceOver; you had to accept the defaults. Consequently, I could not modify a tone, or create a new one without sighted help. I was left with a guitar amp with numerous options, which was good, but without the ability to create new tones and/or fine tune any of the presets—a definite frustration.
I did reach out several times to Fender, and received the standard reply. Basically, describing their ongoing commitment to offer their users the best experience possible. A company exec also told me they had recently hired a subcontractor to help them with accessibility.
To my delight, they were actually working on the issue, and beginning with version 3.1.7 of the Fender Tone iOS app the controls became visible. There were still a few bugs, such as the slide controls working but not reporting the results until you swiped away and then back again. But this and other bugs were resolved in subsequent Versions, and as of the latest release, Version 3.2.3 this and other bugs have been successfully squashed. There are still times when I need sighted help, such as when I purchased the GT’s four-button footswitch and looper pedal and had to enable it on the unit itself. And the tuning option works via colored LEDs. But all in all my current experience is positive, and I have no hesitation recommending this the Mustang GT or GTX.
I decided to cast my net a bit wider and try out a few other modeling amps with smartphone controls. Two others, in fact: The Spark Mini from Positive Grid and the Boss Waza-Air Wireless Personal Guitar Amplification System.
The Spark Mini features three simple physical control knobs. One for amp volume, a second for volume of the music or backing tracks you play through the input jack from your phone or other music device. The third know controls the four default guitar presets: Rhythm, Lead, Solo and Custom. You can set these four either individually or in groups using the Spark app. Unfortunately, the app is nearly completely inaccessible. There are unlabeled buttons that do unexpected things, or nothing at all. Sliders don’t work with touch, or report their status. Only by luck was I able to change any of the presets.
I did enjoy the simplicity of the hardware controls, and any players who stick to a few basic tone profiles might be happy with this model. The sound was surprisingly good for its size, and it is extremely portable. Basically, it’s the perfect beside the couch pick up the guitar and play for a few minutes amplifier.
I also tried the Boss WAZA AIR, which is a headset-based practice amp with some rather unusual features. A Bluetooth dongle plugs into your guitar and broadcasts to a dedicated pair of headphones. The software has some interesting features, such as the ability to position the sound behind you, as though you were on stage, and lock the playback in place so if you turn your head the sound remains stationery. It also offers an audible tuner that provides different pitched sounds depending on whether the string is flat or sharp. Unfortunately, the accompanying software was also mostly inaccessible. I was not even able to locate the tuning feature using VoiceOver.
I already use several app-controllable devices, such as my home thermostat, lawn irrigation system and washer/dryer. But these products are aimed toward the sighted consumer, and they are used to dials and knobs. Consequently, too many developers are trying to duplicate their hardware experience by creating look-alike controls. Standard controls, such as edit fields, slide controls and checkboxes are usually quite accessible, out of the box. But when developers create custom controls, such as the skeuomorphic dials and knobs on modeling amplifiers, washing machines and other devices, they tend not to test for accessibility. Too often an accessibility overlay is required to meet W3 guidelines. Fender has taken this step with their GT and GTX amplifiers—proving it can be done. Positive Grid, Boss and too many others have not.
The blind are a relatively small part of the total marketplace. Our total buying power is usually not enough to sway positive changes. Without the pressure of persistence of individual consumers and blindness organizations there will continue to be precious little incentive for companies to place accessibility on their radar and keep it there.
If and when you reach out to a developer or company regarding their less-than-VoiceOver-friendly app, here are just a few resources you may also wish to pass along:
Supporting VoiceOver in your app | Apple Developer Documentation
