Yousician Cost & Pricing Plans
Good news for those who want to check out Yousician: you can download the software or app for free. However, you’ll only be able to play a limited number of songs, and you won’t be able to upload any of your own. Any content uploaded by other users will also be off-limits to you. As a way of checking out the software’s features to see if it works for you, the free version is fine; however, if you’re in it for the long haul, a Premium subscription is really your only option.
Yousician’s Premium plan does away with all of the limits mentioned above. The lack of interruptions is the biggest perk by far, as it lets you use the app to truly learn at your own pace and in your own time. There’s only one type of subscription, but you can choose between monthly or yearly plans. Since Yousician also offers lessons for other instruments (piano, ukulele, and bass), there are also bundles that can save you money if you buy premium access for multiple instruments. Here’s a quick look at Yousician’s prices:
Billing Cycle | 1 Instrument | All Instruments |
---|---|---|
Monthly | $19.99 | $29.99 |
Yearly | $119.99 | $179.99 |
Bear in mind that Yousician automatically renews your subscription until you opt to terminate it. If you do start thinking about leaving Yousician, you should file a plan cancellation request as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary renewal charges.
Yousician Features
Yousician gives you two modes to work with: Practice and Play. In each mode, you’ll be greeted with an interface reminiscent of popular music/rhythm games. The difference is that you’ll be working with a real guitar. How does Yousician manage this, you might ask?
When you first set up, you’ll have to tune your guitar according to Yousician’s tuner. Not only does this serve as a tuning check, but it also ensures that the Yousician software can detect the nuances of your playing perfectly. This is important, because as we mentioned earlier, you’ll get evaluated and scored as you play. Before you jump into evaluation, though, you’ll likely go through Practice mode first.
Putting the “Play” in Guitar Playing
This mode lets you play the song at your chosen speed as many times as you like. You can even loop certain sections of a song if you’re having trouble mastering a run or if you want to focus on polishing your rendition. If you’re not yet familiar with how particular chords or notes ought to sound, you can toggle the “Play for Me” function, which plays the correct sounds for you. There’s also an auto-play function if you’re ready to play through the whole song at normal speed.
Reading the interface is easy, with Yousician using different colors and numbers to indicate the fingers and frets you should be using. Chords for strumming are also displayed as color-coded blocks that differentiate them from sections requiring plucking or other techniques. A progress bar will show you how far along you are in the song.
Real-time Feedback
Ready to test your skills? Then mosey on over to Play mode, where Yousician evaluates your performance in real-time. The interface stays mostly the same, so you won’t have to worry about familiarizing yourself with new controls. The software will listen for pitch, accuracy, rhythm and tempo, and other factors, notifying you of hits or misses in real-time. You’ll earn points and stars that correspond to the quality of your playing. Yousician’s rating scale goes up to three stars, and as with many rhythm games, mistakes will cost you “lives.” Lose enough and you’ll have to start over; successfully finish a song, though, and you’ll unlock more challenging tracks.
Rise to the Top
Yousician’s lessons are structured as a tree of “missions,” progressing from Level 1 all the way up to Level 15. The first level is for absolute beginners, while Level 5 is for advanced players who are comfortable with improvisation and can generally play, as Yousician puts it, “whatever they want.” If you’ve already got some skills in your pocket, you won’t have to start from the very bottom. Your first lesson also comes with a short assessment, so you can start a few rungs higher on the mission ladder if needed.
Speaking of ladders, Yousician also features leaderboards that rank you amongst the rest of the user base. It’s a fun way to gauge your progress, and competitive users will appreciate the added motivation of wanting to overtake certain users in the rankings.
Yousician lets you expand your repertoire of songs — and presumably, skills — by uploading your own songs to the program’s library. The software will analyze the track’s notes, so you can also practice and perform it through Yousician’s system of real-time guidance and evaluation.
Unfortunately, even with this feature, Yousician can hit a few limits when it comes to how much you can learn. The software features drills to sharpen your skills, but its overall focus on a “follow-the-song” format often means your skill tree is limited to what skills happen to be present throughout the software’s library. You won’t get personalized tips and tricks either, and more advanced players looking to master a particular genre or style of playing might find Yousician’s approach a bit lacking.
Yousician Customer Support
Yousician has a detailed FAQ section that can answer most typical questions about installation, general software usage, billing, and more. For more direct assistance, you can submit a support request through the site’s contact form.
Yousician Review 2020 – Conclusion
Yousician gamifies the guitar learning process using a colorful and easy-to-follow system that promises to take you from beginner to expert in no time. Lessons structured as missions and points-based achievements make this a great option for the competitive crowd, but people looking for more variety might find that Yousician loses its shine over time. The ability to upload your own songs injects some much-needed flavor to the whole system, but if you’re not inclined to learn mostly through a “follow-the-song” formula, this isn’t the software for you. Yousician also offers lessons for bass, ukulele, and piano, so you can always turn to other instruments to spice up your learning life; with apps for iOS and Android, you can take your lessons with you anywhere, too. Check out Yousician today!
6 Comments
I do not recommend! Tricky wording for membership plans and you can’t cancel for a year! It is basically “guitar hero” in an app, even with guitar tuned, the app doesn’t recognize notes, and the wording makes you think you are getting a monthly plan then in the fine print, it says it will charge you monthly – for the next year. I tried to cancel for this app I can’t use, and they are still going to charge me each month for the next 11 months. Ridiculous!
Loving Yousician for Guitar and Ukulele. Can you loop a section / riff that you want to learn by itself inside a song so it can be worked on independently over and over again?
Hi Dave,
Glad Yousician is working out for you! And yes, you can loop–and even slow down–specific parts of a song. You can access these features by going to Practice mode. Hope that helps! 🙂
READ THE AGREEMENT CAREFULLY
READ THE AGREEMENT CAREFULLY. The free trial agreement is worded in a way that may not click the first time you read through it. If you let the trial period lapse and begin the premium version, they will continue to charge you for a full year even after you cancel the premium service. This shady business tactic is enough for me to want to tell potential users to steer clear.
I am having a problem with my program. Every since the update I start my lesson only to have the video stop after a few minutes. The audio continues but video is stuck. I have shut down and restarted now 4 times. What happened??
Hi Paul,
Have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling it? If so, and the problem persists, it could be a bug in the latest update. If you’re on PC, it might also be a driver issue, though I’m betting on the former. If it’s indeed a buggy update, you have no choice but to wait for another update that, hopefully, fixes the issue. However, you should definitely get in touch with Yousician’s support team to let them know of the video issues you’ve been having.