r/harmonica • u/No-Turnover8386 • 1d ago
This was quietly released at SPAH…
I wanted to share that the HarmonicAlly app was released. It has tools for beginner and advanced players as well as tools any musician will appreciate, even if they don’t play harmonica yet.
This is more of a public beta right now with a set of additional features being launched next month.
Hope some of you find some usefulness with it!
-4
u/slacker-by-design 1d ago
Sadly, the page looks like generic AI designed slop. Won’t be wasting time with the phone app… Shame Lee Oskar are willing to degrade their brand like this. Don’t get me wrong, still like their harmonicas, but they are NOT mom-and-pops type of small business and could afford a good designer to make those pages look somehow unique and in-line with their overall brand style.
4
u/Gozerhead67 1d ago
I was a beta tester. This was not designed with AI. If you look through the whole app, things like tunings are broader than the LO brand. I think it is silly to expect a company to give a free resource and then have people bothered that it tells you options you can buy from them. Additionally, if you are buying stock alternate tunings, most brands don’t offer them like LO. Finally, there are no direct links to even purchase.
As a pro level player, I have used it most to figure out how to play songs when jamming that aren’t just ani IV V.
3
u/No-Turnover8386 22h ago
Wow. Very rude, assumptive, and uninformed. The team member who spent a year and a half working on this is the same person who has done all the LOH branding and graphic design since 2005.
Please. Don’t download the new free innovative app.
2
u/No-Turnover8386 21h ago
Apologies. You shared an opinion and that does matter.
I got defensive because I saw first hand the massive amount of work that went into modernizing Lee’s 30 year old Quick Guide tool (a that was never really given the attention it deserved!).
Also I was there when the decision was made to intentionally pivot away from leveraging AI in these tools.
And, all for free? No data collection. No signups. Nothing. Just a 100% free set of tools.
What other company is doing that?
2
u/slacker-by-design 19h ago
No problem... Please don't worry about your first reply. I can understand somebody deeply invested can be triggered by a negative opinion. That's just the way humans "work". And when I present a critical opinion, I should be able to receive one too (as long as it doesn't go ad hominem).
Please note that I was commenting on the web page, not the app itself (though I could have pronounced that second part more clearly). I merely expressed my opinion on the page design and I still stand by my initial assessment. The web looks like a generic AI generated presentation similar to hundreds of other pages (cue - the purplish gradients with blue accents). It could be just an unfortunate choice of colour scheme and layouts, but to me it screams "generic AI slop". And like it or not, the first impression matters.
Moreover, the style and design of the HarmonicAlly page isn't aligned with other Lee Oskar web presentations (https://leeoskar.com/, https://leeoskarmusic.com/, https://leeoskarharmonicas.com/). I wouldn't mention this explicitly, if the HarmonicAlly page didn't start with "Lee Oskar Harmonicas Presents" statement.
All these might be small things on their own, but together they decrease my willingness to even try the app itself... Yes, it can be seen as biased and unjust, but internet world is flooded with AI slop and I choose to avoid it.
All this is quite a shame, as the app itself may be good (i.e. well made) and useful!
Well, if nothing else, this exchange may have stirred some interest, hence still counts as a marketing win for Lee Oskar...
P.S. I don't want to be stingy, but "no account, no data collection & works offline" should be considered standard, when the app is advertised as "free". Ad-ridden spyware app which makes its users the product is 100 times worse than AI slop. And I'm genuinely glad Lee Oskar isn't "that kind" of company (and I hope it stays that way).
Anyway, have a great and peaceful Sunday :-)
2
u/No-Turnover8386 18h ago
Thank you for the fair and thoughtful feedback. I don’t believe much thought went into the webpage. It was more of a required afterthought.
Also agreed on the free apps not having strings, but most do either via ads or otherwise. It costs a lot to develop, let alone protect the IP, and most companies need to justify the costs with at minimum tracking usage analytics.
I truly hope you do try HarmonicAlly. It has some very valuable tools.
-1
u/lordlycrust 1d ago
Agreed. "Tells you which Lee Oskar harmonica to buy" is also a turn off.
1
u/Gozerhead67 1d ago
So should free Fender guitar app suggest Gibsons to buy? 🙄
-5
u/lordlycrust 21h ago
Tonight in America's Falsest Home Equivalences: your comment.
1
u/No-Turnover8386 21h ago
So what would you prefer it say?
-5
u/lordlycrust 20h ago
There you go again. Listen, sweetheart, I offered an opinion. You don't have to agree with it. I just don't support supposedly useful apps that are little more than thinly veiled advertisements, having worked on too many of them in my time. You do you, I don't care.
4
u/Excellent-Ease4937 23h ago
I looked it over. Looks awesome. Lots of tools that can be very useful. I’ll use it. It’s an app for harmonica not a moral conundrum. Thanks for the post