“If you’re a rock or metal guitarist looking to up your game, then JTC Guitar is an incredible resource”: JTC Guitar review

JTC Guitar (formerly known as Jam Track Central) is an online resource for guitarists. Aimed at beginner, intermediate and advanced players, it provides a massive catalog of videos and tabs from a range of tutors, many of which are well-known and highly regarded professional players.

There’s a wealth of material that teaches you how to master certain guitar styles and techniques, as well as rundowns of essential licks to utilize within particular styles of music. There are lessons on how to play certain riffs and solos, as well as exercises and practice routines for daily use. There are even masterclasses on how to improve your songwriting and mixing. There’s then a section dedicated to high-quality backing tracks for you to jam over.

For players using digital rigs, you might find their ‘Tones’ section helpful. It contains a massive range of carefully crafted IR packs. These aren’t included in your membership price, but they are discounted.

Different genres of music are covered, though JTC Guitar is primarily geared towards rock, metal, fusion and progressive styles. There are some fantastic lessons and exercises covering jazz and acoustic styles, but it does seem to be overwhelmingly rock.

Content and interface

JTC Guitar really does play host to a lot of content. There are tons and tons of videos, all with the aim of making you a better musician. Some are longer, and take a wider approach – perhaps you’re looking to improve on a certain style or technique – there will be a series of videos that take you step-by-step on how to do that. Others may be shorter and simply show the tab for a bunch of licks next to a video of someone playing them.

There are playlists within JTC Guitar too. With these, you can bunch together whatever selection of videos you want so that you’ve got them all in one convenient place. There are also plenty of user-created and preset playlists, all within a particular style of theme.

These are particularly good because if you’re using a playlist all about sweep picking, for example, you’re going to get videos from different players, so you’ll get different styles and approaches to the same technique, giving you a more rounded overall take on it. Of course, if you find a player or tutor within a playlist that you like, then you can just click on the release that the video is from and use that instead. 

On the videos, most of them are very high quality, often with multiple cameras, meaning you don’t miss out on anything important. For techniques that focus just as much on the picking hand as it does the fretting hand, there will usually be a close-up of the former alongside the latter. 

The video interface is also excellent. For videos that have corresponding tabs, the tab comes up on the right, with the video of the player on the left. You can choose to have the player on the top and the tab at the bottom, or you can remove the tab completely and replace it with a piano roll, or a visual of the fingerboard. It’s all down to what you prefer, and how you learn best.

You’ve also got the choice of removing the guitar from the backing track completely so that you can play over it yourself, or you can swap the player’s guitar part for a MIDI guitar which then allows you to slow it down or speed it up. You can also choose to loop certain bars or phrases, in case there’s a tricky part you need to continuously go over.

A range of content depth

JTC Guitar is good for players that maybe aren’t sure how much time they’ve got to dedicate to improving their guitar skills. A lot is done in little snapshots – you can learn a new lick or two here and there to expand your musical vocabulary without sacrificing much time, or, you can go on longer learning pathways if you want to go into more depth.

Many of the video series do go into a lot of depth too. For example, Eddie’s Yard – a piece by session player, Phil Short – is under five minutes long, but there are over 3.5 hours of video lessons dedicated to teaching you how to play it (it really is a monster piece of music, drawing inspiration from the likes of EVH and Nuno Bettencourt – ironically, seeing Phil play this on Instagram was what made me aware of JTC Guitar in the first place).

With certain lesson series, there may also be what they call primer videos at the start. These talk through essential techniques to make sure you’re properly equipped before going in on some tricky pieces. This is a great way of doing it, as you’re more likely to succeed – they’re helping you walk before you try and run.

Another great thing about JTC Guitar is the range of players they have on board. You can learn from the likes of Guthrie Govan, Lari Basilio, Mateus Asato, Danny Dela Cruz, Josh Smith, Nile Brosh, Rabea Massaad and loads more. Forget stuffy old guitar teachers – these are as bonafide rock star as you can get. 

Navigation

The downside to JTC Guitar is that it isn’t particularly easy to navigate. It takes a little while to get used to the terms and phrases they use, and how things are categorized didn’t work that well for me. Also, when you go through the settings at the start, you enter what you’re interested in and your skill level, but it seems that you’re still confronted with lots of other things. Some players, particularly those nearer the start of their playing journey might find this overwhelming or even confusing. 

As mentioned previously, there are some superb courses covering acoustic, country, blues and other more nuanced styles, but the whole thing does seem overwhelmingly rock. Even the aesthetic of the website is quite ‘metal’; not necessarily a bad thing, but something to keep in mind.

Once you have a good dig around and you begin to find your way around the site, it does make more sense, but it’s not obvious at first. Also, prices are listed next to pretty much all courses and lessons, even when you’re a member so you might at first think you have to pay for things you don’t.

It’s also worth pointing out that JTC Guitar isn’t necessarily a linear ‘this is how to play guitar’ course for beginners. There are online guitar lessons platforms out there that do that really well, but I don’t see JTC Guitar being utilized in that way. It does contain courses and lessons aimed at beginners, like how to play the pentatonic scale, but honestly, what JTC Guitar really excels at is providing players with some ability on the guitar a platform to grow massively.

If you’ve been playing for a couple of years and perhaps you’re stuck in a rut, then JTC Guitar has so many options to help you out of it – you could learn a new style of music or you could buff up on some licks for the style you already play. You could improve your songwriting perhaps. Even really experienced and skilled players will be delighted with what’s on offer, as it does seem like a good chunk of JTC Guitar’s content is aimed at players with a good grasp on the instrument already.

Conclusion

JTC Guitar has a massive library of high-quality content that helps guitarists improve their skills. It has various courses, masterclasses and lesson plans on all manner of techniques and playing styles, as well as quickfire videos that enable you to add more licks and tricks to your library. The website isn’t particularly easy to navigate, but the actual video interface is superb. If you’re a rock or metal guitarist looking to up your game, then JTC Guitar is an incredible resource.

Specifications

• Price: Subscription prices are displayed in £ on-site, wherever you're subscribing from. A monthly subscription is £19.99 (approx $25), annual is £179.99 (approx $224) and a 6-monthly sub is £99.99 (approx $124)
• Free trial: 14 days
• Features: 20,000+ licks, exercises, solos, lessons, and tabs, 100+ guitarists (many well-known), new content weekly, 1000+ backing tracks
• Contact: JTC Guitar