Looking for feedback-based software for developing technique

[Takin' a Ride]

Any suggestions greatly appreciated. No need to suggest programs simply because they're free. Most of the stuff I see is at most $50 and I'm happy to pay that for a good program.

What I'm looking for is something that my actual playing can be "graded" against. I have a POD X3 and I haven't totally figured it out yet, but you can run it into a computer. Does this require a special sound card for the input?

What I'm looking to do is develop my technique with simple exercises, but I'd like to be able to play against a metronome and see afterwards how well I played on time. I'd like some type of program where I can practice various scales at different speeds and do other stuff like learn the fretboard and chord fingerings.

I've taken guitar lessons in the past and have some minimal music thery training as well. Since I play typically by myself, I feel like I'm developing bad habits of not playing on time. Knowing myself, I'd progress much faster if I had some straighforward exercises to follow, which is why I like the computer program idea.

Again, thanks for looking and any feedback would be appreciated.

[jay ratkowski]

I actually did a marketing project for school a bit ago on a software that took your playing in realtime, translated the digital audio to midi and used that to compare to pre-programmed lessons and find mistakes in timing, notes, etc. The DA to MIDI conversion is possible, I think even in realtime. However, a program that uses that to tell you anything useful about your technique doesn't exist (from what I know). Anyone can correct me if I'm wrong, technology moves fast!

Anyway, if you're worried about timing, you can record to virtually any software (from the free stuff to Pro Tools) and they should all have a built-in metronome and they should be able to show you the audio track with guides every 1/64th note or broken down even further. So you can use that to look at how your playing fits into time. Not sure if that helps or is even what you want, but that's what I thought of.