Quench Thurston's Thirst for technical and design goodness.

The Amplitube iRig rocks!

It is really amazing what tools my trusty iPad has replaced. I have been using it as my virtual effects rack/amplifier and as an 8 track recorder since Christmas. This cool hardware and software combination comes from the folks at IK Multimedia (http://www.ikmultimedia.com). Their product combination of a hardware component, the iRig (http://www.ikmultimedia.com/irig/features/) along with their software component, Amplitube (http://www.ikmultimedia.com/amplitubeipad/features/) allows me to carry a large pedal board of effects, different amp head and cabinet combos along with a 8 track recorder all in a neoprene, notebook sized sleeve.

iRig and AmpliTube Rocks!

It works like this:

1. Plug the iRig into your headphone jack on your iPad.
2. Plug your guitar into the 1/4" jack on the iRig.
3. Plug your headphones (if desired) into the other side of the iRig.
4. Load the AmpliTube application.
5. Select your amp, cabinet and microphone combination.
6. Select up to 4 effects and change their settings.
7. ROCK OUT!

I have really enjoyed having the portability of the iPad as my practice rack and I am going to try and use it live soon. The quality of the sound is pretty good and the 8 track recorder is feature rich with effect options, bouncing tracks and other sound engineering duties.

The product is a little pricey for an iPad/iPhone application. The iRig retails for $39.99, AmpliTube retails for $19.99, the 8-Track plugin is another $17.00 and  there are other effects to add on for around $2.99 a piece. The software comes with 11 effects (Delay, Fuzz, Distortion, Overdrive, Wah, Env Filter, Chorus, Flanger, Phazer, Octave and Noise Filter) and you can buy 5 more (Compressor, Limiter, Reverb, Parametric Equalizer, Graphic Equalizer). So for around  $90 bucks you can have 16 effects, 5 amp heads, 5 cabinets, tuner, song practice tool that speeds ups and slows down loaded mp3 files, metronome and a 8-track recorder. I sold my Vamp and held back on purchasing an 11 Rack after getting this for Christmas.

All-in-all it is a great tool for the amateur guitarist. They do have a free version of the application so you can get an idea of how it works before making the big purchase.

While researching the IK Multimedia site, I discovered they have another product coming soon, the iRig Mic along with Vocal Live (http://www.ikmultimedia.com/vocalive/features/) which looks to be a vocal effects application like the AmpliTube. Hope I can multi-task these 2 products.