IK Multimedia, a company well known among readers of my product reviews, has continued to release new all-encompassing products that serve the musician and audio engineer markets. Having already enjoyed great success with their original release of AmpliTube (and plenty of praise from reviewers like me), IK Multimedia has been hard at work expanding the features of AmpliTube. They have also made a hardware add-on called the iRig Stomp that represents the physical manifestation of the virtual on-screen stomp box representations in AmpliTube.
How well do these two products work together? Read on to find out. AmpliTube offers an expansive collection of multi-effect processing for guitar and bass, as well as offering multi-track recording and playback functionality. Anyone familiar with the physical world corollary knows that if you were to assemble everything that AmpliTube simulates in actual hardware effects boxes and desktop recording software, the costs would be in the hundreds of dollars.
And yet, even with decking out AmpliTube with the initial purchase plus all the in-app purchase add-ins (which include the effects found in AmpliTube Fender and AmpliTube Slash) would still cost under a hundred dollars for one of the most comprehensive guitar effects collections available on the iPad today. Assembling the on-screen stompboxs, amps, miss and cabling is as easy as touching and dragging the graphic representations of the real-world counterparts. What I find most impressive is that even a first generation iPad can keep pace with processing all these effects in real-time. This makes AmpliTube a terrific replacement for what used to be an unwieldily expensive collection of hardware stapled to a pedalboard. And with the addition of iRig Stomp, you don't even have to say goodbye to the ever helpful foot switch.
AmpliTube 'just works' with iRig Stomp, making it a killer combination. In addition to minimizing the amount of application functionality duplication from the purchase of two separate apps that do much of the same thing, the AmpliTube in-app purchase approach allows you to mix Marshall amps with Fender stompbox effects and vice versa. Another AmpliTube in-app purchase incorporates a several vocal effects available in another popular IK Multimedia iOS app, VocaLive. Combining all of these abilities under a single umbrella app makes a lot of sense, especially when dealing with the limited multi-tasking capabilities of iOS (of course, the built-in mixer/recorder with its tap tempo, visual metronome and loop points is more than adequate for recording licks and even entire songs). Not only is everything in one unified, easy-to-use interface, but you also don't have to bounce from app to app tweaking settings while hoping not to run out of system resources. Fortunately, the musicians and design engineers at IK Multimedia have just the fix.
In the complete AmpliTube 3 flagship full version, there are 160 individual pieces of gear to choose from. Plus, you can add other packages to the mix like AmpliTube Orange®, AmpliTube Fender®, Ampeg® SVX, AmpliTube Slash and more and choose from over 230 pieces of gear.
IRig Stomp plugs into your iOS's headphone jack to act as a real-world toggle for a virtual AmpliTube stompbox configuration. An additional standard jack input for the guitar or bass and stereo outputs for headphones (to keep the neighbors happy) and speakers complete the musical circuit. Need more volume? Dial up the single gain knob on the unit, something you can do fairly easily with the side of your shoe. This gain requires power, either from an electrified pedalboard or, more conveniently, a 9 volt battery. This power is also used to illuminate the single red LED to tell you when the stompbox is enabled or not.
While the iRig Stomp does a respectable job of toggling AmpliTube virtual stompboxes and presets, I would love to see IK combine the iRig Stomp with a foot pedal to make it an even more versatile hardware accessory. Of course, this would require IK to make some tweaks to the AmpliTube interface to virtualize support for such gear. While a spare foot pedal can manipulate AmpliTube via a MIDI controller (see my earlier review of ), it's not as elegant as it could be. That said, the iRig Stomp is a natural fit for AmpliTube fans, especially those who perform live. Another feature I would like to see added to the AmpliTube/iRig Stomp combination is the ability to trigger different audio preset configurations based on the number of toggles in a defined duration of time. For example, I could have two preset stompbox configurations stored in AmpliTube, one for a standard iRig Stomp toggle and the other for a double-tap.
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That would take a little more effort on IK Multimedia's part, but it would allow a lot more flexibility, especially during songs with expressive guitar solos!
File Size: 364 MB AmpliTube 4 is a guitar and bass tone studio for Mac/PC that works as a standalone application and as a plug-in for your favorite DAW. AmpliTube recreates the entire guitar/bass signal chain from instrument to recording device, and does so in a very realistic and intuitive way. But it also does it in ways you never dreamed possible. If you're new to using computers to get fabulous guitar tone, then you're in for a treat. If you're a veteran computer tone-master, well, you're still in for a treat.
AmpliTube pioneered - and leads the way in - guitar amp and effects modeling, and AmpliTube 4 takes it to the outer edges of extreme hyper realism with intuitive familiar tools. Fasten your seat belt.
Let's take a quick tour!
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