iRig guitar interface
Thursday, 02 September 2010
What this little device does is allow you to plug an electric guitar into your iPhone, iPod touch or iPad – then, with an amplifier app and some earbuds plugged in, you have a practice amp, just like that. It’s literally a go-anywhere solution – the biggest, clumsiest part of the equation is that electric guitar. You do get a little management issue dealing with various cords, of course, but it’s still a whole lot easier than grappling with an actual practice amp, if you have an iPod touch or iPhone already, anyway. And with the iPad it’s even better, because you don’t have to slide the virtual amp from side to side to see the full array of knobs (Volume, Overdrive, Reverb etc).
But what does it sound like?
Surprisingly good, is the short answer. Download the IK Multimedia companion app, AmpliTube Free, and there’s your complete solution.
AmpliTube also has a $24.99 version. From the iTunes Store descriptions, the pricey one is iPhone 4 compatible, which it doesn't say about the free one (surely that's just an oversight?).
But there is a big difference – the free version comes with a limited selection of stomp boxes, the LE version with a few more (for $4.19) and the c$25 jobby comes with ’em all.
The free version just includes three effects – called stompboxes – plus one amp+cabinet, and two 'microphones' (mic profiles).
Every electric guitarist knows you need at least one effect – and hopefully they know that should be a fuzz or overdrive pedal – otherwise that guitar just doesn’t sound electric.
The LE version includes five stompboxes, one amp+cabinet and two microphones.
More gear can be added to the Free and LE apps through in-app purchases of a-la-carte models, with the stompboxes costing about $4 each and amplifiers+cabinets more like $8 (the prices seemed to fluctuate, with some going on special sometimes for 99¢).
AmpliTube FULL (the expensive one) includes the entire collection – 11 stompboxes, five amps+cabinets and two microphones.
With my Free version I quickly added two effects (both when they appeared on special) plus a bass head, as I’m more a bass player.
IK Multimedia has figured in the computer audio space for years, starting out (I think) making the AmpliTube software for Mac and PC, and various plug-ins for ProTools and Logic.
The interface
The buttons can be turned with a twist of the finger but it’s easier just to touch it to select, then raise the millibars on the right side of the screen with a swipe.
It’s all pretty easy to get familiar with.
Soundwise, sometimes it was really good (with the electric guitar) and sometimes really noisy and inconsistent (with my bass, but I suspect it was my bass playing up again).
Sometimes I couldn’t get tones to change at all – all I could effect was volume. The stompboxes were similar – but boy, do you have to watch out for distortion – an on-screen warning not to have the volume up full when you plug in is worth heeding.
You’d imagine, as a practice amp, you could play along with any song from your iTunes library, but you can’t. Instead, AmpliTube requires you to manually sync your own tracks to AmpliTube using your web browser over a Wi-Fi connection. Users can adjust the track volume as necessary, which plays the uploaded track as-is or lets you loop only a section of the track. This is fiddly and seems like a weird thing to have to do.
The in-app tuner is really good, and the metronome is handy, too. The tuner actually stays as a tiny window while you’re playing, so it’s easy and accurate to check tuning constantly.
The bass head I downloaded didn’t sound much different to playing through the guitar head – and it had a couple less tone controls to boot, unlike my real-life Peavey head. I’m used to limited digital offerings for bass, but it still annoys me.
However, and weirdly, AmpliTube always worked much better, and much more as advertised, if I booted up another guitar amp app before it and played a little, then exited and opened AmpliTube. I have no idea why.
Not being able to record is a real shame – if you come up with something great ... well, tough.
Those effects
Since you can run a mini-pin out to your Mac, you can conceivably use this as a recording input to GarageBand and the like, so if you grow to really love the sound of the amps or of the effects, that's an option with the iRig, but it's quite clear about what cable you use and how to get this done properly.
More amps
But having the iRig hardware opens up other amp apps to you – like the cool, free AmpKit (right, above), which I assumed was put out by Peavey as all the amps were based on existing Peavey ones – but it’s by Agile Partners, who also make the excellent Guitar Toolkit app.
http://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/ampkit/id364011231?mt=8
The $24.99 AmpKit+ comes with all the effects and amp profiles – pretty extraordinary range, for the price, I have to say. Especially considering it sounds so good.
The bass head I got as an in-app purchase to the freebie version; it really sounds like a bass head, but once again, with limited tonal options, unlike my real Peavey TNT bass amp. And there’s only one bass head available and loads of guitar heads – again, unlike in the real world.
But I like the way you can choose from presets – they reconfigure to reflect the ones you can do, and the ones you need to buy in extra effects for. And changing the mic profiles really makes a difference too, with this app, as does even choosing off-axis or on-axis 'mic placements'.
You can also record with it, so if you come up with something you want to retain, you can upload it to your Mac. This is slightly unintuitive to use – you choose one of the three Recording Sessions slots under the Recordings tab, record in to that, then upload it to a website you can grab it from after – just go to the web address it generates.
Under the three slots are a whole lot of preset tunes you can practice to, to get your cliché licks down pat. You can also Edit these out to remove them.
All in all, I found this app much more consistent and accurate than IK’s, in my testing, anyway.
Conversely, iShred Live by Frontier Design Group didn’t work at all unless you booted it first.
This was free, too, and worked well when it, erm, worked at all.
I thought quitting out of an amp app would solve the problem – that it was due to the so-called iOS4 multitasking – but that didn’t work either. Something was keeping hold of the sound channel, I’m guessing.
However, the $1.29 Amps&Cabs app looks kinda nice (above, left) – but don’t bother. It really did very little, sound wise, between the different cabs and had no effects at all.
What’s great — it works as advertised, making a personal practice session that much easier
What’s not — cord entanglements, and inconsistent app function. Not enough features for bass players!
Needs — something like that cool English fridge-magnet iPad holder so you can stick your iPhone or iPod touch onto your guitar's body.
8/10
What — IK MultiMedia iRig iPhone/touch/iPad guitar adapter, $89
