by If you love playing the electric guitar, and if you live in an urban core where you can’t dial all knobs to 10 on you amp, then you will enjoy AmpliTube and iRig for your iPad. You get probably $15,000.00USD worth of stompboxes and amps and microphones for around $60.00USD. You need to spend $20.00USD to buy the AmpliTube App from the iTunes store. Don’t download the free version. Just pony up the dough for the full-service AmpliTube that includes all the pedals without having to buy them one-by-one for $3.00USD. Then you need to buy the $40.00USD iRig adapter from a music store that will allow you to connect your guitar to your iPad.
Here’s my iRig in the package. Unwrap it, plug it into your iPad and then plug in your guitar and some headphones and you’re ready to rock!
AmpliTube will give you this volume warning each time you fire up your gig kit.
Here’s a shot of my iPad running AmpliTube. My new P90 Les Paul is plugged into the iRig adapter. I’m ready to start experimenting with lots of great sounds.
Presets are the key to getting quickly started with AmpliTube. Your pedals and amps and mic are pre-picked for you. Just start dialing knobs and flipping switches.
The pedals sound realistic and while getting the knobs to turn can be tricksy at first, a steady hand and an even eye will help you get the hang of it.
Everything you see on screen can be manipulated by you. Swap out pedals. Change your amp by touching on its icon. Change your mic by doing the same touch.
You can build a wild array of sounds and then save them to open preset slots if you like.
Picking an amp is as easy as choosing the sound you want: Clean, Crunch, Lead, Metal or Bass. The amps are distinctive and fun to play through in every way.
You mix and match your speaker the same way: Click on the “CAB” button and choose your sound. The hiss from your guitar will change with every amp and cab and microphone you pick, adding an extra layer of realism.
You can also use the built-in tuner and metronome to help refine and condition your playing.
You can also fine-tune your setup. I left everything as the default.
If you decide to “pay as you go” for pedals, you can buy them from within AmpliTube for $3.00USD each.
You are also supposed to be able to transfer songs from your computer to AmpliTube for jamming and learning.
Adding songs is supposed to let you slow down and loop play bits to help in the muscle memory of developing a new song — just like the Tascam Trainer — but I couldn’t get the Songs feature to work, even after following their troubleshooting advice.
The network transfer failed in both Firefox and Safari.
AmpliTube for iPad is a good first try at creating a game-changing music App for your electric guitar. The iPhone and iPad Touch version of AmpliTube has recording and four new pedals and audio mixing and other necessary keen things — and I look forward to having those important features ported over to the iPad version of the App as soon as possible.
Pretty exciting for those with an electric guitar, David! 🙂