Picked up a new toy yesterday - IK Multimedia's iRig and Amplitube2 for the iphone. No final verdict on sound quality and 'serious' use-abillity, -but it sure is cool - and if not now, it will be the way I run fx in the future.
Stomp boxes and amp simulators flipped through and controlled on the touch screen. It also has tuner, metronome and 4 track recording / 'mastering' ability.
It is sold primarily as a practice / headphone gizmo, but you can plug it into an amp. I did last night and the delay , compression, distortion and reverb run without any amp simulators - where pretty darn good (no final judgement yet) . The amp simulators out into my tube amp* thinned and cheapened the tone. Perhaps on headphones they's be ok. The octave pedal doesn't work well and distorts with the harp regardless of settings- unless played very gently and evenly.
The iRig hardware interface itself is flimsy looking plastic unfortunately - We'll have to see how / if it holds up.
I'm a little schizophrenic with my set up in that my amps have to be tube - (I built one and work on them a bit)* but I will often use digital fx in front of them. Usually a Yamaha Stompbox with customized settings for delay ,reverb, and a little drive. This iRig set up has a very cool interface - and is as small as the iphone or ipad you are using it on. We'll have to see how useful the fx and tone quality actually is over time - and how the little hardware gizmo holds up. At the very least it's a cool toy and hotel room practice thingy - and sure looks like the future to me.
