IK Multimedia AXE I/o

103
auGust 2019 Guitarist
reviewIK MULTIMEDIA AXE I/O
IK MULTIMEDIA AXE I/O £369
What You Need To Know
That’s a tiny amp head…
Well, actually, it’s a new USB audio
interface by IK Multimedia for
recording to a computer.
An audio interface review in a
guitar magazine?
Any guitar players who are serious
about their music will want to record
it at some time, and this particular
audio interface is specifically
designed for guitarists.
How’s that, then?
The main guitar input is not just a
bog-standard hi-Z input as you’ll
find on many interfaces: this one
lets you set up for active or passive
pickups, has optional JFET circuitry
in the preamp, and lets you set the
impedance to suit your pickups.
T
hose of you who embark on any
home recording these days will
likely be using a computer to take
advantage of the absolute wealth of facilities
provided by modern DAW software such
as Pro Tools, Logic, Cubase or Reaper, just
to name a few, and perhaps also using amp
sim plug-ins including AmpliTube, BIAS,
Guitar Rig and so on. The thing is, although
there’s plenty you can do to your guitar tone
once it’s recorded as digital data on the hard
drive, it makes absolute sense to record the
signal as well as possible in the first place.
As that ancient recording engineer’s saying
goes, you can’t polish a turd.
What you need, then, is a decent audio
interface that will take the signal from your
plugged-in guitar and send it – digitised –
to your DAW. This isn’t just a matter of
having quality A/D conversion onboard,
it’s also important that the front-end of the
audio interface (the preamp that first sees
your guitar signal) handles it in the most
sympathetic way.
IK Multimedia believes that it has sorted
this with its new AXE I/O audio interface,
which the company says has been designed
from the ground up with the goal of providing
the best possible interface for guitar players.
A two-in/five-out audio/MIDI interface
capable of up to 24-bit/192kHz resolution,
the AXE I/O features all the usual input
and monitoring options but also sports a
guitar input. This can be optimally set for
passive or active pickups, has a choice of two
preamp topologies including JFET, and has
variable input impedance that you can dial
in with a knob to set how the unit interacts
with your pickups.
On top of that, there’s an extra ‘amp
out’ socket for easy reamping (sending
previously recorded guitar to an amp to
be re-recorded with amp tone), a built-in
tuner, and a knob to directly access presets
in AmpliTube, which you get bundled (in
its AmpliTube 4 Deluxe form), with the
AXE I/O alongside 10 T-RackS 5 processing
plug-ins and Ableton Live 10 Lite.
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CONTACT IK Multimedia WEB www.ikmultimedia.com
1. Choose your pickup
type, decide on your
preamp topology, then
set an impedance that
sounds right with the
Z-Tone knob
2. The Preset push-encoder
lets you browse between
AmpliTube’s presets. It
can also be customised to
send any MIDI CC to control
other functions or software
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IK MULTIMEDIA AXE I/O
GIT448.rev_ik_axe.indd 103 13/06/2019 11:28