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OT: High-end sound meets best-in-class guitar tone
To be revealed Thursday (thanks for the reply, I thought I had posted this originally in the message!)
Comments
Thursday Announcement
Fractal audio and RME have teamed up ?
No but they'd use the same components, similar design, and still charge 3x more...
If you like those, you'll probably like this, all kidding aside.
Edit - note this is in OT for a reason.... You won't see anything mobile-focused on the Specs page (and the specs are pretty impressive). People don't seem to realize IK has engineers who have experience building (and repairing) professional studio hardware for decades and are happy to have an opportunity to flex more of those muscles directly at IK in a bit of a different way now. They procure any of the vintage hardware we model, they analyze every thing about audio gear like that down to the component level, and up to now have concentrated on turning that into software and similar. You can watch the brilliant CTO (been with IK from the go, knows more about audio engineering and hardware than I'd suspect most of us here have dreamt of knowing - and I have a degree in the former so I am not throwing stones at anybody) discuss some very interesting topics with questions asked by a well-known and well-respected producer/engineer from the stage in our room at NAMM soon. Stay tuned for that, should be great.
Following.
Looking pretty awesome for guitar players.
Needs more body spray.
Is it hardware or software?!
Only for very low bass?
Low end sound? 🤪
You're wondering: Is this product for me?
Ask yourself these questions:
1. Do you call your guitar an axe?
2. Do you think a seven string guitar (or axe) is a good idea?
3. Does "best in class tone" mean anything in real life?
NOTE: These sour grapes come from years of humiliation in guitar stores all up and down the East Coast until, in the words of D Boon, punk rock saved my life.
This could be a good solution for a serious guitar Tone seeker.
Over the years I've bought:
Digitech RP-1000
Line6 Pod
Johnson I forget
Fender Mustang Amp
Just plug in and flip between amp models. It's a lot of fun and rock solid for live play. The customer for this product will watch for reviews and visit forums to get validated input on the products sound/tone/useability.
The specs are impressive:
A-D with sample rates up to 192 kHz
Adaptive Impedance input
3 Hz to 32 kHz Frequency Response
Dynamic Range: 116 dB(A)
THD+N: -106 dB(A) at -1 dBFS
5 outputs
5 PIN-MIDI IN/OUT
Metal Enclosure
LOUD HEADPHONE AMP with:
A discrete component design versus cheaper (sound degrading) Integrated Circuit based design.
IK Multimedia makes some good hardware for the money. This could be a winner in a crowded market. Guitarists will pay $1000 or more for a good Amp Simulator that can be used to record using headphones.
This product is $350 so it might turn some heads if it delivers.
https://www.ikmultimedia.com/products/axeio/
I watched mitch Gallagher's video about it this morning- it looks and sounds like a great device. It looks like it comes with the fully loaded amplitube for desktop as well (correct me if I'm wrong there).
And I have to say @ikmultimedia, putting a reamp output on there was a great idea, I don't know of any other interface that does that. I just bought a diyre reamp box kit but haven't had time to build it yet, looking forward to playing with reamping soon.
I am not currently in need of this interface, but it looks great and I hope it's a very successful product.
Just to confirm, you are suggesting that your interface drivers will be as good as RME and using a custom FPGA design?
And also that RME are overpriced, interesting stance.
Didn't you know that iKmultimedia are famous for their world class audio drivers?
"High-end" and "best-in-class": I'll take "What are two concepts that no one has ever associated with IKmultimedia products?" for $200, Alex.
If I'm getting this right, the onboard circuitry does impedance matching + switchable input stages. So any further sound processing is done outside of the axe I/O, right?
The way I look at this: the DI inputs in most audio interfaces near this price range are often bad enough with high impedance passive pickups to warrant investing in a quality DI. And unless you're willing to build one yourself, you're looking at upwards of $150 for that. (I guess there are folks like Audient that have tried to up the DI game in affordable interfaces? Haven't tried their stuff..)
So one way to look at this is just: how good does this package sound compared to a good DI + a good 200$ish interface. I wouldn't be shocked if the axe I/O compared favorably.
Then again, their description of the JFET input stage as "tube-like" is worrisome to me. The description makes it seem like they went out of their way to make the JFET input stage coloration noticeable, which is rarely the route to a good DI.
Here's a picture of a JFET:
and here's a diagram of a Tube:
I think they are saying they selected a JFET device that sounds a lot like a Tube device. So, they didn't color it they just played through it without code and made this review of it's character.
IC's cannot sound like Tubes because they have different pictures than these :^). IC's look like little roaches. The bad kind.
PS - Most tubes "color" like crazy and fans call it "warm distortion". Guitarists cannot get enough of that warm distortion and will pay dearly for it. When is distortion good? When you want that "color" in your toolbox.
@mcdarcy Jfets, like tubes - and ICs - are just components in a circuit. It’s all about the circuit and how it uses it’s components.
Maybe it's a good device, but the hyperbole is kind of pathetic.
I’m interested. Thanks @mrufino1 for the Mitch Gallagher tip. Didn’t know Sweetwater had one already.
The circuit in this instance is a simple amplifier followed by a A-to-D so the choice of discrete components make a huge difference. IC’s make poor amplifiers. But JFETS and Tubes make better Amps. Software can model the sounds of tubes and JFET’s but many can hear that’s just not the same. If this product improves the results it will do well at that price. Wait for the guitarists to weigh in and don’t prejudge. If it’s good someone you respect will encourage it’s use. Marketing speak is always useless to pick out products,.
Then why do you use (the same) Marketing speak yourself ?
If ICs make poor amplifiers, go tell the users of Apogee, RME and UAD about their crappy inputs - all built from ICs (containing a full preamp).
The high regarded Focusrite ISA preamp is just a bunch of 5532 opamp ICs (25 cent in 1k quantities iirc) plus a smart transformer design.
@ohwell is spot on with his 'it's about the circuit, not the single part'
Well if @Telefunky says i’m full of shit theni’mobvioulyusing facts from the1990’s.
I need to do more research on the discrete s I. Issue. Inthe90’sitwas generally accepted as the only way to get close to a Clas A Tube Design.
Apologies for spouting off without doing the work.
I'd never call someone 'full of shite' unless face to face.
You've just answered marketing blurb with urban legends
Guitarists demand much more 'interactivity' from their amplification than a singer.
The amp and speaker become part of the instrument.
Noone really cares about how that gear is built - it just has to work as expected, which is largely based on nothing but experience.
'Tube sound' is just a label for a combination of certain parts, the most significant ones are transformers, which have incredibly complex signal interaction.
The most famous bass tube amp (Ampeg SVT) distorts first of all by a pair of rectifier diodes in it's input path, and gets it's signature sound from an inductor based mid range filter. (an inductor technically is half a transformer)
Only if the amp is played at high volume there's distortion from the output stage and saturation of the output transformer added.
But: in this situation the speakers of the usual 8x10 fridge cabinet are driven almost beyond specs, which adds way more to the sound than the distortion of the amp itself.
Because no 2 tubes can be produced exactly the same, tubes have also become a kind of individuality mark - versus computer produced semiconductors today.
But this wasn't so in the early days of the transistor, back then parts varied a lot.
I think were debating "clean" amplification vs traditional guitar amplification using "Tubes".
There still seems to be a lot of folks say FET's are great for Tube Replacement designs:
http://www.hawestv.com/amp_projects/amp_solid_tube/tube_sound1.htm
Apogee, RME and UAD seem to make extremely clean audio interfaces and cost 2-6 times the price of this product. They do not color the sound in a significant way. Tubes are nothing if not coloring devices. So, I think they are using JFET's for their coloration of the input.
Again... I'll wait to see if guitar players (tube brethren) respond to the sound.
Have you ever heard a Mackintosh Tube Amp? Played through a Dumble Guitar Amp? Not very clean but so warm you can bathe in it. That's what guitar players want.
On the Discrete vs Integrated Circuit generalizations I find this quote:
Opamps (IC's) often sound different than discrete for the following reasons: opamps use
Because of this, some opamps can sometimes sound a bit clinical and boring. When you design with discrete, you tend to use more resistors and capacitors in the circuit which add their own sound.
So, a lot of what I saw in 1990's still seems to be preached today.
@McDtracy If you're interested in approaches to JFET for mimicking the effect of tubes, there's a lot of interesting material from the guitar pedal making community. E.g. ROG turned a lot of people onto the project of using JFETS to replicate the behavior of tubes in traditional amp/preamp schematics: http://www.runoffgroove.com/articles.html (Look at their article on the Fetzer Valve, for instance.) Tons and tons of discussions of the topic on various forums.
But IMO DI design is a different ball game with its own set of problems. In my limited experience not messing things up is a big enough hurdle that until you hit the truly high end bracket (think reddi) PR material that hypes coloration should be approached with suspicion. The even bigger red flag in the axe I/O PR for me is that they chose to package the JFET circuit as an option users turn on for coloration. That, to my mind, incentivizes designing the JFET input stage in a way that exaggerates its effect on the sound.
I'm all for putting the best DI a team of engineers can build into a 350$ interface while turning a profit.
I was just looking at the countryman 85 webpage (https://www.countryman.com/type-85-direct-box/) - it's a well regarded, relatively affordable ($150ish) JFET based DI. If a team could put a DI that good in their $350 audio interface, something tells me they wouldn't feel the need to give users the option to turn it off.
Against my point above, it's interesting that the Countryman 85 webpage briefly mentions that their circuit is "a single-ended class A circuit, much like a classic tube microphone preamp". But notice, it's surrounded by a big graphic about its flat frequency response headers that emphasize "simple" "pure". That whole segment of the page ends with "The Type 85 doesn’t have roll off switches or effects. Adjusting the frequency content of a sound source is an artistic decision best done at the mixing location where you can hear the results and easily make changes."
I'm allergic to hardware due to costs. But I will pontificate on any subject armed with little more than some well intentioned opinions.
The CountryMan 85 looks like a DI-box costing $180. Does it come with something like Amplitube and T-Racks? This new product from IK might be shite but I'll will wait until I can use it or find a solid review.
Out.
The Countryman DI is an essential piece for applications in stage context.
You buy it once in a lifetime - it's rugged, bulletproof, safe under the most absurd conditions and delivers the instrument's tone with no coloration to the mixer.
You can use it for recording, but that's neither it's focus nor is such 'caution' needed (in most cases).
Even simple Interfaces have reasonable input quality on their 'instrument' channel.
Probably all use a JFet as the 1st stage for the simple fact that it's input impedance is very high and doesn't put load on a passive pickup - which would alter the PU's sound character drastically.
JFets are dead cheap (most of them), yet the design of the input stage does matter.
The high input impedance is the main feature JFets share with tubes.
Which kind of amazes me that they have a Z knob to lower the input impedance. Seems a bit pointless to me and that's from someone who enjoys plugging directly into a AIWA TP 1001 ala Blackmore.
I'm still waiting for someone to build an interface with a decent xformer input. Until then a passive JDI with a Boss tuner will have to do.
AMP out is really the only thing on this device I can give merit to.