World Music Supply | Line 6 Mobile IN and Jammit Combo

Hey everyone, it’s Brian from World Music Supply here again, and I’m here to talk to you guys about a cool new collaboration from our friends over at Line 6, and the company Jammit. In the last few years, we have seen the iPod, iPhone, and iPad grow quite substantially as recording, and musical interface devices. A natural expansion of this was the Line 6 Mobile IN which we have covered previously here on the WMS blog, which allowed you to use your iPod as your entire rig, for practice, or even playing with a band if you were bold enough to show up to practice with just a guitar and an iPod.

The Line 6 Mobile IN

The next expansion was taken by Jammit, which was released in 2011 and was the first software that allowed you to take master tracks of different songs, and mix out parts, so you can just focus on say the guitar, or the bass part. Meaning you could learn songs twice as fast, because now instead of listening to the harmonic interplay between the guitar and bass, you just hear what the guitar is doing, and none of the cross over of keyboards, bass, or drums, just the part you need to learn. This was a great idea, but it was lacking something, the tone. In comes Line 6, with their Mobile IN attachment, which quickly solved this problem, by recreating the rig required for each song. Meaning you can focus on learning the song, instead of focusing on nailing the tone of each song.

You are also able to slow down the song, which is a great thing for drummers, who for years have had to listen to drum fills and solos at full speed and still attempt to learn them beat for beat, which lets face it, sounds a little daunting. In comes the Jammit, which allows you to slow everything down to an acceptable speed, letting you listen to that solo note for note, and slowly ramping it up to correct speed. This has been a valuable tool that has come bundled with guitar processors for years, and was one of the main selling points of loopers since their inception. The usefulness of this feature can not really be realized until it has been used multiple times on multiple songs, being able to slow a song, and listen to it note by note, without having to deal with pitch fluctuation that tends to happen when you slow a song down through any normal method.

The Line 6 Mobile IN Jammit Combo

For what it is, the Jammit and Line 6 Mobile IN combo is an amazing practice tool for both guitarists and bassists, and the Jammit is good for everyone in a normal band, with plenty of songs for dirt cheap, ranging anywhere from .99 to just above 5 dollars. All of the songs have been carefully broken down and setup in a way to make them user friendly and easy to work through. All with guitar tones that change as you move through the song, so in a song like “Closer to the heart” by Rush, you slide from that smooth chorus tone, to Alex Lifesons big distortion tone, all without having to ever once pay attention to anything other than the tabs on your iPads screen. For all it can do, at an amazing price point, the Jammit and Line 6 Mobile IN Combo is an outstanding learning tool for guitarists, bassists, and anyone else who just needs to dissect a song into its relative chunks to be able to really reign in a song, and its for these reasons that I give the Mobile IN Jammit combo a 9 out of 10, because even though, yes over all the package is extremely affordable, you still have to own an iOS device, such as an iPhone, or iPad, which are far less affordable.

The Line 6 Mobile IN and Jammit Combo

World Music Supply | The Digitech iStomp

Hey guys, it’s Brian from World Music Supply here again, and today I want to talk to you guys about a really innovative new pedal from Digitech called the iStomp. The iStomp is a pedal that allows its entire effect framework to be swapped out via any iOS 4 or later device running the DigiTech® Stomp Shop™ App.

The Digitech iStomp

Digitech has already done something similar to this with their IPB10 pedalboard, which used the iPad as the guts of a whole multi-effect board. Now the idea behind the IPB10 is amazing, have all of the flexibility of a normal pedal board but all you have to deal with is your iPad. However this faced a few issues, mainly, many guitarists are sort of stuck in their way as far as their “tones” go, and as such they just dont like the idea of giving up their favorite ten or fifteen year old pedals for digital recreations of them on a touch screen.

The Digitech iStomp

       This is why pedals like the iStomp are invaluable for guitarists. You get all of the flexibility of a limitless number of pedals under your feet, but it only takes up as much room as a normal stomp box. This means that you can add a few new tonal colors into your chain without having to forgo your old favorites just to save space. The iStomp even comes preloaded with Digitechs infamous Redline Distortion from their RP series of multi effects, as well as the Total Recall delay available for free from the DigiTech® Stomp Shop™ App right from the get go.

The Digitech iStomp

       The most logical thing I could think to do was swap out certain pedals in my pedal chain with the iStomp and see how it functioned in their place, for example, taking out my main distortion pedal and swapping it  with the iStomp, or taking out my delay and using the iStomp in its place. This approach worked well, as the included Redline pedal has a great full sound, with plenty of ZZ top style swagger, and it cleaned up nicely with your volume knob, it actually sounded better then my road worn distortion box I’ve had for years now. The other available models sounded great too, with models of many famous pedals, like a Tube Screamer, a Dunlop style fuzz face, and of course Digitechs classic Deathmetal distortion. They all had a fresh feeling to them that always sounded spot on to what you hoped it would sound like. There were no digital artifacts or fake sounding cheapo models like you find on some lower priced multi-effect units.

       Testing it as a Delay pedal was equally satisfying, as there are more then enough pedals available to fill in the role of my little old bucket brigade delay pedal. With plenty of digital sounding delays for a nice bright repeat, and plenty of analog sounding delays that quickly became personal favorites. My favorite was not the Total Recall as I had hoped, as its repeats are just too “true” sounding to me, as you let the delay signal get longer and longer, you end up with what sounds like five hundred guitars, as opposed to one guitar with a long delay. My favorite delay actually ended up being the vintage tape delay, which had all of the nice warmth that analog delays tend to have. As well the Tape delay had a nice slightly overdriven tone, which was one of the things that was so iconic of early tape based delay devices.

The Digitech iStomp

       I tried out some of the more out there effects of the iStomp like the rotating speaker effect called the “Rotator”, a cool flanger called the “flanger affair”, the “sound-off” which acts like your toggle switch so you can do all kinds of Tom Morello style stuttering, and lastly the Octaver, all of which did their job splendidly. I was able to have a pedal board that was both expansive, and at the same time, familiar, which is a really cool feeling when you get right down to it. As it turns out what the iStomp really seems to be, is a trimmed down version of Digitechs much larger IPB10 interface, redesigned to work more as part of your signal chain, rather then the whole of your signal chain. The result is actually quite impressive, and really a lot cheaper then you would think as many of the pedals cost as little as 99 cents in the app store, so really you get a few dozen pedals for what one decent multi effect board would cost you, with all of the flexibility, and none of the fat.

       At the end of the day, the iStomp does its job, each of the individual sounds are powerful enough to stand on their own, even without the added gimmick of it being a multi-effect pedal with sounds downloaded from their app store, as many of the sounds are worth atleast the price tag of the app and the iStomp pedal. For its ability to do everything, and still occupy as little space as a Boss overdrive, the iStomp gets a solid 10 out of 10.

World Music Supply | Line 6 Releases Mobile IN™ Portable Audio Interface

iPhone 4, Ipad/iPad2 and iPod Touch owners rejoice! Line 6 introduces its’ new Mobile In Digital Input Adaptor and Mobile POD App. Guitarists can now put legendary POD power and tone in their pocket and carry it with them everywhere they go!

Just connect your Apple device to your guitar via the Mobile In Digital Input Adapter, download the free Mobile POD App and you are set up with world famous POD guitar tone. The free app comes equipped with outstanding models of some of the most sought after tones in rock history, including 64 guitar amps, stompboxes, rack effects and speaker cabinets.

Line 6 Mobile IN™ Portable Audio Interface

Incredibly cool graphical displays allow you to dial in, edit and save your favorite sounds. Share your sounds with the world and download tones dialed in by other users. Use your iTunes library as your personal backup band. Stay locked in with the on board tuner. The list of features here is incredible for a pocket sized unit and so are the sounds.

Classic Fender amp models from the 50’s and 60’s shine with dead-on accuracy for out of this world clean and blues tones. British style crunch is available in abundance via modeled Plexi and JTM-45 amps. For more modern flavors of overdrive and distortion the Mobile POD App includes Rectifier and Mark series models as well as Line 6’s own Insane metal tones. Smokin’ cool, yes?

As guitarists, we know how important a speaker cabinet can be to our tone. Line 6 did not neglect this critical ingredient of the recipe. Cabinets from all of the classic combo amp and stack configurations are included, 16 different varieties in all. From the open, airy sound of an AC15 combo to the tight, focused punch of a Vintage 30 loaded 4×12, all are present and accounted for.

As for effects, all of the usual suspects are in the lineup. Typical of all the POD sounds, the verbs and other time based effects sound stellar as do the compressor and tremolo. In addition to using the effects individually, the delay can be paired up with most of the modulation effects making for some nice combinations.

And lets’ not forget the sheer number of sounds that are available here. More than 10,000 presets are accessible from within the POD app, written by artists, Line 6 and other guitarists. And they’re all free!

As if all of the above weren’t enough, Mobile In is compatible with GarageBand and other CoreAudio apps for iPad. More than just a recording notepad, you can lay down “keeper” tracks with a system that fits in the palm of your hand.

Mobile IN™ Docked With Phone

One other notable feature that I should mention here is that the Mobile In connects to your device via the 30-pin digital connector and not the headphone jack. This keeps your signal sounding rich and full-bodied at all times.

I want to buy one of these things. You are going to want to buy one of these things. Are you familiar with the phrase “the greatest thing since sliced bread”?

Apple, iPhone, iPad, iTunes and GarageBand are trademarks of Apple, Inc., registered in the U.S. and other countries. Apple is not responsible for the operation of this device or its compliance with safety and regulatory standards.