God, it must be a tough life on the road as a travelling musician. All of the free drinks would give you terrible hangovers, the endless parade of groupies knocking on your trailer door would be ultimately unfulfilling and the sheer exhaustion of playing your favourite songs to adoring fans would be totally draining. This is why I decided to keep my musical talents confined to the bedroom and avoid all of the hassle of a rock star’s extraordinarily blessed life. IK Multimedia have produced five apps that make my choice even easier and more enjoyable with their range of icon-endorsed apps that namecheck Hendrix and Slash amongst their sponsors. Rock on!
1. AmpliTube: Your all-in-one recording studio
Jumping Jesus, are you going to thank us for this one. Essentially free, this app has everything that you’ll ever want in a recording studio (as long as you’re willing to pay for the in-app upgrades which are TOTALLY worth it, btw); your rig has a set of pedals already attached (standard stuff: Chorus, Delay, Flanger, OverDrive) and you can even record one track without upgrading to the Mixer and Studio functions. Once you do shell out a bit of cash, you have all of the benefits of a home studio , right on your iPad.
You can add extra pedals, change amps and microphone pickups, add drum beats and even tinker with some intricate stuff in the post-production area before you bounce it down and export it to your computer.
You can plug your guitar in via the iRig or iRig HD that we reviewed a few weeks ago, as well as plugging your mic in to lay down some vocals. It woks well for acoustic and electric guitars, bass and probably for any weird little electric ukelele that you want to throw in, you kooky thing, you.
Here’s a link to the free one and the paid version ($24.99) on iTunes (just go for the paid one, you won’t look back).
2. AmpliTube Fender: The Master of Tone
The tone gurus at Fender have crafted a perfect recording device for any Fender fanbois that like to turn it up to 11. With five classic Fender amps, six stomp box pedals including a phaser that sounds as if it was beamed here from 2086, this one is great for any lead guitarists that really like to wail.
On element that I really like about this app is the built-in Speed Trainer that allows you to load songs from your iTunes library and change their tempo so that you can play along at your own pace. Slow down those shedding solos (-50%) to learn the notes and changes or crank it up to +200% to really give your fingers a workout.
Add a four-track recorder and document your explorations in Fender territory.
Get AmpliTube Fender for $18.99 on iTunes.
3. AmpliTube Slash: Sweet Child O’ Yours
There are few silhouette’s that you could recognise immediately; Mickey Mouse, Russell Brand and Slash all jump to the mind. The latter star has graced AmpliTube with his own app, aimed at letting guitarists replicate his unique sound.
As you can imagine, it has a crunching Booster and a full-on X-Chorus box as well as Gate pedal and a Delay that you turn all the way up to get that fabulous staccato sound. If you can tear up your guitar’s freeboard half as well as the perennially top hat-ted one can, this one will keep you amused for hours on end.
As Slash says in the video, he finds AmpliTube really useful to record on the road; whether you tour the world in a groupie-laden hippie bus or a brown Vauxhall, this is an app that will let you keep all of your riffs locked up safe.
Get AmpliTube Slash for $18.99 on iTunes.
4. AmpliTube Hendrix: Let it wail, baby…
Ah, Jimi; when this app was released, you would have been 70 years old to the day. I have no doubt that you would have dug the epic sounds that us dilettantes can tease out of your eponymous AmpliTube app, aping Purple Haze and Manic Depression with your signature scrapes and squeals…
AmpliTube Hendrix has a Fuzz Box that will deafen you without proper control, an Octa-V pedal and Noise Filter for added authenticity and a Uni-V with a Chorus/Vibrato switch that will make your guitar sound as if it was dropped from the heavens (or stolen from Hell, depending on your point of view).
I love the Wah Wah pedal that you can add to get Jimi’s distinctive tone; you can have it set to ‘Automatic’ or ‘Manual’, in which you tilt your device to get the right effects!
Get AmpliTube Hendrix for $18.99 on iTunes.
5. AmpliTube Orange: Get that ‘Legendary British Sound’ for your guitar
Billed as the ‘Legendary British Sound’ of Orange amplifiers, this app lets you choose from six Orange amplifiers and three pedals, including a teeth-rattling overdrive box in The Shaker and the classic HighWay Drive.
Aficianados can have fun at spotting which rigs remind them of which classic bands; think psychedelia, heavy rock and driving Rolls Royces into swimming pools…
If you really want to blow your (and your neighbour’s) hair back, check out the mighty ThunderVerb amp: you have been warned.
Get AmpliTube Orange for $18.99 on iTunes.
