CES News: iRig™ STOMP Announced

[Brian @ IK Multimedia]

First live performance stompbox guitar interface for your iOS device



iRig STOMP is based on the wildly popular AmpliTube iRig interface and is compatible with any iOS guitar/amp/instrument app. For the first time, guitar and bass players can now integrate their favorite iOS signal processing apps into their existing live pedalboard setup for enhanced tone shaping and effects processing.

iRig STOMP Features Summary

• Compact, durable yet lightweight, aluminum-cast enclosure integrates easily into any traditional pedalboard.
• Can be used inline with other effects pedals, or directly connected to amplifiers or PA systems using regular ¼" guitar cables with no need for adapters.
• Allows precise adjustment of the signal for perfect guitar and bass levels with its large input gain knob.
• Active battery-powered output circuit improves headroom, especially when used with high-gain amplifiers in the AmpliTube app reducing feedback and crosstalk when recording.
• The bypass switch allows engaging or bypassing the AmpliTube app chain of effects - like a traditional stompbox - for seamless integration into any existing rig.
• Ultra-compact form-factor can be easily carried on the road.
• Features a 3.5mm/1/8" jack for silent practicing with headphones.
• Includes AmpliTube FREE app and can be used with any other guitar processing app that uses the iOS mini-jack

Pricing and availability

iRig STOMP costs only $59.99/€44.99 (excl. tax) and will be available in early 2nd Quarter of 2012 from electronic and music retailers around the world.

[Sascha Franck]

Alright, now this one could make a lot of sense for me in many situations - assuming the build quality is fine.
Before you release it: In your Amplitube software, offer an option that whenever the pedal is bypassed, the tuner would be activated, along with an option to let the bypassed signal through or mute it.
That way, you'd always have a comfortable tuner with you, too.

In addition, for the future you should probably think about somewhat extending that sort of idea.
Some ideas:

- Make it, say, 3-4 times as big (should still fit in a gigbag), so it'd offer more switches. The switches should be momentary ones, so one could as well, say, use them for tap tempo (more or less crucial for the things I do). Inside the software, they should be freely assignable, so one could either just switch patches or do whatever modifications (drive on/off, etc).

- Let it have 1-2 pedal/switch inputs. That way one could add switches, a volume pedal, whatever.

- Very important: Make it dock connected, rather than via the headphone jack. The sound quality would be better and apparently you can get the lowest possible latencies via dock connected things. That way, it could also charge your iDevice.

- An easy display (nothing graphical, just some digits to read out, say, patch numbers) would be a nice addon.

- A few knobs (maybe one above each switch, perhaps even with a push switch built in) that could be user defined would be a nice addon, too.

I'd buy something like that in a heartbeat. I have my iPhone with me all the time anyway, with such a device in my gigbag/case I'd always have a backup system handy. Or maybe even a system that I'd use without anything else for some jobs.

To take all this even further:

- Add your Stomp I/O technology to it so it could as well work as a regular audio interface (in fact, this could also be done to the pedal as is, without any of the additional things mentioned above). One size fits all. Right now, when I'm on the road, I always have two interfaces with me, one for the laptop, one for the iPhone. What a waste. So, again, I'd buy that instantly.

- Make it a USB MIDI host, so one could plug in USB powered MIDI keyboards. That'd perhaps sell like hot cakes. Really, right now there's no device working for both iPhones and iPads offering both an audio and MIDI interface. Given my ideas listed above, all of a sudden this would become highly interesting for keyboarders, too. They could as well tap the switches with their hands and use the controllers for whatever parameters.

Don't exactly take my word for it, but if you'd come up with something like that, it'll be a huge success. There's nothing like that around at all so far.
Out of the folks I know personally, there's at least 5-6 guitar players who would instantly buy it, too. Plus some keyboarders.

- Sascha

[BMoore]

Obsessed much?

[sonicflux]

They're going through the headphone jack, so switching and tap tempo stuff would be impossible. Like you suggested, it would have to be through the dock connector for the features you would like. I don't see IK doing anything else through the dock connector, so it probably won't happen from them.

The stomp pedal interface is a decent idea. Probably less feedbacky than the current iRig. At least it has a headphone jack, and it's cheap, so they got those two things right.

[Sascha Franck]

I don't see IK doing anything else through the dock connector, so it probably won't happen from them.

Well, their MIDI rig is dock connected already.

- Sascha

[ObiWonder]

Some cool suggestions Sascha, you should post them on the IK Forums for our whole team to see!

@SonicFlux because of the active battery-powered output circuit, iRig STOMP improves headroom, especially when used with high-gain amplifiers in the AmpliTube app, reducing feedback and crosstalk when recording.

[JavaJ]

They can also put out adapters quickly if they only use the headphone jack. As I recall, to use the dock, you then get into the lengthy approval process from Apple (MFI certification I think they call it- Made For iPod/iPhone/iPad). I heard about this from the iConnectMidi folks.

[Sascha Franck]

Some cool suggestions Sascha, you should post them on the IK Forums for our whole team to see!

I will consider that.
No idea why, but so far I never registered there.

- Sascha