NAMM 2020: At last year's NAMM IK Multimedia affirmed its commitment to the demands of the higher end of the guitar recording market with the AXE I/O; a feature-rich USB interface with AmpliTube, mic preamp, Amp Out functionality for incorporating your own gear and more. Now the family has a new smaller member with the AXE I/O SOLO – and a scaled down price too.
Available in the second quarter of 2020 and priced at $/€249.99, the AXE I/O SOLO is a compact 2-in/3-out USB audio interface that again features IK's high-end Class A PURE microphone preamp; the instrument input of its big brother with proprietary tone-shaping options; IK's Amp Out feature to incorporate analogue gear into a recording setup; and 24-bit, 192 kHz converters with a wide dynamic range.
The AXE I/O SOLO can also control the included IK Multimedia AmpliTube, or your other favourite guitar software. It comes bundled with AmpliTube 4 Deluxe or Mac/PC/iPhone/iPad, as well as a suite of T-RackS mixing & mastering plug-ins and Ableton Live 10 Lite recording software.
One of the interface's additional key features for players is IK's Z-Tone. This is a impedance-adapting circuit that allows the fast adjustment of the input impedance to interact with their guitar's pickups to choose the kind of character that works best for your recordings. Setting it to the maximum impedance means that tones are tighter and more precise, and at lower impedances the tone is thicker and bolder.
For more info on AXE I/O SOLO visit ikmultimedia.com
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Rob is the Reviews Editor for GuitarWorld.com and MusicRadar guitars, so spends most of his waking hours (and beyond) thinking about and trying the latest gear while making sure our reviews team is giving you thorough and honest tests of it. He's worked for guitar mags and sites as a writer and editor for nearly 20 years but still winces at the thought of restringing anything with a Floyd Rose.