Tascam iXZ review

We're never happy. First we want a phone that goes on the internet and has games on it. Then we want to play our guitar through it.

Next we want to record. Hang on, we also want to plug our mic in and record our real amp or add some vocals.

Well, thank you Tascam for making the iXZ. This small box enables us to connect our guitar, dynamic mic or even a phantom-powered condenser mic to the iPhone, iPod Touch or iPad in our orchard of Apple products.

This curvy, white plastic unit runs off a pair of standard AA batteries and is furnished with a combi-socket that accepts either a jack cable or XLR lead. There's a set of controls for power on/off and input switching (guitar or mic), phantom power on/off, and an input level control.

On the back is a 3.5mm headphone control, plus the attached wire that connects to your device's headphone/mic socket, which means you're running through Apple's A/D converters. This does little for the noise levels, but it's nothing you can't live with - particularly as it means you're free to charge your iPad or other device while using it.

You can be up and running in moments. We tried it out with GarageBand, AmpliTube and Peavey's AmpKit to great success, and being able to use quality microphones is a real plus point.