IK Multimedia's Axe I/O guitar interface now has a baby brother. The Axe I/O Solo is a cheaper, more compact bus-powered version of its impressive sibling, with two inputs and three outputs, instrument tone shaping and music production software bundled in.
Like the Axe I/O, the Solo connects a guitar to a computer for recording at up to 24-bit/192 kHz resolution and experimentation with digital effects when serving as a controller for modeling software such as IK's own AmpliTube suite. It also brings the company's Z-Tone circuitry to the table, which allows players to adjust the impedance of a guitar's pickups for a wide range of tonal possibilities – from thick, bold sounds to tight, sharp and accurate, and everywhere inbetween.
There's a switch out front to select passive or active pickups, with the latter bypassing unnecessary gain stages, and two input channel circuits. The Pure pre-amp circuit promises transparency and accuracy without coloring the sound, while the Class A JFET input buffer massages the harmonics for extra warmth.
An Amp-Out jack at the front allows players to incorporate real-world amps and effects into the recording setup without needing additional conversion boxes. And elsewhere, there's MIDI in and out, 0.25-inch balanced line outputs, dedicated inputs for control pedals and switches, a headphone jack for real-time monitoring and a microphone input routed to a Class A pre-amp.
The 19.5 x 19.5 x 5.3-cm (7.67 x 7.67 x 2 in), 1-kg (2.2-lb) Axe I/O Solo is on sale now for US$249.99, and comes bundled with AmpliTube 4 Deluxe tone studio, T-Rack S plugins and Ableton Live 10 Lite software.
Product page: Axe I/O Solo