You might already know that JBL doesn't just do wireless speakers and earbuds; they're also a big name in live audio. The brand is now trying its hand somewhere in between with a novel product designed for the jam room.
The relatively compact BandBox Trio practice amp lets you plug in up to four instruments at once, control their volume with a four-channel mixer, and even add effects to guitars and vocals. Two of them are TRS/XLR combos; another is a high-impedance channel especially suited to guitar, so you'll get the full punch from your axe. The last one is a 3.5-mm jack, which can accept auxiliary cables from music players, and even electronic drum kits.
It's packing a 6.5-in woofer and dual 1-in silk dome tweeters to dish out 135 watts RMS. That should be plenty for a rehearsal or for busking – and you can run this thing on a battery for up to 10 hours with a full charge.
As if that wasn't neat enough, the Trio is also an audio interface, which means you can record straight to a digital audio workstation on your computer, or your mobile device over a USB-C connection. A color LCD display lets you mess with a host of onboard controls and tools, including several guitar and bass effects, modern and vintage amp models, and delay and reverb for the mic channel. You can save presets with pedal chains too.
We're not done yet. The Trio comes with several handy tools that musicians will find handy while performing live, practicing, and learning learning compositions. There's a looper, tuner, metronome, and drum machine at the ready.
More impressively, it also includes an AI-powered feature that takes any track you stream wirelessly (say, a song from Spotify on your phone) and separates each instrument in the mix. This lets you mute or isolate any track you choose, so you can hear what you need to as you practice nailing a guitar solo or singing over a pre-recorded song. It even offers pitch shifting to match the key you're comfortable in.
All those features can be adjusted using a companion mobile app for fine-grained control. Plus, the battery, which charges fully in three hours, is replaceable. JBL says you can even carry a spare one as backup, which is a pretty thoughtful inclusion for extended practice sessions and shows.
That's pretty darn handy for a little amp. Measuring 13.54 x 10.43 x 8.98 inches (344 x 265 x 228 mm, or about the size of a dorm room microwave) and weighing just 14.7 lb (6.65 kg), it's portable enough to carry along to rehearsals, or hit the streets for impromptu intimate gigs. Oh, and if you're doing a bigger show, the Trio can act as a monitor speaker that connects to a PA system via a line level output.
This has me recalling my teenage years as a wannabe rock god, struggling to get my hands on each of those aforementioned piece of practice gear and learning the hard way that my grubby little amp was always too loud for the neighbors. It's nice to know that kids these days can simply access all these tools in a single package.
The BandBox Trio is priced at US$599.95 and will be available from March 1, but you can pre-order it now from JBL's site, as well as from Sweetwater and Musician's Friend.
Source: HARMAN International
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