A little over 10 years ago, a Phoenix-based startup treated acoustic pickers to a bunch of effects directly through the sound hole courtesy of the smartphone-sized ToneWoodAmp. Now the much-improved second generation device has launched.
The brainchild of Ofer and Helene Weberman, the first Twamp, to use its nickname, was attached to the outside of a host acoustic guitar via magnetic rails stuck to the rear using a mild adhesive so as not to cause damage when removed. The device featured a digital signal processor and a mini amp, and came pre-loaded with onboard effects.
Some sort of pickup also needed to be present to feed the source sound to the device, with the selected sound effect – such as reverb or delay – then pushed through the body and merged with the acoustic tones before the augmented tones are heard coming through the sound hole in real-time.
An iPhone running an app could also be cabled in for access to a world of third party app-based tones, such as distortion or auto-wah. You can see and hear the kind of sounds produced in the demo video below.
Similar technology has since been built in to dedicated instruments from the likes of Yamaha and Lava, but such options require a player to buy a new guitar. The Twamp device will work with an already owned favorite, and now the second generation has been launched – watch guitar wizard Mike Dawes discovering a pre-production prototype of the new Twamp below.
As you can imagine, 10 years in tech terms is a very long time and the ToneWoodAmp 2 brings a host of improvements and updates to the popular platform. It still magnetically attaches to the host guitar's back, but a new LiftKit system has been developed to adjust the fit for curved-back instruments.
The new Twamp is smaller than the original, at 5.8 x 2.76 in (147 x 70 mm), and tips the scales at 8.7 oz (247 g). That includes a user-replaceable rechargeable battery that's topped up over USB-C, and has a reported 10-hour or more per-charge endurance.
Where previously players could only activate one effect at a time, up to four effects can now sound simultaneously – with users able to choose from chorus, vibrato, flanger, delay (with tap tempo), reverb (acoustic, hall or plate) and tremolo (sine/triangle) out of the box. There's cooked-in compression too, along with a three-band EQ, adjustable gain, feedback cut and more.
There are on-device controls and a small display up top, but players looking for more tone tweaking can install a new free iOS/Android app on a smartphone and pair over Bluetooth. This "allows you to easily adjust all four effects, EQ, and dynamics controls easily, and create, manage, and share guitar profiles and effect presets, and access app-exclusive features."
The device comes with handy pre-amp tools to help players take control of their stage sound, including a mixer with wet/dry blend, notch filter, phase inversion and boost. And there are input/output instrument jack included as well.
The Twamp 2 is raising production funds on Kickstarter, where pledge levels currently start at US$210, a saving of 30% on the expected retail price (a Fishman magnetic pickup or KNA portable bridge-mount pickup are both available as options). The usual crowdfunding cautions apply, but if all goes to plan with the already funded campaign, shipping is estimated to start from December. The video below has more.
Source: ToneWoodAmp