Video Gallery
The Video Gallery of Audio I/O Interfaces is appended below:
1. IK Multimedia Axe I/O Audio Interface Demo
Sweetwater sound check this time out an audio interface with specific features for guitarists let's get started today we're checking out axe IO which is a new audio interface from Ike a multimedia now axe IO is of course a standard audio interface it connects by USB 2.0 has two inputs five outputs but it has some really great features for guitar players who want to get right down and start recording their tracks it's also set up to work very well with virtual guitar amplifiers it has some features that will make it feel and sound much more natural to play through a digital emulation of an amp let's take a quick tour of the interface as I mentioned we have two inputs now there are two different places you can access those inputs if you're plugging in a guitar you do it on the front panel which is how I'm connected right here we have two quarter-inch inputs and an Associated gain knob for each of those inputs on the back panel we also have a combi XLR and quarter-inch input which can accept either line level or microphone level signals one thing I want you to notice though with the guitar inputs is that we have some control over the shaping of what's going on as far as the input electronics inside the interface and that's right here in this section labeled Z tone now the knob actually changes the input impedance of the interface now this will make your guitar feel and sound more natural when you're feeding into a digital guitar amplifier emulation as you turn the Z tone knob you're changing the impedance of the interface so if we turn that all the way down to my ears it sounds more like a DI input or a direct input straight into a console or a direct box as we roll that control up it starts to sound warmer [Music] now this makes a big difference when you're feeding into a distorted sound in an amplifier emulator we can also set up the interface for the type of pickups that we're feeding in we have two selections they're passive or active so depending on what type of guitar you're using you can choose the proper one we can also voice the input of the preamp so in this case we're set to bold and what's that's doing is adding just a little bit of harmonics to the signal fattens it up and rounds it out just a little bit if we set it down here to pure we get a little bit cleaner a little bit more pristine signal it's not a big difference it's a subtle difference but it's enough to make a difference when you're feeding again into a digital amplifier emulator you don't have to select the type of input that you're using when you plug into the jacks the interface will automatically select the proper settings so if we plug into the back for example it'll switch to microphone here so we don't even have to worry about that it's a very straight ahead interface to set up and use the preset knob allows us to send MIDI messages to control parameters and features inside of our software so for example with AmpliTube you can use the preset knob to change different presets inside the software you can also set that up to sync control change messages so you can adjust for example tone settings using that knob and you can push to select as well so you have a couple of different options there the Axio features an onboard tuner just hit the button and you can tune right up the monitor switch allows us to take care of any latency issues we may run into now my experience with the ax i/o you can set the buffer way down low with no problem at all so I really haven't had any latency issues with it but if you want to hear just your direct signal you can turn all the way over which is how we're listening now and just hear the straight input from your instrument turning the other way gives us the output from the computer next up we have a headphone control and a headphone output and then we have our master output level if we're using the back panel outputs that would control the level that's feeding into your monitors so we have two sets of stereo outputs 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 you can route those five your like depending on what your software supports rounding out the front panel is an amp output jack and this is a very handy jack in the studio it feeds the signal back out so you can react it through a guitar amplifier and mic that amplifier up at a later point after you've done your tracking very convenient for changing the tones after you've recorded a track on the back panel we have our mic and line inputs we have our line outputs and we also have midi i/o the interface connects via a USB 2.0 and it's compatible with either Mac or PC the Exile comes with a variety of software it has a control panel that lets you set things up which you see right here this is setting up the hardware features so we can choose for example the sample rate up to 192 kilohertz you can set up your direct monitoring whether you're listening to a mono signal one of the separate inputs or a stereo output you have control over levels and so on you can also set up the midi functionality here's that preset control we were talking about and you have two inputs for different external controllers either an expression pedal or foot switches and you can choose to use any combination of those in my case I have an expression pedal set up and in the intro to this video I was using it to control the Y effect xio makes a great audio interface for your guitar amplifier emulators I've been running a platoon here in this video it also makes a great front end for your da W in this case I have ax IO setup as the audio interface here in studio one from Presonus so I'm coming into my input and going straight into the channel and we can insert an amplifier emulator there any effects that we want we can record our tracks so it's a very versatile solution with your planks or an amplifier emulator or you're using it with your di W inside your studio I hope you've enjoyed this look at the axe i/o from Ike a multimedia it's a versatile interface with great features for guitar players you can really get right in and start recording without a lot of hassle without to make a lot of changes or set things up very quick to use very easy to use sounds great compact versatile really great solution thanks for joining me for Sweetwater soundcheck I'm Mitch Gallagher
2. Apogee Symphony I/O Thunderbolt Audio Interface // Home Studio Upgrade #3
hey everyone this is music tech help guy and welcome to my review for the apogee digital symphony i o mark ii audio interface [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] earlier this year i completely overhauled my home studio and converted my mixing and production workflow over to nearly a 100 home studio approach so i've been in the market for pro level converters or a pro level audio interface with integrated mic preamps my mixing approach is a hybrid approach so i use a combination of some select mixing hardware along with plugins so having super high quality conversion is a must for my workflow if i'm gonna continue doing this professionally from my home studio luckily for me the folks at apogee reached out and asked if i wanted to try out their symphony io mark ii so they sent over a loaner unit for me to try out and i've been using it non-stop for recording and mixing tasks for the last three months or so if you saw my previous review of the apogee symphony desktop unit it'll come as no surprise that i absolutely love the symfony i o as well i've used a lot of pro level studio converters and interfaces over the years at various recording studios including most of the mainline avid hdx and previously digidesign products i've used the linx aurora converters the ua apollo interfaces and many others and i have to say the symphony i o is simply one of the most impressive converter interfaces i've ever used it has a built-in touch screen display to set up all of your routing and recording options a single big control knob and a quarter inch headphone jack on the front and if you don't like the touchscreen or the touch screen is just out of reach you can alternatively use the symphony control app to dial in any of the touch screen settings as well so the folks at apigee were kind enough to sell me the loaner unit at a discounted price so the symfony i o is here to stay it's been fully integrated into my desk wired up to my patchbay so it's now very simple for me to patch microphones for recording and patch line level i o for mixing and mastering hardware one of the great things about the symfony i o is that it's modular so on the back of the unit there are two slots that can be equipped with various i o modules including three different analog i o cards to pick from these include the two by six se module which is a two input six output module for line inputs and outputs the 16 by 16 analog module which is what you typically see in most studio environments this has four db25 ports for 16 line inputs and 16 line outputs now admittedly i don't do a lot of recording in my home studio other than my youtube voiceovers video reviews like this one and the occasional guitar bass or vocal recording but recently i updated a room in my house to use as a modest tracking room where we can track drums guitar amps and vocals if needed so i opted to go with the eight by eight plus eight connect series module which has eight line level inputs and outputs but the inputs can also be switched over to eight microphone preamps this module also has adat optical inputs and outputs so i can use it as a satellite unit with my symphony desktop unit giving me a total of 10 mic or line inputs just enough to track drums and two additional line outputs for my monitoring system and because there are two available i o modules there are configurations available for up to 32 simultaneous inputs and outputs and you only have to use one card at a time so for my configuration i'm using one connect series module and i'll eventually upgrade this with an additional module for future expansion as needed the chassis itself also comes in four different configurations there's a thunderbolt option if you're going to be using it as a native thunderbolt audio interface this is the version that i have and then there are three non-thunderbolt configurations that use the additional option card on the back these can be configured for pro tools hd sound grid or dante plus pro tools hd if you're using this as a thunderbolt audio interface download and install the symphony control app plug it in over thunderbolt and you're good to go but for my workflow i'm using my symphony desktop as the main unit and the symfony i o as a satellite unit over ada for this type of operation i'll need two adat optical cables connect the units over adat into out and out to in then click here on the touch screen to go to the setup and settings page click on the standalone routing option here then click on this option here to use the installed module as a standalone unit although the options you'll see here will change depending on how many cards you have installed and which cards you have installed then click ok for standalone operation then you need to tell the symfony io to get its clock source from the symfony desktop unit over 8a so i'll click here to go back to the main page then click here to select the clock source and change this to optical one and two after a moment this will change over to adat 1 and 2. once you set this up you'll never have to set it up again unless you want to go back to thunderbolt operation i have to take a moment and give apogee major props for the adat connectivity as someone who has used adat regularly over the years to expand my i o options it's always been a pain to work with adat there's always some reason why it won't connect or i have to turn on the devices in a certain order or there's some setting in the software that i constantly have to change to get it to work this is not an issue at all with the symphony i o it just works now this dual interface setup may not be the best setup for most people but it's the best setup for me for a few reasons one i can use the symphony desktop as a monitor controller with easy access to a headphone jack and an instrument input although apogee does have a separate hardware control remote if you prefer to go with that option two when i'm just making a youtube video or doing a little voice over work something i don't need the symphony io for i can just turn off the symfony i o and use the desktop unit and then when i need to record or mix with hardware i just turn on the symfony i o and i instantly get eight additional inputs and outputs whenever i need it three when i need to record multiple channels at once this gives me 10 total mic inputs for tracking drums and i can even use the dsp effects on the desktop unit for additional processing for my optical channels so all 10 of my mic channels can have eq compression gating expansion etc this is probably my favorite feature of this setup recording drums in my home studio used to be an absolute pain but now all i have to do is load up my effects presets and dial in the preamp gain for each channel and i'm ready to go changing the inputs on the symfony i o is super simple just click on the inputs page then click here to toggle the inputs between mic inputs and plus 4 line level you can even click here to apply the selection to all channels for line level inputs you can switch between a negative 20 and negative 14 dbfs reference level you can turn on a soft limiter flip the phase or add a high pass filter for mic level inputs there's a 10k impedance switch for use with high impedance microphones a soft limiter 48 volt phantom power a phase flip switch and a high pass filter another thing i really love about this unit is that it remembers the mic preamp gain and phantom power settings of the mic inputs even when you switch to line level so if i switch to line level you can see there's no preamp gain or 48v anymore but then when i switch back to mic input it remembers the preamp gain and phantom power selection and it does this for every channel so this makes it incredibly quick and easy to just switch back and forth between tracking mode and mixing mode just by changing the inputs so that's my review and overview of the symphony i o mark ii from apogee digital i haven't said one bad thing about it because frankly there's really nothing bad i can say about it i've used it just about every working day for the past three months and i've had almost no issues with it the preamps sound great the conversion is impeccable it's on a completely different level than any of my previous audio interfaces but i suppose the elephant in the room for most people will be the price depending on what configuration you get the price ranges from 39.95 us to over 9 000 for the 32 channel configuration it's over 9 000. the version i have is the 8x8 plus 8 mp thunderbolt configuration which goes for 49.95 new so it's definitely the most expensive piece of gear i own so with that price tag this unit is certainly not going to be for everyone but if you're in the market to take your home studio conversion to the next level or you already have a pro studio and you're looking at upgrading your converters or if you're still using old avid or digi design hardware as many people still are and you're looking for a non-avid alternative you should definitely check out the apogee symphony i o as an option i have been incredibly impressed by this unit and it'll be staying right there in my rack for years to come and one last little tidbit of information i'll end with that really sold me on this unit despite the several thousand dollar price tag is that even years and years down the road when this unit becomes obsolete as an audio interface i can still use it as an eight channel mic preamp over ada much like i did for years with my focusrite liquid sapphire 56. the difference here is the preamps are better and all of the preamp controls are baked right into the touchscreen unlike my liquid sapphire unit which requires old outdated and unsupported software in order to switch over some of the preamp controls so that's the symphony io mark ii and i absolutely love it i hope you guys enjoyed this video if you did please leave it a thumbs up and subscribe to the channel to see more content like this as always thank you so much for the support and thanks for watching
3. Which 2 I/O Audio Interface? with James Ivey
Hi everyone my name is James Ivey with Studiospares. There was a time when the small and portable audio interface was the poor relation of the recording and production world, there was no way that a small affordable two-in two-out interface could compete with a professional recording studio and if you wanted to make music to be taken seriously then you were heading for the studio, which in turn carried a hefty price tag. However today we're in a place where you no longer need to head to the studio to record a vocal worthy of a hit record. Today we have access to quality toys that can help us capture amazing recordings at a price we can all afford. In this video I'm going to take you through four of my favourite two-in two-out audio interfaces I'll show you some of the features that make these units stand out from the crowd and I'll show you how easy they are to use. All the interfaces in this video connect to your computer via USB and are bus powered, meaning that you don't need to plug them into a power supply or wall wart. These units also come with additional software and plugins, offering you greater bang for the buck so to speak. However this is a hardware video and while this is all important stuff when it comes to informing your buying decisions, the extra software and goodies the manufacturers give you as part of the deal can be explored at your leisure or you can reach out to the Studiospares team and take advantage of their knowledge and expertise. Focusrite have been making small form factor audio interfaces for a very long time, in fact the first USB interface I can think of, the groundbreaking Digidesign Mbox was a joint project between Avid then Digidesign and Focusrite. The third generation of Scarlett interface really does draw on these years of experience and the new Scarlett 2i2 could almost be considered the mould or starting point for this new breed of two in two out design audio interfaces. All the units in this video feature two XLR TRS combination sockets allowing you to plug in and record two microphones at the same time, great for recording both acoustic guitar and a vocal at the same time. The XLR part delivers 48 volt phantom power meaning you can use condenser microphones for your recordings, again giving you a serious quality boost from a dynamic microphone. On the 2i2 phantom power is applied to both channels using the front panel button and we can switch between line level inputs or instrument DI impedance settings, meaning that electric guitars and basses are input level matched correctly using the button below the channel gain pots. The jewel in Focusrite's 2i2 crown is the air button on each of the new third generation mic pre's, this engages a tone shaping circuit that gently lifts the top end giving vocals and acoustic instruments a little more shine, it's subtle but it's a really nice touch. If you want to give your voiceovers or vocal track a touch of class switch in the air band. The two mic gain pots also feature a nice LED halo that glows green when a good signal level is applied and red if a possible clip or overload is detected. Monitoring your recordings can be switched from mono to stereo input direct or daw return using the front panel button and of course we have a master output volume and headphone level controls. On the back we have the stereo balanced TRS output jacks for connection to your powered speakers or amplifier, the USB-C connection for connection to your computer and the very handy Kensington lock port. Why handy well imagine you're speccing a new computer music lab and being able to tie down your hardware could be very beneficial if you know what I mean. The 2i2 is also fully iOS compatible meaning you can connect it to your iPad for a truly mobile recording experience. The new third generation Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 is a solid 2 in two out interface with plenty to offer the new or experienced recording engineer or music maker. It's easy to set up with class compliant drivers meaning that on Mac OS at least you just plug it in fire up your daw and away you go. Walk into a commercial studio in the 80s or 90s and there was a fair chance that you'd find a large format SSL mixing desk at its centre. Thousands of hit songs and albums have been mixed and or recorded using these iconic consoles. NAMM show in 2020 and is one of SSL's first exploits into audio recording hardware that we can all afford. Connectivity wise again we have two XLR TRS combination jacks, stereo TRS output jacks and stereo headphone jack, however this time all the connections are on the back of the interface, yes even the headphones. We again can switch between line and instrument DI settings for the input jacks but this time we can switch 48 volt phantom power on separately for each channel. SSL acknowledging that we might want to use some microphones that don't like being force-fed phantom power. What makes the SSL 2 stand out is a little button marked legacy below the channel game pots, when depressed this engages 4k mode, a nod to the classic studio consoles where the SSL name gains such a claim. SSL say they have distilled two essential characteristics of the 4k sound into a single circuit to breathe some life into dull or boring input sources. Think of this as a makes it better button, adding a nice lift to the top end and some gentle harmonic distortion to give your recordings more edge. It sounds great so my advice would be leave it switched on. SSL 2 features a switchable mono to stereo blend control, allowing you to blend between the signals hitting the inputs of the interface and the signals coming back from your DAW, singers think of this as a more me control giving you absolute zero latency monitoring. SSL 2 is a cool looking interface with nice LED monitor bars, that at its price point deserves consideration from anyone looking for a home or portable recording solution, it's the SSL we can all afford. The AudioBox iTwo from PreSonus once again has the same connectivity as the other units in our test, but with a nice twist on some of the features. PreSonus have done away with any buttons for line and mic level switching, the unit automatically senses when you plug in either an XLR or jack cable and switches the electronics accordingly. If you're connecting a guitar, bass or other low output high impedance instrument just hit the guitar icon button. Again we have a mix blend pot to give us zero latency monitoring of our input source and nice clear controls for the input gains, master volume and headphone level. For any of you who might have older keyboards, synths or sound modules the AudioBox iTwo has MIDI I/O with a pair of five pinned in connectors, so if you have older gear you want to connect and control as part of your home or mobile rig the PreSonus AudioBox iTwo could be the way to go. For you iPad users the AudioBox iTwo is not only iOS compatible but you also get a device output on the back on a USB type A style connector. The PreSonus AudioBox iTwo is a simple no whistles or bells interface, it's well built in an all metal chassis with nice detented pots and it does exactly what it's supposed to do and it sounds great. The team at Audient have stepped away from their ID brand of interfaces to offer you the new, easy to use and highly affordable EVO range. The EVO 4 is once again a 2 in 2 out unit, but this time with a very different design ethic and while EVO 4 is constructed of a type of ABS plastic and not metal it has a really nice feel to it, it's almost friendly. EVO 4 is also the smallest interface we are featuring, it's almost pocket sized and can easily fit into your laptop bag or rucksack. Something that makes EVO 4 even more friendly is smart gain. Smart gain makes it as easy as it possibly can be to get the right recording level into your DAW software. First hit the smart gain green button, then select the channel you wish to set smart game for, then hit the green button again this puts the unit into halo mode. Now sing or play at your loudest level and when the smart gain button goes green, the gain is set and you're ready to hit record. Unlike the other units EVO 4 by Audient has only one instrument DI input. However this JFET powered DI sounds amazing and is particularly good for electric bass and great for capturing clean guitar parts for later re-amping. The EVO 4 control panel also features loop back which is a way to easily root from the internal sound of your computer, be that the audio from a Zoom or Skype call or your media player into your DAW. This is something you normally have to use a third-party app for and it's not something that's normally included free with your interface and points very strongly to the EVO being designed with the creative, gamer and video market in mind not just musicians or composers. You can once again mix between direct or DAW return monitoring using the selection button and the main encoder on the unit. EVO 4 by Audient is a really nice, fresh rethink on a studio design favourite, you might not like the all black look but you've got to love the tech that's gone into this unit. So there you have it four of my favourite two-in two-out audio interfaces, truth be told sonically they all sound great but it's now time for you to decide which features float your audio boat and once again you can call us at Studiospares if you need any help or visit the website Studiospares.com, hope you found that useful, my name is James Ivey and I'll see you again very soon.
4. Apogee Symphony I/O Audio Interface Overview | Full Compass
we would have never designed symphony i o if it didn't bring something new to the table it had to be better than anything we've designed before symfony io includes the very best converters that apogee has ever created what you have to keep in mind is that when designing a converter the converted chip is only a minor part of the equation what's really important is the analog circuitry clocking and the power supply every converter chip manufacturer provides a data sheet with their product and on that data sheet is a very simple and utilitarian analog section and i imagine that many products have been made using this rather unspectacular circuitry lucas really throws away all of that information provided by the manufacturer and he finds a better way through careful choice of the latest components that are available and frankly lots of listening tests we were astounded at the symfony i o the the depth the 3d characteristic to it which is kind of an intangible thing that you can't really explain you feel it there was a feeling of uh of more of that that openness and the air around everything and the detail and the 3d quality that that is what we all really hope for when we're trying to record music the specs of symphony io are better than anything that we've done before that's never our main objective though for us the most important is to make a good sounding device the beauty of symphony i o is it's a great sounding device and has the best packs and i have to say the sound quality is so incredible and clean and warm that it it's a pleasure to listen to the music even in just these these reference mixes these quick reference mixes that i'm listening to these specifications like thd or dynamic range what does a great specification mean for the engineer or musician well what it means is that the sound that you're listening to is more faithful to that analog experience every musician is very attuned to the way their instrument sounds when they come into the control room the recording sounds like their instrument and that's the sound of a great converter is that musician who says that's my instrument you
5. iRig Pro Quattro I/O Audio Interface – Good For DJ/Producers?
this is the irig pro quattro i o there's a snappy title for you this is an audio interface but it's an awful lot more so i'm going to talk about this today as part of a bigger discussion about add-on devices for djs what kind of add-on devices do you need to improve the way you dj maybe you want to live stream maybe you want to start incorporating instruments into what you do maybe you just want to add a microphone and your dj controller doesn't have one maybe you want to feed a nice strong signal to a pa system but whatever it is there's an add-on device for it you might want to add turntables and use dbs or you might want to dj on just your ipad or just your laptop and not worry about having to use any gear but you need an auto interface so that you can get your headphones to sound good and to work fine on that system there's loads of reasons that djs need add-on devices and there's loads of devices that can help and the little quattro i o does come very close to being the perfect device but it's not quite there for djs and so i want to talk about this whole concept of add-on devices little mixers little audio interfaces that you can buy to improve your djing and to open up what you can do and then we'll kind of like outline our our dream device at the end and hopefully someone maybe even the people who make this will listen to us and produce the perfect device for us so okay we are going to talk about things that you can use for live streaming as i said adding headphones and speakers to a ipad or desktop or laptop whatever only system where you haven't got a controller or anything like that we're going to talk about being able to output to a pa system to make it nice and loud and all those other things that i mentioned so what do we use now to do that well there's an awful lot of things that we use now to do that so for instance if you want to feed your record decks into your dj software so you can dj with two turntables you need a dvs interface and this is a four in four hour audio interface there's nothing special about these this is a little denon dj ds1 it's actually quite hard to get nowadays and the reason for that is that most dj mixers posh dj mixers have got that functionality built in if you can plug a usb cable into a mixer and plug a laptop in then it can do that for you but this allows you to use time code vinyl to control your software like so you can get for traktor and so on this is actually for algorithms dj software you can get vinyl that you play on real record decks but adding in an audio interface that lets you then control your software with that gives you that vinyl feel so that's one thing that we we use we use audio interfaces that are four in four inputs and four outputs to do that so another thing that we use add-on devices for is when we don't want to use any other hardware at all we just want a dj with a laptop or something this is a little tractor audio 2 interface i'm not even sure if you can still buy this one but the audio 2 gives you simply it's a very tiny little device it gives you simply a main output and headphones output that you can then plug the correct cable in to go to your speakers and to go to your headphones and then you can dj with dj software without needing any other hardware because when you buy dj hardware a controller or whatever it's got a set of controls that make it easier to dj so here's a dj controller it's got all these lovely controls on it which obviously are far more fun than using a keyboard and a mouse and all that but also crucially it's got an audio interface built in which means you can plug in your headphones and you can plug in your speakers so a little audio interface like the little tractor one is all you need in order to then use your dj software without any extra equipment at all and that means that you can dj like sat on the bus or whatever with your phone whatever you want with headphones on and actually do it properly so that's another thing that we use this kind of equipment for another thing we sometimes use this kind of equipment for is when we are wanting to add little um like standalone instruments to our djing so you might want to add um some synthesizers here's a little little korg volca synthesizer these are very popular little things you might want to add a drum machine this is a job machine a little circuit rhythm sampler and as soon as you start adding these things and wanting to incorporate these things into what you're doing especially when you want to feed them into a computer you often need an interface that will do that that'll handle the audio but these also have what's called midi and midi is how they talk to each other so you can play notes on one and it will play sounds on another and get that into your computer as well so your computer can take control of these instruments so then we want a midi midi interface now midi interfaces do exist that just put the midi in and out of your computer but more usually they're built into audio interfaces this is a standard looking audio interface this is from roland this is uh the kind of thing that focus right do as well and and lots of other brands and basically this not only gives you the inputs and outputs for microphones and instruments but it also has midi and that means that you can plug in to the midi sockets that you get on the back of equipment like this and that way you can kind of kill two birds with one stone with a single device so an audio interface with built-in midi can be something that's important to djs when they're starting to produce as well and there's other things so for instance a lot of people like to carry a mixer with them this is a mixer um it's this is a little pv one but these mixers are useful because you can then plug your like say your controller or your dj gear into one of these and then you can plug in microphones you can plug in performers other instruments and so on and then feed a nice loud signal off to your pa system with eq and basically it's a nice way of combining lots of things that are the overall performance that you're trying to put on of which your dj controller or your dj gear may only be one of them you know carrying a small mixer a small live or a small pa mixer around with you it's kind of a swiss army knife thing that a lot of djs like to do certainly something that i like to do and finally last but not least you might be a musician you might want to record stuff that you can then use as samples you know in our digital dj tips tutor list james hype he's got lots and lots of uh recordings that he's done on his phone of people you know dj drops his main and so on with people um and a recorder like this can be a high quality way of recording that and of course if you're a musician and this is by the way this is a little tascam dr05 we've had this one for you many many years um but if you are um a musician you can get one of these they've got good quality microphones on the top and you can record sound out and about and you can then incorporate that into your performances into your tracks or even into your dj sets so to be able to record stuff as well is something that's useful so lots and lots of little individual boxes and djs tend to own more than one of them once they start trying to do more of these things so for instance you might own a very simple little interface this is one by evermix to get the music into your phone or into your computer here's one by a company called irig it's from the makers of the unit we looked at the beginning and we're going to look at again in a minute so these can be getting the audio in for live streaming to get it to obs software and open broadcast software for live streaming or to record your sets or whatever a little audio interface like this a simple two input audio interface that'll let you get that into your computer again some djs like to have an audio interface to get the headphones and the speakers out or to use dvs to get the time code signal in from your computer to your computer from your record decks and then back out to your mixer even for ripping vinyl this is a little audio interface that's designed for ripping vinyl for plugging in your record decks and boosting them so they're loud enough so you can plug it into a computer to rip vinyl from so these are all examples of audio interfaces that djs might want to use and so we come to the little one from irig the irig pro quattro i o what a catchy name and this is tantalizingly close to being a really perfect unit for djs but it's not quite there so let's talk about what this does before we um talk about what it doesn't do so this is a really powerful audio interface like this is a basic audio interface from the same company let's get them the right way up uh this is a powerful one really powerful so this has got four inputs it's got 24 bit 96 kilohertz um um audio interface in it for plugging into your iphone your your ipad your android device your mac or your pc it's got four inputs two of them are microphone inputs only two of them are line inputs which you can access from plugging in rcas or other inputs eighth inch inputs there as well or indeed microphones or or instruments on these these sockets here it's got an output which is in stereo and you can plug that straight into a pa system you don't need to use it as a audio interface at all you can switch this to mono as well when it comes to the audio interface you can decide whether it sends one signal two signals or all four signals to your computer for recording uh really wonderful metering this isn't plugged in but it's got wonderful per channel metering an overall meter even a little battery meter there and it's got all the other stuff you expect to see on devices like this so loopback can bring audio back in from your pc or your or your idevice or whatever you've got direct monitoring so you don't get any latency on the monitoring here i mean it really is packed with stuff with with it's got kind of got it's a swiss army knife for sure this can work as a therefore as a mixer a little pa mixer for getting your um getting your input into your pa system uh it can work as a microphone pre-amplifier with the two microphone channels or all four if you want but normally a dj would be plugging in some line inputs so you've got two line inputs to do that as well there you've got your headphones monitoring here as well it's got midi i didn't mention that but that's a crucial thing so it's ticking off the midi box there's two midi tiny little sockets here but they give you um a midi lead that will allow you i think there's only one midi lead in there they'll allow you to just plug normal midi in there as well uh it's battery powered so you can take this on the road with you also can take power from whatever you plug it into and it also can take power from a um not supplied actually but from a power uh box as well um so and and it's it's high quality right so it's from a company that's known for its auto interfaces it's one of their pro ones so very high quality sound from this as well so it's a really flexible unit but it's not quite there for djs which is just tantalizing and and frustrating why well it's only got two outputs so you can't use it to give you separate headphones outputs and separate outputs for your speakers which is important for using dj software without any extra hardware i wish it had four outputs that would take that box done only two of the four inputs can be line inputs now you probably could plug line inputs into the other two and turn the volumes down really low but that you're starting to hack then if all four could be line inputs then there's no reason why you couldn't use this as a dvs interface as well which means that you could have this one thing in your bag and you could use it for time code vinyl as well it works brilliantly as a live streaming device because it's got all those stereo mono or all the inputs to send off to your computer or your phone for live streaming so that's all really good um but without those four outputs in order for you to be able to use it as dvs and without the four line inputs uh in order to be able to use it um to mix two you know maybe two dj controllers or a dj controller and a something like this um you know a drum machine or a sampler it's just you know this is 350 euros 500 euros if you buy it with the two microphone modules that you can plug into the top so yes you can plug two mic modules in there and make it look and work like one of these uh all but you still need to plug it into something to record something that's great it's great that it can do this but it's missing those things and also i would love to see if we're talking about making one of these that works for djs i would love to see them add in a phono preamp you know they've got microphone preamps anyway get a phono preamp so that you can also make it work like a um a booster for your record deck so you can then use it to rip vinyl if someone made one of those if someone made a four in four out four lining four output dj unit with the midi on it with everything this has got on it and that phono preamp it would be that also works as a line mixer also replaces this in your setup it'd be absolutely incredible and come on ik multimedia you can do it you're the people i think are most likely to do it and it'll save you having to buy lots and lots of these different things to achieve the same thing in your djing so we like the irig pro quattro i o it's a great audio interface if you're a dj producer that needs to bring microphones and line inputs monitor properly have great sound quality maybe use it as a you know a shoe-in line mixer when you need to output to a pa system it's got lots and lots of stuff and there's a midi interface it's got lots and lots of stuff that's going for it but it's not quite there for djs and at that price i think we're still buying separate little boxes to do this or that as we build up what we need in our djing life so i request your i o we've got a full written review of this if you are still interested in it as a dj or if you're not a dj and the feature set i've just talked about is totally what you're looking for so do go and look at that on digital dj tips where you'll also find reviews of loads of audio interfaces mixers dbs systems and all the other kind of stuff that we've been looking at here today so there you go there's our thoughts on the uh irig pro quattro i o and a bit of a wish list a bit of an open letter to ik multimedia come on guys make what i just talked about we'll promote it for you and i'm sure djs will buy in their drones so this has been phil at digital dj tips saying get good get out there make the moments and i'll see you for another video very soon [Music] you
6. How to reamp with AXE I/O audio interface
xio IKS premium audio interface offers a dedicated amp out that makes it easy to re-up your guitar tracks using your own pedals and amps and lets you use AmpliTube and other amp modeling software with your real gear in some exciting ways let's check them out first Axios dedicated amp out connects directly to your pedals and amps with a standard guitar cable it's right on the front to make it easier to quickly connect and disconnect and it offers a switchable ground loop interrupter to prevent buzz and hum and ensure the cleanest possible signal you can record your guitar tracks directly using AmpliTube to process the direct signal or just recording clean then route that di track out for re amplification after the fact by default the amp out will appear in your recording software as output five now you can mic up your amp using the two pure mic preamps on the back of Aksai oh and you can experiment with gear settings mic placements and more if you prefer to have your tone dialed in before you record Axio makes this easy as well when the two amp control is enabled the live guitar plugged into acts iOS input one is mirrored to the amp out with zero latency just create a second track in your DAW and select Axios microphone input 2 now you can record both the clean di signal and your amps tone both at the same time your performance will incorporate all the interaction with your amp like extra sustain and feedback but can still be tweaked later if needed Axio offers a second guitar input to create a simple effects loop like you might find on an amplifier this makes it easy to experiment with different pedal settings or to easily record wild effects driven sounds this setup also makes it easy to integrate pedals and other analog effects on other tracks too you can run vocals keyboards or drums through your pedals to give your music more analog vibe use multiple amps to build a wall of sound or use AmpliTube to expand your real gear collection and thicken or enhance your mix of tones [Music] Axio your guitar deserves the best
7. Inputs and Outputs of an Audio Interface explained, lesson 15
hello friends Chris here with isk recording when I was starting out in audio recording being able to decipher all the inputs and outputs of an interface was something that kind of stumped me for instance let's take a look at this interface it has 18 inputs and 24 outputs do you know what all those inputs and outputs are if not then this video is for you especially if you're in the market for a new recording interface cuz this stuff is really important to understand I found a good exercise and helping me understand all the connectivity of an interface was to look at pictures of different interfaces and try to figure out what all the inputs and outputs are it's important to keep in mind that the main function of an interface is to route audio to and from the computer and there's two types of audio that can be routed analog and digital analog audio is an electrical current that represents a sound wave and digital audio is zeros and ones that the computer can recognize and process both analog and digital have a few different signal types and different connection options that they use typical analog inputs are microphone inputs which use an XLR connector line level inputs which usually use a quarter-inch balanced connector but sometimes they use an XLR and direct inject inputs which are quarter-inch unbalanced and they're optimized to receive the high impedance input of a guitar ultimately the goal of the analog inputs is to send a line level signal to the analog to digital converter a microphone has a very weak signal output and it needs to go through a preamp in order to be amplified to line level the direct quarter-inch output of a guitar also needs to be amplified through a preamp except preamps are designed to receive a low impedance signal such as a microphone whereas the output of a guitar is high impedance so the signal coming out of a guitar needs to go through a little electrical circuit that lowers the impedance before it goes into the preamp that way the preamp can get optimal sound quality since preamps can be expensive most audio interfaces don't provide preamps on all of the analog input channels only some of them and the rest of the analog input channels need to receive a line level signal so here's a schematic of the signal flow inside the interface when connecting a microphone the signal goes from the microphone into the preamp where it is boosted to line level and then it goes to the ad converter and to the computer if you plug a guitar in the signal first goes through a transformer which lower the impedance then to the preamp then to the ad conversion then to the computer if you have a keyboard or an electronic instrument with line outputs you would plug those straight into the inputs where it bypasses the preamp and goes straight to the ad conversion and to the computer same goes if you have an external preamp since its output is already line level you would plug it into a line input usually a microphone input can also have the option of being used as a line input sometimes they will use a combo jack like this which can accept XLR or quarter-inch now it's worth noting that when you plug a line level signal into the line input of an interface most interfaces will bypass the preamp but there are some poorly designed interfaces that do not they simply put the audio through a pad first and that lowers the volume and then they route the audio through the preamp which boosts it up again now in the rare cases of interfaces that do this using an external preamp is completely pointless because the audio still goes through the internal preamp and still goes through that loss of fidelity and now I'll talk about digital connectivity the most common types are aid at speed if and aes/ebu with these the role of the interface is simply to route the digital information and you'll need to get a specialized piece of external hardware to do the conversion which is called a converter a dot uses an optical cable called Toslink which can carry eight channels of digital audio at one time sample rate if you don't know what one time sample rate is then check out lesson 4 on digital audio the s/pdif which i call speed if it uses an RCA connector and it can carry two channels of digital audio and a ES ebu uses an XLR connector and it can also carry two channels of digital audio at any sample rate per connector but with aes/ebu quite often they come in banks of eight and they'll use a db25 connector which has a breakout of eight XLR s and that can be used to carry sixteen channels of digital audio at any sample rate now the headphone outputs of an audio interface are a little bit of a wild card see technically a headphone output requires a left and a right so two channels of digital to analog conversion so technically they could count that as two more output channels some manufacturers will count that in the in-and-out capabilities of the interface and some manufacturers don't now let's take a look at a few different interfaces and go over the inputs and outputs available here's a Focusrite 89 24 inputs it has eight combo jacks which can accept XLR for plugging in a microphone or quarter inch for line inputs these are the analog inputs and all eight have preamps the other inputs are digital inputs on the far left is a specific connector which is capable of two channels so now are at a total of ten inputs and here's the a dat which adds eight more channels and brings our total number of inputs up to eighteen now four outputs we have 10 line outputs here which are analog and then two channels of speed if and eight channels of eight at bringing the total to twenty out puts hence the name 18i 20 this interface also has two headphone outputs on the front panel which they don't include as part of the output count now here's a universal audio Apollo 18 by 24 four inputs we have eight analog and 10 digital right here are the eight analog inputs four of these analog inputs have preamps and can have a microphone plugged into them since they didn't use combo jacks right here is where you would plug a microphone in to channels 1 2 4 by having a separate input jack it's a clear indicator that the line inputs do not force the audio to go through the preamp that's a good thing and on the front panel is the high Z input also called high impedance input for channels 1 & 2 for direct injecting a guitar although channels 1 & 2 have separate connectors for high Z inputs microphone inputs and line level inputs you cannot use all three simultaneously you would select through the software which one of these three is the active input and the digital connection has one aid at all though there's actually two Toslink connectors for the input the second one is only used so there's not a loss of channel count at two times sample rates I explained this in Lesson four on digital audio and there are two channels of speed if digital inputs all for a total of 18 inputs four outputs right here we have 10 analog outputs and right here we have 8 digital outputs through a DAT and right here we have two digital outputs through speed if now the four remaining outputs are from the two headphone jacks on the front panel and that makes up the channel count of twenty four outputs and I'll give one more example here it's the metric halo u ln8 this is a very simple design it has eight analog inputs and outputs and eight digital inputs and outputs they all use the DB 25 connector which connect to a breakout cable with XLR s there are eight preamps so each channel of analog input has the option of using the preamp or the line input if you want to plug a microphone into the preamp you would plug it in to the breakout cable that goes into here if you want to use the line input you would connect it to the breakout cable that plugs into here although you can connect both a microphone and a line input to the same channel within the software you must select one or the other as the input and channels one and two have a high z input on the front panel for connecting a guitar if you want to use the high z input you must select it in the software and that will disable the microphone input and the line input for those channels and it has eight channels of digital inputs and eight channels of digital outputs through the aes/ebu on this db25 connector for a long time I found all this stuff very confusing so I hope I was able to explain it in a way that makes sense if you have any questions please let me know in the comments section down below and if you found this video to be helpful please do me a big favor and hit that like button just go ahead right now click that thumbs up button right there and I would really appreciate that I'm gonna be coming out with tons more videos from beginner to advanced so feel free to subscribe to this channel if you want to learn more about audio engineering I'll see you in the next video
8. Zoom R16 USB Functions including I/O Audio Interface and Control Surface with Cubase Le
now with all those installations complete we can connect up our 16 to our computer's USB port and then we'll go ahead and fire up Cubase on the our sixteen press USB and we have three different options here audio interface card reader or else USB storage let's set the first one here audio interface we hit enter on that will be given a couple of settings you can either continue from the settings USB settings from the last project or you can reset them let's go ahead and press reset I say select reset and press Enter okay first things first underneath Cubase file and new project and this screen will come up showing us all the available templates that we can record into and sure enough here the three templates we just dropped in that template folder I'll select the last one here which is 8 mono recordings and that file location is fine so now we have 8 tracks to record into but here's what we're going to do here's a setting we will get very familiar with when we're setting up our R 16 we'll go to devices device setup and we're going to add a Mackie control and you can select the zoom ice extent are 24 as the in and out of the MIDI right here and apply that and hit OK and here is now what you can do check out the transport bang you can start stop go straight back to the top fast-forward rewind even use the data dial to scroll around your size the very quick way of getting around your your song also all the faders here will start controlling the faders on each of these tracks and in fact we got any devices and select mixer you can see that we can adjust a whole bunch at a time try doing that with a mouse can't be done alright so it works out really really well you can then also use the solo buttons right here to solo any track so let me just go back to the very first one here so in terms of getting around using the transport and the sliders in the status Keys now that's very quick to go around you basically bring it up underneath them like we saw device setup but here's another thing you can do there are some user commands here that can make use of these five F keys so for example I could go to f1 here select from all I mean this zillions of different parameters you could set up I'm going to zoom in using the f1 and then perhaps zoom out using f2 I'll apply that and okay and sure enough we can zoom in or zoom out at the top of the timeline there were just one click pretty cool huh in about two minutes we set up the R 16 to be an incredibly powerful control surface with transport faders and also five quick shortcuts to your favorite functions within your audio application by the way this isn't a limited of Cubase this will work basically on any door that allows for Mackie control is going at the device make up a device set up and set up a Mackie control looking to the r16 driver as the MIDI in and out so now let's look at how we can use the R 16 as an unbelievably high quality audio interface
9. IK Multimedia AXE I/O Audio Interface – Amp Out Problem
we're gonna need [Music] [Music] today I wanted to share something I ran across with the axe i/o interface I was so excited about this axial interface because this really this Z tone section on the whole thing the the tone and the the input was was you know what I was excited about that J FET thing over here as well for the preamp and getting that emulation but in the process of doing a video look forward to that video I still want to do the entire comparisons between the 11 rack and this but Midway I got stopped by the issue of this amp out not really giving me a full volume right that I was expecting I was I was pretty shocked on that I'll go ahead and actually break this down for you and show you the you know just an example of what I'm talking about here going through the input showing you kind of the input gain here and then the amp out and then the comparisons to just me going straight into the amp all right so let's got your guitar plugged in right here on channel 1 and you gain is all the way down as you can see we're on instrument we have passive selective and I have pure on selected as well z tone knob all the way to the left for the sharp most pure di signal possible so not adding any Z tone as of right now so with this let's just get this gain first and see where this sits so I'll just play a little something so as you can see some of the harder rhythms actually are triggering the clipping one thing I'm noticing though is that this the amp is really not sounding the way my amp sounded when I plugged directly into the amp so I got the little Marshall over to the right in the booth over here and I'll show that here in a second so it's coming in around negative 3 and then clipping every now and then and the gain is all the way down I have the amp out right here and going out to the Marshall amp over there and I have the software telling line in one to go ahead and send out to the amp in real time I can try let's see if I turn the gain up you'll notice that the clipping is more constant the amp is starting to sound more like the amp but still not quite like the amp it sounds like a weakened version of the amp so like I said I left the I left the guitar plugged into the interface from what you just last saw and this is the other cable coming from the amp out into the amp you can see that I'm on the second channel here the second channels gain is right in the middle and everything is very flat in the middle just as a starting I'm not going to adjust any EQ this is not about that this is about comparing just a regular straight amp input versus the the micro amp signal so it's so bad that I mean you'll you'll pretty much tell just from the mic on the camera [Music] so especially on the last two cords you'll notice that there's really no compression no saturation it's very little gain over driven so that's that's what it's sounding like going through the interface straight out the amp out and into the amp I'll go ahead and unplug that taking the cable straight out of the interface let's get the amp out cable out of there and I'm gonna go straight into the cover lamp you can already hear the hissing from the pickups right away I'll go ahead and play what this sounds like going straight in [Music] [Laughter] so yeah really right seriously even on this little microphone on the camera I'm pretty sure you heard the difference between this guitar which is a Paul Stanley Washburn I've had it for many years it's my my precious right that's the the volume on the the bridge pickup here all the way up the tongue goes all the way up the neck pickup was all the way down and the trigger was only on the the toggle was only on the bridge pickup so there's no mixture it's just the same pickup all the time same cable same amp same microphone right so I don't want to use expensive mic or something totally off the wall I mean you can do the same comparison with the 57 and try it out so you could you can hear the difference the amount of gain and saturation that I get just going from this guitar straight into that guitar amp with the same exact monster cable that I have versus going into this interface to the amp out and the very little amount of saturation or gain that I was getting on the ramp being routing right coming out of that amp yeah so no clue I mean so some of the things I'm starting to think right though as I was doing this was am I you know am i doing the input correct I mean I compared the front was telling me I was clipping so I stayed away you know kind of back down I even increased a little bit so the software was telling me I was clipping and still the amp was sounding nowhere near the amount of that channel to gain halfway up saturation that I was getting going straight into it like I said everything was flat on that thing and still it had good amount of saturation and compression with this guitar going straight in and gain versus this guy so was my gain staging with the input correct that's why I started thinking I did a comparison of this di to the comparison of the eleven rack di and the RMS on the meters were roughly the same like very little different so I don't think it's the input part of it and like I said I wasn't even using the J fed I'm chasing pure amusing z tones all the way to arc right so this should be like me going through the Focusrite interface or any you know box that says straight just pure di Cana signal I don't think it would make sense to color it with some Z tone if I'm going into an amp right like a real amp I want the amps impedance so I don't think that would be correct so now the question was you know was I doing something wrong with the settings so I looked at the software I looked at the manual I looked all online and I don't really see anything on YouTube or anybody else had had this so that's the reason why I really wanted to do this video and shed light on this comparison is the software they did do an upgrade to have the amp in one in real time to be able to send out the amp output so that was an upgrade and I have that you saw that I did in real time still not giving me the gain staging so am i doing something wrong I'd love for you guys to let me know comment below on that if anybody has any info on and I'd love to know because I really want this interface to work for me that's really the only thing I've seems to be a downfall right now everything else is really great is it the amp output maybe is you know maybe there's a path here maybe the input is giving me the whole volume maybe it's a circuit or something from there or you know maybe the amp output is not giving me the full volume of the input that I'm going in and maybe that's not translating exactly verbatim out so maybe that's a hardware thing I'd love for that to be a software thing I'd like to hear that there's a release coming up where the software since they just did the one for the amp I looked here that there's a release for the for the control panel software coming out that would allow a fix to get a full representation of whatever the input is coming in the output I would really love for that to be the solution I hope that's the case comment below and let me know subscribe click the subscribe button I'm gonna keep doing more reviews look forward for the review of this overview of this thing more so I want to do comparison of the 11 rack versus the and I'll show those tones captured the reamping and everything I don't know if I'm gonna be able to do the full ramping until this gets solved but if they do get that solved I will share an update and show you how that was fixed or give an update when I hear anything back other than that I'll probably do another video on the actual the software because let me tell you the deal on this I can multimedia xio the amount of software you get is amazing like the included bundle is worth it all alone that yeah it's mind-blowing the amount of software you get with it so I recommend this month is actually the max bundle so if this is something you're looking into the max bundle and the amount of software that you get with it it's totally worth it look into it but like I said this amp out thing is my only little quark with it at the moment okay not the only court I have some other slight improvements that I would recommend but I'll go through that in the next video so stay tuned
10. iRig Pro I/O Audio Interface for iOS/Mac/PC – First Look
in this video we're taking a first look at the iRig Pro IO which is an audio interface it's a guitar interface it's a MIDI interface for your iPhone your iPad or your Mac or PC so let's go hi my name is Pete and welcome to studio life today where my goal is to help you create record and release your best music and one of the ways you can do that is through an audio interface so in this one I'm going to unbox and tell you a little bit about this one from Ike a multimedia the iRig Pro IO let's jump in now now Irene have been around mobile recording in particular for a really long time in fact you may recognize this this is the original iRig guitar interface out of three and a half mil jack here it's got a headphone jack and you plug it your guitar quarter-inch cable into the end there and this works great and still works great with any of your device's your iPhones your iPads that have a headphone jack but more recently a lot of you devices are moving away from the three and a half mil headphone jack and now only have a lightning connector so that's where something like the iRig Pro IO can really come in handy now one of the first questions you may have is what is something like this gonna set me back well this is a $150 u.s. interface so it's not on the cheap side but it does have a lot of flexibility you do get a lightning cable and a USB cable included so you can use it with your iOS devices without a lightning to USB adapter that's pretty cool and you can plug it directly into your Mac or PC and as I mentioned it has not only guitar and a mic preamp but also MIDI in and out so that's a lot of features for a device like this so let's open this up now and see what you get inside the box now full disclosure I have already opened this up just to have a quick look I couldn't resist but we will reopen it now and we'll pull out the box inside because the packaging itself is actually really quite cool so there's our box we'll put that to the side but inside you get this little action here you've got all the I came all T media documentation in the front here if I can pull that out so you've got all your manuals your product catalogues and your licenses so you get licenses for some software we'll talk about that in a and then inside the box if I can really coordinated Li open it as I was saying inside the box we get the iRig Pro IO and a box of cables which is really handy really useful as well so let's take out the device here first of all we'll put the box to one side and let's take a look around the iRig Pro IO so on the front here we've got our indicator lights here we've got a game dial here now this is a really nice feeling dial you know some dials you turn and they'll start sort of spinning in place this one ain't going nowhere that's very very cool on the base of the unit here is our input so we have a TRS or a quarter inch input here for our guitar cable or an instrument cable and it's also an XLR input so that doubles as a combo jack now you can get this in a dual mode this is a single one so the dual is a two channel interface if you need stereo input or you want to connect and record two things at once you can go for the dual model I just went for this because I'm usually recording only one device at a time especially when I'm on the go at the end here is our a connection cable that's where all our cables plug into a little din connector there we put a DC in so you can plug this into a power adapter sold separately or you can use a sort of off-the-shelf one and apparently these do use quite a bit of power so by default they're powered by two double-a batteries which are included in the box I was happy to say batteries are included but apparently if they go through the batteries reasonably quickly so if you're using it in a studio environment you may want to invest in an adapter a DC power adapter for your iRig Pro IO now on one side of the device here we have a headphone jack very welcome addition and a volume slider there for our headphones on the other side we have MIDI in and out but you'll be thinking what are these these little three and a half mil or they may even be two and a half mil connections these are for our MIDI in and out and the cables are included in the box that will actually work with these so yes it's not your standard MIDI 5-pin din adapters or USB you're gonna have to use the adapter that's included in there and of course you have phantom power so we've got to switch there to turn phantom power on off so that's everything that we have there on the device let's jump in and take a look at what else is in the box and take a look at these cables so the other part of the box here is this one here the little box Oh cables now these we're all nicely wrapped up but I've since open them and taken a bit of a look so I have reracked them hopefully okay so here they are you get four cables here in the box now let's show you these MIDI cables first off so you can see here we've got two MIDI cables now one end I'm thinking that's actually a two and a half mil get it out of there I think that might be a two and a half mil adaptor there and then we've got the five pin MIDI din connection so I've got two of these cables hang onto these because I can't imagine they're super easy to find they're a bit of a not proprietary format but they wouldn't be easy to get a replacement of those cables and make sure you keep those somewhere safe the other cables we're getting this is where this comes into its own is that you get not that one but this one the one with the little red ring around it it's got the connector there which is goes into the end that we showed you here so that goes into that end the other end here dr. lightning so this is why this is cooler as a lightning adapter but the other thing that's cool is it's not just lightning so unlike some devices that just plug in via lightning you also have the USB option and that makes it really handy because you can use it with a Mac or a PC right now but the other thing is that when all of our devices in iOS start using USB C which hey is probably coming the writings kind of on the wall there so if your iPhone or your iPad or you're already on an iPad pro and you've got a USB C you'll be able to use this cable and a USB to USB C adapter and this will therefore still be usable so the problem with lightening devices that the reason that I don't own a lot of lightning devices is that I'm concerned that once my iOS devices go to USBC they will be obsolete this is gonna last me even if I upgraded to a brand new iPad pro so that is pretty cool and those little manuals and guides that we've got here in the box the first thing here is your user manual so that's going to get you started a QuickStart guide there for the device we've then got a product catalog so that you can go and buy all the other I can multi media products you want and importantly we've got I'll show it to you backwards because I won't show you my registration code in serial number not that any of you would go and register and get the free apps but you can register the product and download the free apps using that one there so that is pretty cool why don't we just we're not going to actually play this in this video that will be coming up I just wanted to talk you through this and show you around the device in this video and then we'll come back and we'll be checking out the audio quality and how this works in a future video but let's just plug it in to the iPad and just see how easy it is to get connected and get started so here's my iPad running GarageBand you can see there it's just using the onboard mic at the moment but we have here the Lightning connection and our plug here ready to go into our iRig Pro IO so let's plug in awkwardly I'll put that down for a moment let's plug in this din adapter to the other end I don't really like these sort of cables because you can never tell the direction they go in but there you go that's plugged in there and now it's asking if we want to turn on monitoring we're gonna say yes and there you go it's now using this USB device so all we need to do now is to plug in a guitar a microphone our MIDI into here and this will be able to be used here in GarageBand and that will be coming up in a future video so stay subscribe to the channel and you gotta see this device in action here in GarageBand on my iPad so there you go on paper the iRig Pro IO for a portable flexible audio interface seems to really stack up will it be enough to replace the USB audio interfaces that I love to use via my lightning to USB adapter we'll only time will tell so hang around here on the channel and we'll find out together if you do want to check this out right now head down to the description or go to StudioLive today.com slash gear that's my gear guy where you'll find affiliate links to all of the products that I use and recommend thanks for watching I'll see you next time