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In September 2002, IK Multimedia released the TONEX emulator based on "tone models" taken from real amps. The plug-in made a big splash on the market and quickly won the love of guitarists with its high-quality sound, closeness to analog, and huge collection of instruments. After a while, the company moved the emulator from the virtual world to the real one by releasing TONEX Pedal - the same emulator in guitar pedal format. In today's IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal review, we'll talk about how the stompbox came to be, who it's for, what it sounds like, and what it can do.
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Best Price on IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal
The IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal is a highly anticipated addition to the world of guitar effects, promising to deliver a new level of tone-shaping flexibility and performance. |
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The guitar world has long been divided into two camps - those who only appreciate analog gear and those who cite Dave Mastain's virtual guitar emulators. The former claims that only analog can deliver that warm sound, while the latter relies on the fact that digital sounds just as good and is more compact - technology that allows you to carry hundreds of amps in your laptop and use them whenever you want.
At the same time, digital devotees are constantly arguing among themselves about which of their virtual counterparts sounds more accurate, precise, and faithful to the sound of analog instruments. Like everything in our world, the emulator market is subject to trends: when guitarists agree on who is the coolest, a new product appears on the horizon, reigniting the seemingly dormant disputes. After a while, the contender becomes king - all Internet guitarists talk about it, it is sung about on YouTube, it is respected and lifted up to the heavens, it is called the most desirable of all.
Still, emulators often don't last long, only until a new, bold player comes along that somehow outshines other developments. The crown is willingly passed on by guitarists between plug-ins: once it was worn by Native Instruments Guitar Rig, then it went to IK Multimedia AmpliTube, then to Positive Grid BIAS, then to Mercuriall Audio emulators, followed by Neural DSP. Now the royal crown is held by IK Multimedia TONEX, which is still considered the coolest and almost the only one of its kind.
Irony aside, TONEX was a success - the tonal models of the equipment sounded close to the real thing and were a kind of mold of the real thing. The high-quality sound was complemented by flexible settings and an ever-growing database of amps, cabinets, and pedals, adding to the already impressive catalog of devices.
The emulator also included a hardware profiling feature, which also contributed to the plug-in's success. Guitarists were able to digitize any device and work with its copy in TONEX, and IK Multimedia itself was talking about the plug-in as a simple and affordable alternative to Kemper and other modeling amps.
All in all, it turned out to be good, convenient, and efficient. Musicians liked TONEX so much that many of them began dreaming of carrying the emulator around with them, complete with presets, profiles, and other goodies. But in a way that didn't depend on a laptop. And, of course, so that it could be integrated into the pedalboard, expanding its possibilities to infinity. In short, to make the whole Tonex dawless.
It was said - done: in February 2023, IK Multimedia presented the TONEX Pedal. According to the manufacturer, the pedal became the physical embodiment of the plug-in and exactly what users were asking for. But is it really? Let's find out and start our IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal review as usual with the specifications.
Let's start our review of the IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal with its packaging. The pedal comes in a simple package, quite traditional for many modern goods - an unpainted square cardboard box with manufacturer's logos and product names. The box is supplemented by colorful information covered with marketing materials - a description of advantages and capabilities, general data about the composition of the delivery, and information about the manufacturer.
According to the box, the pedal, AC adapter and USB cable are waiting for us inside, but the manufacturer is modest - the delivery is a bit richer than promised. For example, the AC adapter is accompanied by a set of interchangeable plugs for the most common types of sockets, so you can travel the world with the TONEX pedal without worrying about electricity, and the pedal itself has four rubber feet. It seems like a small thing, but it's nice.
The only annoying thing in this caring background is the local USB cable of the already noticeably outdated USB-A/USB-B form factor. IK Multimedia's refusal to use universal USB-C in the TONEX Pedal in 2023 is incomprehensible to us, although it's worth noting that the TONEX One (the younger model) already comes with a USB-C connector.
We don't know what the reason is for the slow transition to a convenient standardized cable, but I'd like to think it's not because of penny-pinching (and we're talking about a device that costs almost half a thousand dollars). There are no complaints about the cable itself - it is thick, dense, fairly resistant to bending, and will surely survive even the most extreme situations.
The device's body is made of aluminum, and the pedal itself is made in a tank-like design: there are practically no protruding parts, and the construction looks monolithic. The connection of the upper and lower parts is so neat that it seems like the TONEX Pedal is a solid metal bar with controls. The assembly is excellent: all parts fit perfectly, and nothing squeaks, loops or dangles.
The pedal is not small, but it is not huge either - the body is a rectangle just over 17cm/6.92" long and 14cm/5.59" wide. The height of the pedal, without the controls, is 5.5cm/2.16". The construction is heavy: the weight of the pedal is close to 1.3kg/2.8lbs - you can easily carry it in a backpack or a case, but its presence "in your pockets" will not be unnoticed.
The overall design of the TONEX pedal follows the same approach as the IK Multimedia X-Series line of pedals. The top of the unit is dedicated to control, with eight knobs, three footswitches, and a display. The rear panel is dedicated to commutation.
On the top of the unit are the knobs for selecting amp models and fixed-stroke presets. The knobs are a sort of joystick for interacting with the pedal's internal menu: rotating the knob toggles settings, a normal press selects items or back, and a long press activates a setting or saves changes.
The knobs are separated by an eight-digit multi-segment display. The display shows the name of the preset in use, the bank number, or the selected parameter and its value. The display is stretched horizontally, but there is nothing wrong with the information display - the characters are large and easy to read. The backlight is orange, a bit dim, but enough to make the information visible in both dark and bright light. Below the main display, there are three text indicators (AMP, ALT, CAB) that glow green and inform about the active parameter.
The display is covered with a dark protective glass, which is noticeably dazzling and immediately collects fingerprints and dust. It is not necessary to talk about the protection of the glass itself: there is no anti-reflective and protective layer here, and it will quickly be covered with scratches and other defects during active use.
The middle row of encoders control the overall sound and effects. Depending on their state, the encoders control gain, overall volume, and EQ, or reverb, compression, squelch, presence, and depth parameters. Settings are toggled by pressing the parameter knob on the left side of the unit, and the ALT text indicator below the display illuminates to indicate the setting change. There is no independent parameter switching for each encoder - you can interact with either layout.
The parameter knob, which selects the settings, moves along fixed divisions, but rotates infinitely - when the end of the list is reached, the system throws the user back to the beginning. The other knobs rotate freely but are limited to the extreme right and left positions, located at approximately 5 and 7 o'clock. The stroke of all the knobs is smooth and a bit tight, it is quite difficult to accidentally move the knob out of the set position.
On the bottom of the pedal are three equally spaced footswitches. The switches can activate presets, effects, emulations, or switch banks of sounds: the left switch moves backward through the list, and the right switch moves forward. The middle button can toggle settings both forward and backward. Optionally, each switch can activate pedal bypass.
The switches are pressed with noticeable force. There is no question about the reliability of the switches: they are sturdy and can withstand even the most violent trampling on the floor in the heat of a concert. Above the switches are barely noticeable LED indicators that tell you which switch is active.
On the sides of the case are grills for cooling the pedal board. On the bottom is a sticker with the serial number and production date. Otherwise, it's quiet and smooth with matte black metal.
On the back, you find the main input for connecting instruments, two outputs for the monitoring system, and a headphone output. The connectors are standard TRS 1/4" jacks. Next to these are MIDI input and output jacks (DIN 5-pin) and a jack input for connecting another footswitch or other external control. There is also a USB input for connecting to a computer and a power adapter socket.
According to the specifications, the pedal incorporates digital-to-analog and analog-to-digital converters to handle audio at sampling rates up to 192kHz and bit rates up to 24bits. The converters provide a dynamic range of 123dB and a frequency response of 5 to 24,000Hz. All of these parameters are valid for normal operation in "pedal" format.
When connected to a computer as an audio interface, the TONEX Pedal lowers the operating sampling frequency to 44.1kHz; it cannot be raised. Well, that's okay, the sound card function is a nice bonus, so it's pointless to demand more from it.
Let's continue with our review of the IK Multimedia TONEX pedal, but first, let's understand a little bit about what the "Profiling feature" is (digitizing and conveying the sonic tone of real hardware).
In 2022, IK Multimedia stunned the guitar community with the announcement of the IK Multimedia TONEX emulator, a huge library of exact copies - sound models - of real amps, cabinets, and pedals. However, the main feature of the plug-in was not so much a collection of devices, but a profiling function for digitizing real equipment. IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal takes these ideas a step further by offering all the same features, but in a metal case.
The TONEX software profiles cabinets, amps and pedals, recording their condition at the time of digitization. At the end of the process, the user receives a replica of the device, with its sound reproduced with the settings made on the device at the time of profiling. In this way, guitarists could copy their own (or not) equipment and carry it with them in the memory of a laptop or smartphone.
To IK Multimedia's credit, profiling works as advertised: the system listens to the hardware and creates a digital copy of it. At the same time, the process is organized in such a way that it is difficult to make a mistake: the profiler tells you what to do and how to do it from time to time, shows you graphs and measurements, and displays a lot of instructions on the screen, telling you how and where to connect, where to press, and what to turn. The digitization process involves complex calculations and machine-learning wisdom and takes up to half an hour, but the wait is worth it - at the output, the TONEX memory stores an exact copy (timbral model) of the device, which is quite difficult to distinguish from the real thing. It's a pure beauty!
Amp Capture:When creating impulses and capturing amplifiers, the sound of the device is captured at the current settings - this is how all profiling technologies work, including those implemented in TONEX. A profiler cannot capture the full range of an amp's sound, but it can copy exactly what it sounds like "in the moment" at specific settings.
The closest analogy is photography. Technological tricks and Photoshop aside, a photo captures the state of a particular place and the objects in it at a particular moment in time - we can't change what's in the photo, move objects around, or otherwise correct what the camera captured. A profiler works in a similar way, "capturing" the sound of a particular amp at particular settings.
Of course, there is some leeway: you can change the sound with additional processing - EQ, compressor, noise gate. However, in cases where the amp produces both clean and overdriven channels, the guitarist will need two profiles: one with the clean channel and one with the overdrive channel.
The point of the TONEX pedal is that you can take your tones with you and store them as presets in the stompbox's memory. This allows guitarists to take their gear on stage and in the studio and work without a laptop. The pedal supports not only amp casts, but also cabinet speaker profiles so that you can connect the TONEX pedal directly to guitar heads or a conventional speaker system.
At the same time, the pedal simplifies the removal of amplifiers: whereas with TONEX you had to connect the equipment to the audio interface, here everything is connected to the pedal itself. It turns out that the combination of plug-in and pedal works as a kind of software-hardware profiling system, which does not use a sound card or other devices and copies the amp itself.
The cabinet modeling scheme can be bypassed by connecting the TONEX pedal directly to a guitar amp, but only if the amp is equipped with an effects loop return. Connecting to a loop provides a more accurate sound than connecting directly to the guitar input, and then the pedal's signal can be routed directly to the amp or speaker, bypassing the preamp section or the entire stack.
Of course, the user is not limited to copies of real amps created by the guitarist, but can also use tonal models prepared by the developers. The ToneNet catalog contains more than 1000 casts of classic and obscure devices with various settings that can be loaded into the pedal the night before a concert or studio session. You can load casts either through the desktop version of TONEX (paid or free) or through the mobile version of the emulator.
Unlike the software version of TONEX, which allows you to load your entire collection, the TONEX pedal's memory is limited to 150 presets (50 banks of three). Unless you're a complete guitar nut who needs all your gear at once, this is more than enough for most scenarios. The presets stored in memory are complemented by amps to suit every taste, so you can use the TONEX pedal right out of the box - plug it in and play with what you've got. The content of the preset is not fixed, so you can overwrite it with your own settings if you like, and if something goes wrong, you can restore everything to "as it was".
However, the pedal is fully revealed in conjunction with the IK Multimedia TONEX Max and AmpliTube 5 plug-ins that are included in the package. The plug-ins are included with each pedal and can be downloaded immediately after registering the TONEX pedal on the developer's website. The presence of AmpliTube 5 in the kit further expands the choice of amplifiers available to the user with additional models, and at the same time allows you to create and save presets with the built-in "Amplica" environment, effects and other features.
WAIT!"I've already invested a lot in TONEX and AmpliTube 5, and now I have to pay just as much, if not more, for the pedal and plug-ins I have?" - guitarists will be outraged, and… they will be wrong.
IK Multimedia offers a discount on the pedal to owners of licensed versions of the TONEX Max emulator software, and AmpliTube 5 users receive bonus IK JamPoints that can be spent on other products in the company's online store. Unfortunately, all of this is only true if you buy the pedal from IK Multimedia's official online store, but the fact that the company has shown such care and foresight makes for some very pleasant emotions.
In addition to capturing amps and storing them in its memory, TONEX Pedal also works with traditional IR impulses and custom VIR cabs. The latter is a combination of multiple IR impulses into a comprehensive sound model with greater sonic fidelity. Users can also load their own convolutions into the unit's memory, for which the pedal has a separate memory and a special loader in the TONEX software.
Finally, the pedal is equipped with a built-in noise modulator, equalizer, compressor, repeating the work of such treatments in TONEX, and five stereo reverbs inherited from the pedal IK Multimedia X-Space. The TONEX pedal can be seamlessly integrated into existing pedalboards anywhere, allowing guitarists to add TONEX software features and additional processing to their effects chain, and to introduce MIDI into their setup to make it more technologically advanced.
Of course in our IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal review, we'll talk about sound and how the TONEX Pedal sounds, but the answer is pretty obvious - just like the TONEX plug-in. The pedal is identical to the software in all aspects, there are no changes or revelations here: take any demo on YouTube or download a trial version of the emulator from the IK Multimedia website - the stompbox does everything the same.
The developers didn't go out of their way to complicate or change what already works, so the main thing TONEX Pedal does is turn the plug-in into a self-contained system that you can take on stage or into the studio. Because the stompbox has a built-in audio interface, guitarists can also send their "clean" and unadulterated soundcard signal directly to their DAW, bypassing any analog or digital devices along the way.
In general, the pedal works both independently and in conjunction with a computer. In the latter case, the pedal is connected to the computer using the supplied cable and is then recognized as an audio interface in the system without the need to install drivers. When you start TONEX, the plug-in automatically detects and identifies the pedal, displays information about it, and informs you about the firmware status (a new one arrives immediately after connection).
After the update, the newly added Librarian section displays the presets and timbre models loaded both in the plug-in itself and in the pedal's memory. You can add or remove content by dragging and dropping amps into the appropriate pedal slot in the plug-in interface, and the system makes sure to ask if you want to overwrite an existing patch.
There are several types of sound models in the library, which differ in the composition of the devices they contain:
The AMP and CAB text indicators on the pedal will also indicate the model being used. The text changes color depending on which Patch is being used and its status.
When you launch TONEX with a pedal attached, the plug-in automatically scans the device and synchronizes all the information, displaying all the presets stored in memory. You can also build a collection of presets without a pedal attached - the program will automatically send selected patches to the TONEX pedal when it is connected.
User presets and settings are synchronized with the stompbox in the same way. Synchronization works both ways: presets can be created in the plug-in and then sent to the pedal, or they can be tweaked on the stompbox and synchronized with the program. The sound of user presets does not change when loaded into the pedal: a direct comparison of the same preset in the pedal's memory and in the plug-in library revealed no differences in sound.
Out of the box, the pedal is loaded with a collection of 150 presets for different styles of music, and the set is assembled to suit as many users as possible - the selection includes both clean and overloaded copies of instruments for rock, metal, funk, jazz, blues and other styles, as well as unusual effects. Some will like the collection, some will not, but there is no point in picking on the blanks, as the selection here plays an introductory role, demonstrating all the pluses and possibilities of the pedal. After a while, many patches will leave the stompbox's memory, which will be filled with settings that suit you.
The order of the presets is not fixed: you can rearrange them by moving them up or down in the list, or by combining them according to your own criteria using the TONEX software version. Changing the order is done by dragging the patches up or down, and all changes are instantly synchronized between the pedal and the plug-in, so you can arrange the patches however you like.
As already mentioned, the TONEX Pedal brings the TONEX into the real world, but the only thing it fails to do is to maintain a comfortable control scheme. The logic of interacting with the pedal, switching parameters and changing patches takes some getting used to, but during a month of testing IK Multimedia couldn't get used to it: it seems that all knobs are signed, but sometimes you forget what exactly you need to change - model or preset. This is just a matter of habit - with active daily use of the stompbox the scheme will become much clearer and the problem will gradually disappear.
At the same time, if software TONEX is a story about transferring "adult" guitar sound into a software environment, then TONEX Pedal goes further and conveys the feeling of working with real equipment. Of course, nothing can replace a real stack with a bunch of instruments and knobs, but even in such a compact format, IK Multimedia manages to preserve the effect of interacting with real equipment. Turning the knobs physically, not virtually, you can feel your hands controlling the sound, and every turn of the knob has an immediate effect on the sound.
And of course, in our IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal review, we have to say about the drawbacks. The only drawback in this whole amp story remains the same as in the TONEX program - you can't add tremolo to any of the amps. Why this is so is not fully understood, but the problem clearly lies somewhere on the technological level of the amp profiles.
It's time to summarize our review of the IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal, kindly prepared by the soundgale.com editorial team. TONEX Pedal is a useful but not obligatory addition for the program TONEX. IK Multimedia has carefully brought the plug-in into the real world, retaining the great sound, wealth of hardware, and all the other pluses of an emulator, but the hardware version of the effect itself is not for everyone.
For home guitarists who don't leave their home studios, the stompbox doesn't look like something necessary, unless you want to get the most stuffed versions of IK Multimedia emulators, which are already included in the pedal. For those who are constantly giving concerts or moving from studio to studio, the pedal will become an indispensable assistant and storage, allowing you to carry your sound always with you.
We hope you enjoyed our IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal review, we tried to tell you about this device in as much detail as possible. Feel free to leave your comments, questions or suggestions in the section below, we will be happy to answer them all.
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9.8
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Sold. I will head to the IK website right now!
I also hear that Joe Satriani has pit all his amps into Tonex and users can therefore play through his amp profiles! How cool is that.