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Vox JamVOX £159
The ultimate jam and practice tool? Check out the video
Trevor Curwen, Mon 29 Sep 2008, 10:46 am BST
Vox has come up with a new product that aims to give guitarists an instant no-brainer. JamVOX is the result of collaboration between Vox's guitar amplification and modelling engineers and a team of Korg electronic musical instrument and PC software developers.
It's a hardware and software package that couples a combined speaker cabinet/audio interface with some amp simulation and effects software that includes some very unique features designed for learning and practice.
The JamVOX software is primarily a rig with amp, effects and speaker simulation. There are models of 19 guitar amps and 54 vintage and modern effects to choose from to build your rig, as well as a dozen different speaker cabinets.
Plenty of sounds on tap then, if you just want to play, including a whole library of over 100 presets that have been programmed to perfectly replicate guitar sounds from specific songs, players and bands.
"The monitor might be small but the sound certainly isn't."
It is the extra features that Vox has added, though, that make JamVOX such a powerful tool. What you get is a music file player that can load files in a number of different formats. You can load them from CD, mp3 player or directly from your iTunes library, and with one button click JamVOX will import the whole library in seconds.
The music player lets you hear the songs while playing along and has facilities to loop a section of the music, to change the playback tempo while keeping the same pitch and to change the pitch without affecting the tempo of the song, thus allowing the correction of slight discrepancies in pitch between your guitar and the song or to play along with songs that use a dropped tuning.
There is also a facility to cancel or extract the guitar part of a particular song. This is parent company Korg's newly developed GXT (Guitar XTracktion), which is not the usual conventional 'centre canceller' that subdues sounds in the centre of the stereo picture by phase cancellation resulting in a mono image.
Korg says that the sound is analysed by "stereotactic position" and "frequency band" spatially, and an adjustable filter is used to create the cancellation effect. Hmmm… sounds about right.
Technological gobbledegook aside though, the upshot of this, according to Korg, is that the song's stereo image remains intact with the desired sound removed or reduced so you can replace it with your own playing – you can even record your own performance by pressing a 'record' button. Now that's cool.
Besides being able to extract guitar from your own favourites, Vox also supplies two CDs containing 28 songs for guitar karaoke – complete backing tracks that you can play along to, all of them well-known guitar classics from the likes of The Beatles, Cream, Hendrix, Zeppelin, AC/DC etc. On top of that there's a metronome and the music player also has 100 drum patterns for practice or to aid songwriting. Guitar and vocal performances can be layered onto these.
The hardware part of JamVOX, the monitor, is a small wooden speaker cabinet that connects to your computer via a USB 2.0 connection. You can plug in a guitar and set the monitor level for the pair of three-inch speakers or any headphones that you wish to connect up.
A mic input with its own input level knob allows you to record your own vocal or have a session together with a vocalist. The monitor doubles as a standard USB audio interface that is compatible with ASIO/CoreAudio software, and it can also usefully be used as a monitor speaker for your computer.
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User comments (3)
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It's a handy gadget for playing along to tracks through the headphones, and recording stuff.
The GTX is honestly a waste of time: you simply can't mix a guitar track out using it, unless it's the tiny minority of cases where there's one guitar, panned extreme left or right. Most tracks have more than one guitar where they overlap, so if you get rid of the lead, you get rid of part of the rhythm, and the vocal etc.
The speakers are a bit tinny, but to be honest that doesn't matter. I use a pair of decent headphones and the sound is fine.
It really is a great practice toy, but don't expect too much from the GTX. You'll end up using pre-imported backing tracks. -
Recently bought a JamVox partly to supplement my amp so I can practice late in the evening when the kids are in bed at reasonable volumes or with headphones.
Sound wise the monitor is just about up to it, providing you don't crank it up too loud. I actually found it better to route it through my mixer using the output jacks and use my DAW speakers.
The GXT is ok, but needs the guitar to be in a particular 'place' to effectively drop it out. If it's central along with the vocals understandably you can't drop one out without the other. The ability to change the speed and/or pitch is quite handy.
The most frustrating part for me is the file management system as it's fairly basic and won't let me organise things as I'd like. But not a big gripe.
The noise glitches mentioned seem to be gone in V1.10 and I've run it successfully on both Vista and XP. The latest version is also ok for Vista 64 I understand.
So overall good fun, and not a bad practice tool. If I was chosing between a small practice amp or a JamVox for practice/home use I'd go for a practice amp. -
May be just me but I bought one and I sent it back!
1. Speakers look cool but lack definition - bit muddy sounding - not loud enough for me. Much happier with my own PC speakers.
2. Had lots of clicks and pops initially. Upgraded software to v1.03 - this stopped most but not all. Followed all advice on Vox website - no joy - still the occasional snack, crackle, pop. Not a problem when practising but annoying when recording.
3. Tried plugging into external amp - found a short but noticeable delay between hitting strings and hearing sound. Not bad but annoying. I was also picking up noise from my PC - like I scroll down web browser and get a BRRRRRRR from the amp - weird!! Didn't notice these with the Vox speakers - but then it might be the lack of definition I've already mentioned above.
4 Set up Sonar with JamVox as 'sound in' - really bad delay - half a second. Tried usual stuff but couldn't reduce delay. Maybes could have played with the Asio drivers a bit more.
5 In general there are some good sounds in there - it from Vox after all - but on some, the sound decays badly rather than sustaining. Very artificial sounding. May be the noise gate - though I tried changing settings without any joy.
6. On a positive note - the software is really easy to use and the hardware easy to set up. Its a doddle swapping amps/effects in and out. The interface is simple and fun to use. Single screen - no hassles. Software loads up when booting PC - simple. Speaker box gets power from USB no extra power supply - cool.
7. Didn't read required hardware/software - my fault!!!! - just be aware it doesn't yet run on Vista 64 only on Vista 32. I dual boot to XP so no major probs.
8. Main issue was with the GXT. It was the first thing I tried - loaded Gary Moore "If you be my Baby" - tried GXT and ..... not a lot happened. Tried all preset GXTs - no joy. Manually adjusted GXT settings - all I got was the guitar a bit quieter but then again the whole 'backing' seemed quieter. Spent two days on ten different tracks - general disapointment.
Don't get me wrong GXT reduces the guitar and vocals but nowhere near what I was expecting from the advance publicity.
I think it works fine if guitars are panned far left or far right - but most blues tracks have guitar right in the middle of the mix with the vocals.
Vox seem to be pushing hard on GXT and the jamming bit - I just don't think they have delivered.
OK there are my views - I'm prepared to be shot down in flames. Yep I'm sure future software upgrades will address a lot of the glitches - I guess its a problem with being an early adopter. Perhaps I missed some setting or other - I admit it. My main issue is with GXT so I didn't work as hard as I usually would have with the glitches.
Unreasonable expectations? Perhaps - but I had another look at the video on the JamVox website (the one with the guy and the disastrous perm) - there you have it: track with guitar then with GXT> guitar completely gone. It will be interesting to hear how other people have got on as more reviews get posted.
Should I have tried longer? Nah! Tried for two days solid and GXT didn't do what I thought it would.
I was really looking forward to getting JamVox and GXT in particular but now I feel a bit deflated. Perhaps if you are not too bothered about GXT, the JamVox might be a good deal. Personally I'd check out the POD Studio UX2 and use your own speakers.
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MusicRadar rating
Pros
Great format with the monitor speaker. Cool range of amp sims and FX. GXT offers superior audio manipulation.
Cons
Not a lot.
Verdict
JamVOX is a brilliant idea well executed. If you have a computer and want to easily make it into a facility for guitar, you need JamVOX!
Review Policy
All MusicRadar's reviews are by independent product specialists, who are not aligned to any gear manufacturer or retailer. Our experts also write for renowned magazines such as Guitarist, Total Guitar, Computer Music, Future Music and Rhythm. All are part of Future PLC, the biggest publisher of music making magazines in the world.
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Specification
JamVOX
- Price:
- £159
- Country of Origin:
- China
- Compatibility:
- Windows/OSX
- Inputs:
- Guitar 1/4" jack, XLR mic, 2 x 1/4" jack line in, expression pedal, footswitch
- Outputs:
- 2 x 1/4" jack balanced master outputs, 1/4" jack headphone
- Type of Practice Equipment:
- Effects Processor, Metronome, Practice Amp, Phrase Trainer
- USB Connection:
- true
Orac54
Tue 11 Aug 2009, 2:06 pm BST
User rating 3 of 5