From being one of the first companies to bring native amp modelling entirely inside the box over 20 years ago, to providing solutions for integrating our guitars with our mobile devices - regardless of the platform - IK Multimedia’s quest to make great tone available to every type of player continues with its X-GEAR range of pedals.
With four individual pedals, arranged into four effects categories; X-DRIVE, X-SPACE (reverb), X-TIME (delay) and X-VIBE (modulation) to choose from, X-GEAR puts a world-class collection of effects at your feet.
The tried-and-tested algorithms found in IK Multimedia’s award-winning AmpliTube 5 software are present in the X-DRIVE and X-VIBE pedals, while X-SPACE and X-TIME see a completely new collection, designed specifically for the X-GEAR pedals.
These are coupled across the board with rugged and road-ready hardware that’s built to last but also perform, with studio-grade components.
From classic to contemporary
Each of the X-GEAR pedals contains 16 of IK Multimedia’s effect algorithms, pulled from AmpliTube, or created especially for your chosen X-GEAR pedal(s).
Want a collection of authentic-sounding Holy Grail overdrives? How about jumping from organic reverb to lush, pitch-infused spacious soundscapes? Beautifully warm, degrading repeats can transform to transparent, tempo-synced stereo delays, or you can go from a soulful Leslie-style rotary speaker to the rich, deep modulation of a million-dollar control room rack unit.
What’s more, with 50 crafted presets in each pedal as standard, along with another 300 user memories for you to customise, you don’t have to compromise when it comes to finding and keeping inspiration.
Your effects, wherever you want them
All four X-GEAR pedals ship with a free virtual version which runs within IK’s AmpliTube 5 software. Your settings and sounds are interchangeable between the two, because they’re running on the same architecture.
Stumbled on a sound after hours of tweaking and recording? There’s no need to reverse engineer it using the closest hardware pedals you have on your board. Simply fire the preset into your X-GEAR pedal and you can take it to your gig.
Software, meet hardware
Guitarists love the immediacy, response and traditional feel of hardware, but we exist in a time where sonic exploration and flexibility have never been so important. But the two can co-exist. The class-leading DSP means that you’ll experience super-low latency, rock solid stability.
The familiarity of hands-on control comes from the clean layout, physical controls that make sense and an intuitive operation that means you can spend more time playing and as little time as possible scrolling through menus.
There’s connectivity too with flexible signal routing, comprehensive bypass options, full MIDI control and the facility to add external hardware controllers for even greater expression. X-GEAR pedals will sit within your current setup perfectly.
Recording made easy
There was a time when recording your guitar into a DAW required a great amp, in an even greater room with an expensive microphone and audio interface. Even then you had to make it all work.
IK’s AmpliTube software has remained at the cutting edge of changing that, meaning it’s now possible to capture tones that would have cost a fortune in studio time not too long ago.
X-GEAR pedals take this a step further by including a fully-functioning, but simple-to-operate USB audio interface on every pedal, putting it at the centre of your recording setup in a way that’s easy to record and monitor your guitar signal via your computer.
All four X-GEAR pedals offer pristine A/D and D/A performance, with ultra-low noise 24-bit/192kHZ converters and a wide 112dB dynamic range for superb fidelity at any gain level.
Plus, IK has designed the pedals to accurately capture and convert your signal from 5Hz to a bat-bothering 24kHz, meaning that it will reproduce your guitar or bass signal exactly as you intend to hear it.
No amp? No problem
As well as 16 authentic overdrive, distortion and fuzz models arranged into 50 presets that are usable straight out of the box, the X-DRIVE is equipped to become your new do-it-all solution for multiple applications.
Thanks to the on-board speaker emulated outputs, you can go direct to the front-of-house PA system - perfect for gigs where a full amp setup isn’t practical. Likewise, the USB audio interface and dedicated headphone output mean that the ability to record or practise on-the-fly are always there.
Try it for yourself, for FREE!
Want to check out the sounds? IK Multimedia offers a free trial of the X-GEAR pedals. Simply activate the X-DRIVE, X-TIME, X-SPACE and X-VIBE within AmpliTube 5 CS plugin (also free), and they're yours to try out for 72 hours.
