Category: IK Multimedia

This compact monitor offers high-end design and features for project and home studios.

IK’s award-winning iLoud MTM studio monitors are now available with a new build, offering a white color option for a different kind of sleek style.  

This compact reference monitor is designed to deliver pristine sound and unprecedented accuracy for the modern professional and home studio. It provides innovative features not found elsewhere, and sound quality that rivals monitors several times the price – now available in both black and white to match the vibe of your studio.

IK’s advanced DSP expertise was leveraged to offer an ultra-flat frequency response, but more importantly, a truly linear phase response – a premiere feature in this price segment available only on a handful of products costing considerably more. This provides a natural, true-to-life sound made possible by IK’s advanced DSP expertise.

iLoud MTM also offers one-touch, acoustic self-calibration derived from IK’s award-winning ARC System, with an included reference microphone to easily adjust to any room’s acoustics.  Just set up the monitors, put the microphone in your preferred listening position, press a button and you’ll instantly have a custom calibration for the sweet spot of your listening environment.

Incredible accuracy and transparency, deep and defined bass, precise stereo imaging at any distance, and automatic room calibration – all in a monitor that’s small enough to fit on any desktop – make iLoud MTM ideal for nearfield work or as a workhorse monitor in a home or project studio.

“The iRig Pro Duo I/O is truly universal.”

Normally, you hear about our products being used as tools for musicians, but they can come in handy for creators of all kinds.  Pro Video Coalition, a website based mostly on film and production news, recently spent some time with our iRig Pro Duo I/O calling it a “truly universal” device.  This proves itself true for its connectivity, portability, and a multitude of instrument input options.  Our portable audio interface comes with everything you need to start recording on any device straight out of the box – whether that be for music, film, or any other form of content.

Here are some highlights from the review below:

“The iRig Pro Duo I/O offers either latency-free monitoring when recording/broadcasting live or playback to hear sounds coming from the connected device.”

“Thanks to its balanced audio output via TRS 1/4”, the Rig Pro Duo I/O can be conveniently used to connect to powered monitor speakers.”

“As you will have read in the comparison chart, the iRig Pro Duo I/O from IK Multimedia has at least six advantages over the SmartRig+ from Saramonic.”

Pro Video Coalition gives iRig Pro Duo I/O a final score below.

Join us as we revisit our time at The NAMM Show.

As we pack up our bags and head home from Anaheim, we would like to invite you to join us in reminiscing on some of our favorite moments of NAMM!  We had the chance to work with artists that we love to announce and demonstrate great new gear in the IK collection of products.  Starting with the AXE I/O line, we announced AXE I/O SOLO, Z-TONE Buffer Boost, and Z-TONE DI to help guitarists get the tone of their dreams straight out of the box.  Gary Holt took the stage to play through various tones in AmpliTube including from the Dimebag Darrell CFH Collection for AmpliTube and more.

From IK’s booth, Tonio Ruiz also uses our AXE I/O audio interface with advanced guitar tone shaping with AmpliTube amp sim guitar software.  Tonio has used IK tools to create, produce, and perform his music for years.

Guitarists aside, we also had some great announcements for producers, including the T-RackS Sunset Sound Studio Reverb, iLoud MTM in white, and iRig Pro DUO I/O.  We showcased both new and previous products, inviting our friend Chris Dudley from Underoath to come and show his skills on UNO Drum and UNO Synth.  He revealed that he has been using UNO in upcoming projects for both Underoath and film scoring.  See the full performance below.

We also had a very special talk about the new T-RackS Sunset Sound Studio Reverb with Ross Hogarth, an engineer at Sunset Sound responsible for recording Van Halen, Jackson Browne, David Lindley, Bonnie Raitt, Little Feat, Fleetwood Mac, many more.

Click here to watch the full list of recap videos from Tom and Chris Lord-Alge, Tony Succar, and more from a fun and successful NAMM weekend!  We look forward to entering 2020 strong with a whole catalog of new gear to be available soon.  Pre-order this gear mentioned now on our website.

Make the world your studio with new portable 2-channel audio/MIDI interface.

As a creator, you never know where inspiration may take you.  Whether you’re recording music, videos, podcasts, or other content, sometimes this leads you far from the studio.  This is why we have created iRig Pro Duo I/O as the perfect travel companion, a 2-channel audio/MIDI interface packing everything you need to capture high-quality audio in an ultra-portable box.

iRig Pro Duo I/O is a 2-channel audio/MIDI interface with analog inputs to record microphones, guitar/bass, keyboards, synths, and more.  You can freely connect multiple instruments to record an entire jam session on the fly with amazing sounding quality.

A sequel to IK’s acclaimed iRig Pro Duo, the new iRig Pro Duo I/O features updated mic preamps with increased gain, as well as the addition of a USB-C cable to work with all of today’s latest devices and new, dedicated PC drivers to ensure optimal performance on laptops and Surface tablets.  

In addition, refined volume controls with level indicators for more convenient workflow and a new rubberized finish to better stand up to the road, offer the same standard of quality customers have enjoyed from IK’s award-winning iRig Pro I/O single-channel interface.

As a full-featured studio in the palm of your hand, iRig Pro Duo I/O allows you to ditch the hefty gear and plug right into your favorite mobile device – compatible with iPhone, iPad, Android, and Mac/PC with all cables included.  Compatible with all of your favorite apps, from GarageBand and FilMIC Pro to Facebook and Instagram, you’ll never stop finding new ways to create.

iRig Pro Duo I/O can be powered by AA batteries, USB bus power, or an optional external PSU, meaning that you are never bound by the length of an electrical outlet.  Pack it in your backpack and ditch the restraints of a traditional audio recording device.

Stocked full with free access to over $/€500 of IK software, apps, and in-app content, iRig PRO DUO gives you everything you need to record, edit, and share great content with your audiences near and far.

The iRig Pro DUO I/O is available in February 2020 for $/€199.99 from the IK Multimedia online store and from IK authorized dealers worldwide.

Click here to learn more about iRig Pro DUO I/O.

A compact, affordable audio interface with powerful guitar recording features.

We would like to introduce to you the AXE I/O SOLO, a new entry into the AXE I/O family of high-end guitar interfaces with advanced tone-shaping features.

Developed by guitar players, for guitar players, this interface offers the best recording experience possible. AXE I/O SOLO is a compact 2-in/3-out USB audio interface that features IK’s high-end PURE microphone preamp, an instrument input with tone-shaping options, an exclusive Amp Out to incorporate real gear into a recording setup, and 24-bit, 192 kHz converters for pristine recordings in all musical genres.

With the dedicated Amp Out, AXE I/O SOLO can seamlessly connect to AmpliTube or other guitar-friendly software, real amplifiers, and stompboxes to offer a world of tone straight out of the box.

Housing an active and passive pickup selector, AXE I/O SOLO instantly adapts to the gain stage of any instrument, ensuring that the signal is always as direct and uncolored as possible.  PURE and JFET circuits let you add warmth and harmonics to your sound with the flip of a switch.  And finally, IK’s proprietary Z-Tone feature lets users adjust the input impedance to interact with their guitar’s pickups: at the maximum impedance, sounds are tighter, sharper and more precise, and at lower impedances the sound becomes thicker and bolder.

By twisting knobs and flipping switches straight on the box, you can hear your tone transform in real-time.  

AXE I/O SOLO will be available Q2 2020

“Worthy winner and a truly exciting innovation in speaker technology”

All of us at IK Multimedia are extremely proud and excited to announce the iLoud MTM is the winner of Computer Music magazine’s prestigious Hardware of the Year 2019 Award. Fighting off worthy competition from Native Instruments and Novation, iLoud MTM was selected as the final winner. Furthermore, it was also a runner-up in the Innovation of the Year 2019 award.

Computer Music said:

“A speaker which presents as incredibly clinical and brutally ‘honest’.“

“The iLoud MTM really is a truly incredible solution.”

“Worth winners of our  Hardware of the Year award and a truly exciting innovation in speaker technology”

Visit Computer Music
Learn more on iLoud MTM

“It’s surprising that a device like this hasn’t existed before”

Digital DJ Tips‘ Phil Morse has been getting up close and personal with IK’s new iRig Stream audio interface and put it through a very thorough test, particularly regarding DJ applications.

Read here why iRig Stream has become Digital DJ Tips’ go-to interface and why Phil recommends it over the alternatives.

“The main use for this device for DJs would be for recording their DJ sets or recording music podcasts while mixing from their DJ gear, and it soon becomes clear that the iRig Stream’s feature set is ideally suited into this task.“

“One of the issues with recording a DJ set from many controllers, especially cheaper controllers, is that it is not easy to both record and listen to your music at the same time. The reason for this is that there is often only a single “Master out” – and so if you plug this into your speakers (quite reasonably, so you and your audience can hear your performance), there is nowhere to plug in a recording device, as you’ve “used your outputs up. With the iRig Stream though, you can plug your speakers into the 1/8″ mini-jack socket for always-on direct monitoring, and because there is an audio out volume control just for that monitor output, effectively the iRig Stream is giving you the independent second output that is missing from your controller, making it possible to record your set on one “output” and listen to your music on the other. We’re actually finding this useful at Digital DJ Tips for recording tutorials, demos, and reviews with controllers of this type, and frankly, we still use it with the bigger controllers and mixers, because on once it’s all set up, it’s just super-convenient.”

“While it’s absolutely fantastic for recording your DJ sets and mixtapes, it’s also capable of sitting at the heart of a small content production home studio, if for example, you’d like to get started on doing a podcast or producing higher quality live streams. It’s an easy-to-use device that just works very well.”

“It’s surprising that a device like this hasn’t existed before. But as I said earlier, DJs wanting something to achieve this use case in the past have usually had to use a more expensive, more fully-featured audio interface, with features and functions they don’t need – or indeed use an adaptor cable to “hack” their phone or iPad to accept a single, mono input to record that way. Neither solution is massively satisfactory. The iRig Stream changes all that. With up to 24-bit, 48kHz sampling, the audio quality is great, and for us this is the first audio interface we’ve found that hits this sweet spot that we’ve been looking for recording DJ sets, with the possibility of direct monitoring, recording crowd noises if we wish, and having simple yet effective control over the recording volume.”

“It’s a deceptively simple device, and one that we’d suggest should be a serious consideration for the DJ bag of anyone who has recording or streaming needs not fulfilled by their DJ software (or, of course, who DJs away from software altogether).”

“Overall, we loved this little interface, and the best praise we can give it is that we’ve adopted it and use it every to record performances right here at Digital DJ Tips.”

Rating 5/5 stars – Awesome for recording DJ sets!

Read the full review and watch Phil’s hands-on video on Digital DJ Tips
Learn more about iRig Stream

The editorial team crowned it amongst the very best gear of 2019

Sound on Sound has been getting very excited over iLoud MTM, courtesy of expert reviewer Phil Ward, who has a long and impressive pedigree in speaker design, manufacture and installations – in short, a man who knows what he is talking about!

Here are some of this key comments from his 6-page meticulous review:

“Though compact and affordable, IK’s newest monitors manage to cram in a remarkable amount of tech – and the results speak for themselves.”

“The iLoud MTM’s built-in room correction is a first for an entry-level nearfield monitor.”

“In contrast to some of the distressingly heavy monitors that have recently passed though my studio room, the iLoud MTMs are refreshingly light at just 2.5kg each.”

“It seems to me that employing the D’Appolito format on a desktop monitor is a smart idea.”

“So how do the sum of the iLoud MTM parts add up? As it happens, they add up extremely well- especially given the genuinely entry-level price.”

“The iLoud MTM presents itself from the start as a very capable monitor.”

Phil’s final verdict was:

“I don’t really have any criticisms of the iLoud MTM, especially at the price. it constitutes a really clever application of electro-acoustic technology and genuinely offers something new and worthwhile. IK Multimedia should feel immensely proud of the iLoud MTM. It’s unique, it’s affordable, it does exactly what it sets out to do, and it does it brilliantly.”

PROS
Compact and inexpensive
Well thought-out design
Great electro-acoustic performance and subjective sound quality
Integrated acoustic room correction makes it uniquely capable

CONS
NONE

SUMMARY

“The only ultra-compact D’Appolito monitor that also includes onboard room correction turns out to be everything that it promises. A unique and genuinely great little monitor that ought to work well for all sorts of users.”

Read the full review on Sound on Sound
Learn more about iLoud MTM

+++ STOP PRESS+++
Every year Sound on Sound’s editorial team choose the best of the best gear from the entire year. Sound on Sound were so impressed with iLoud MTM that it is featured in their annual ‘Gear of the Year‘ round-up for 2019:

“Aimed at advancing real-world monitoring performance at a genuine entry-level price. It’s a great success.”

Read the full Sound on Sound Gear of the Year 2019 round-up

IK talks with DMX Krew about life, the UNO series, and more.

IK recently worked with legendary underground artist, DMX Krew, to create new tracks and a new sound library using UNO Drum!  With over 15 albums and a 25-year music career under his belt, we were excited to see how DMX would add his own flair on our analog drum and synth hardware. His latest albums, “Libertine 12” and “Glad to be Sad” both released this year, pushing the boundaries of the sound he’s been releasing since 1994.

DMX Krew began creating music at the age of 7, making up tunes on his family’s organ and translating them into harmonies and melodies.  Through this experience he was introduced to music hardware, first owning a Casio VL-1.  Mainly a hardware-based musician, DMX Krew has owned many cool pieces of gear, and even made his own drum machine, commenting on the experience saying:

“It took me a year to make my machine and I had to start from knowing nothing at all. I learned about basic electronics, soldering, programming and also weird stuff like making mechanical keyboards & metal cases.”

We were excited to put our UNO series to the test with such an experienced, expressive artist. After creating a brand new sound library with UNO Drum and two tracks with UNO Synth and UNO Drum, we caught up with him to talk a little bit about the experience.  

“I just got some samples that I use a lot and tried to make them small in size and punchy sounding, using the EQ in Ableton and Bias Peak. The thing I kept in mind was that the sounds had to sound good all coming out of the one output from the drum machine, so they needed to be ready-EQ-d in a sense.”

“I just play notes on the keys and twiddle the knobs until I hear something I like. The funk one has a lot of overdubs, I had to make the chords by overdubbing single notes for example, but that allowed me to pan each note in the chord across the stereo field which is a nice effect you can’t do on a polysynth. The acid one is just a live jam with an overdub of a second synth part.”

To conclude, we wrapped up by asking him to describe both UNO Synth and UNO Drum in 5 words. He responded,

UNO Synth:

Analogue synth, quite 70s sounding.

UNO Drum:

Punchy analogue drums, techno feeling.

Listen to the songs created by DMX Krew here with UNO Synth and UNO Drum here.

Ending with a word of advice, DMX Krew encourages all artists to practice a lot and create with a goal of expressing themselves truly.  He says that it doesn’t matter whether it’s a piano, or a guitar, or a computer, or a voice – all that matters is the will of the artist.

The brand new sound library from DMX Krew for UNO Drum is available for download in your User Area now! Click here to access your User Area.

Learn more about UNO Drum here.

Learn more about UNO Synth here.

Check out more from DMX Krew here.