IK Multimedia TONEX Pedal

ToneX has the potential to be the greatest guitar product of 2023. Primarily designed as a virtual amp with real amp profiling capabilities, it is well-built and sounds excellent. If you find the right sounds for you, you'll be pleasantly surprised and satisfied with ToneX. Currently, I've been using ToneX in place of my amp and integrating it with my pedalboard (see attached picture), and ToneX handles pedals better than Kemper or Helix. I still need to test its performance as a preamp, connected to my head's power amp. For those who don't want to sell their pedals but also don't want to invest heavily in a Kemper or a QC, the ToneX can fulfill your needs.However, ToneX has a significant UX issue. It truly needed a better display - it only has 8 characters, and ... MoreToneX has the potential to be the greatest guitar product of 2023. Primarily designed as a virtual amp with real amp profiling capabilities, it is well-built and sounds excellent. If you find the right sounds for you, you'll be pleasantly surprised and satisfied with ToneX. Currently, I've been using ToneX in place of my amp and integrating it with my pedalboard (see attached picture), and ToneX handles pedals better than Kemper or Helix. I still need to test its performance as a preamp, connected to my head's power amp. For those who don't want to sell their pedals but also don't want to invest heavily in a Kemper or a QC, the ToneX can fulfill your needs.However, ToneX has a significant UX issue. It truly needed a better display - it only has 8 characters, and since the first one or two are used for the bank number, you'll have to carefully consider how to name your presets. But the worst aspect is its usability. The main functions are easily accessible, which is great. However, attempting to match volume between presets is impractical. Experimenting with different speakers or IRs is frustrating. And as far as I know, changing the mic position is not possible unless you use the ToneX software.The software is also extremely problematic. The main issue is that you cannot change your pedal/amp settings through the computer in real time. You need to find the sound, tweak it the preset in your computer, save it, and later export it to the pedal. Additionally, you are supposed to be able to use ToneX as an audio interface, connecting a guitar to your computer, so that you can create/manipulate presets on the software (importing them to the pedal later). However, I have no idea how to fix the latency - it's terrible and unacceptable. Additionally, ToneX app has several bugs.IK Multimedia really needs to address these issues and create software that makes programming easier for users. Once they do that (and I sincerely hope they do), the product will be exceptional. That's why I'm not giving a 5-star.

This is exactly what I was hoping for! This has the most realistic sounding amp profiles I've heard yet and they really capture feel and harmonics better than most modelers. The good presets and captures just have a richness to them that you won't get from many other digital products. It's not perfect by any means, but does what I bought it to do and at a great price point. I bought this to have a bunch of quality amp profiles in a pedal that I otherwise could never afford or play. It works great as an ampless rig option. If you are profiling your own amps, using with your DAW, or trying use with other software, it may be a pain and there are lots of complaints out there about the UI and compatibility. The terminology takes a little getting used to also. I don't use ... MoreThis is exactly what I was hoping for! This has the most realistic sounding amp profiles I've heard yet and they really capture feel and harmonics better than most modelers. The good presets and captures just have a richness to them that you won't get from many other digital products. It's not perfect by any means, but does what I bought it to do and at a great price point. I bought this to have a bunch of quality amp profiles in a pedal that I otherwise could never afford or play. It works great as an ampless rig option. If you are profiling your own amps, using with your DAW, or trying use with other software, it may be a pain and there are lots of complaints out there about the UI and compatibility. The terminology takes a little getting used to also. I don't use it for that, but do think the capabilities of the software included adds value to this. I pretty much want to use my laptop as little as possible with this. I just use the Tonex app to organize the presets and download presets from Tonenet to add to the pedal, and for that it works well and is pretty straightforward. I had a Helix for a few years. It is a great piece of tech and very capable of making great sounds. It takes a lot of work and tweaking though, and I spent more time turning knobs than playing. Major option paralysis. I also felt like you needed to be a sound engineer to know how to set some of the granular options. I probably utilized less than 50% of its capabilities. It didn't make me want to get rid of any of my existing pedals and the amps sound better on the Tonex. The Tonex fits my needs better than the Helix did and I'm able to play with less tweaking to get great sounds. I'll probably be able to sell several drive pedals and a couple of amps now. If you're looking for a collection of great sounding amp profiles, this is it.

This unit has a ton of different sounds (150) built in to start with. The only downside (to me) is that there are a significant number of super high gain models which can be pretty noisy. These can be replaced so it's not that big a deal. But this will do high gain right out of the box. There are a fair number of cleaner tones and tons available online from the ToneX web site. The unit is pretty easy to use, as most of the controls work just like a real amp, so once you find a sound that's close to what you want, it's a matter of tweaking to finalize the sound. The sounds are pretty impressive out of the box. I assume that this would work well plugged directly into a PA but I have not tried that.