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After reading reviews for other products that plug into the headphone jack, I decided to go midrange and buy the apogee jam. I received this today and have gathered first impressions. I will update this review as I draw more conclusions, and the rating may or may not change as a result.
First Impressions:
For 100$, I was expecting an awful lot out of this gadget. I don't have a lot of money for guitar pedal effects and a really nice amp, so the result of that is that my time spent at the amp tweaking the limited settings at my disposal is frustrating. The verdict on the Jam? Nothing! As in it took no time at all, took no difficulty, no tweaking. I plugged the 1/4" cable in and into the Ipad, loaded the free version of ampkit, and I was getting wonderful sound immediately. Those first thirty minutes with this new toy melted away in a flash as I played around with the included distortion pedal on ampkit. Some key features I noted as positives:
Pros:
1) Excellent sound, right out of the box. No batteries to put in, no complicated setup, no install. It just worked straight away!
2) No delay, at least as far as I can tell. This seems to be something people are curious about, and at least so far as I can tell there's not one iota of delay from what I do and what comes out of the speakers. I simply may not be discerning enough, but to me there's no noticeable pause.
3) Sensitivity is solid. I was able to modulate my picking style and achieve big differences in the output. For some reason I was expecting the digital out to be muddy. It may have been a silly thought, but it's definitely solid in terms of its adjustment to you.
4) On-the-fly gain adjustment works very well, and I love that it gives you a readout of the noise level on the device itself. It allows you to easily get to a good spot.
Cons:
1) Cost. Obviously this isn't that much for a good guitar input. You could easily spend a lot more for fancier gadgets; however, 100$ is nothing to sneeze at when you play as a hobby. It's definitely worth it since it's no hassle compared to what I have read about other products
That's my list of cons I know for sure so far. There are other issues that I worry about that cannot be ascertained in a first impression. I intend to update these at another time.
Potential cons:
1) Output to a larger speaker. The Jam itself has no way to route your output sound to a larger speaker, and I am not certain that a good solution is going to pop up just yet. If I want to find a backing track on youtube on my laptop and get the guitar and track to my headphones, I'm not sure I'll be able to. I expect there is a reasonable solution for this, though
2) Durability. I have read other stories about the unit failing. Mine was not DoA, but that's about all I can tell so far. It seems like it will hold up to shock. It doesn't feel cheap to me, and it has no little parts to lose (like a battery flap, for example). Time will tell if this guy goes the distance
All that said, I am elated with my purchase and give it a tentative five-star rating. I intend to play with it a lot more, and at this stage I am not quite sure which of the several guitar apps I should lay down my money on. Ampkit seems really good so far with its free effects and amp, so I may go with that.
UPDATE, 12-17-2011
After several months of use, I feel confident in updating my review a bit for those who want some more information! The device has not given me one iota of trouble so far. I can now add some more annoyances to the short list.
CONS:
1) Not being able to charge the iPad at the same time while using the Jam has caused a few situations where I had to put down the guitar after several hours of fooling around with recording and whatnot. I know! Who says I should take a break, right?! This has not been a major issue, in reality, but it is a potential one if you are away from somewhere where you can charge up.
2) The digital connection locks tightly into the port, which is good (it's not going to get ripped out of there), but it gets to feeling a little flimsy and makes me nervous about damaging the cable head itself or the port to the iPad. If you're careful, no issue should ever pop up, but there's that distant possibility.
All in all, any quibbles I have are minor and should not deter you from considering this purchase. This device along with a few key apps have rendered the Vox AC30 miniamp I bought entirely obsolete. The apps play a big role in this, for sure. I'll talk about my setup briefly, as well.
Ampkit and garage band are both awesome for their own reasons. Ampkit has such a breadth of interesting sounds and presets and customization on your output that it's a must. The problem is that you lack the smart instruments and the ability to record in an organized way. Garage band's guitar sounds and interface are a little more annoying to deal with (needing to set the instrument monitoring and the tracklength every time is annoying). Specifically, the guitar sounds feel somewhat limiting and more difficult to customize. They are nice, but I like Ampkit a lot more. The multitrack recording and smart instruments make garage band indispensable for actual generation of musical ideas! Therefore, I wish I could port my ampkit output sound into garageband. Too bad!
All in all, the apogee jam is confirmed as an excellent amp input. Never once have I had a malfunction of the device or any popping or noise that was not setting related. No issue of detection or anything. No batteries for the device, no hassle. The price is the biggest deterrent, but if all the other iPad interfaces have such nasty trouble, then it's best to save your money and grab a good one at the first shot, and the Apogee Jam is definitely a good one!
How about my Potential cons section from before? Let's see...
1) Ipad can use an aux. cable to output to a larger speaker without hassle. I can import backing tracks into iTunes no problem. It's a little more annoying than booting up youtube and flying, but it's not bad. You can also enable multitasking in the garageband app that will allow you to open up other programs while still getting guitar output, so potential con #1 was not a concern.
2) Durability. No troubles on my end. No failure at all. I have been pretty gentle with it, but it has seen its share of slogging around in by guitar bag. Solid device!
What more can I say? I'd buy another if this one broke or got lost without a second thought. There is no better alternative so far as I can tell without being exorbitantly expensive.
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If you are like me, my research for a guitar connection to my iPad left me with choosing between the iRiffport and the Jam. I recently purchased, and then returned, the iRiffport. I am very pleased that I purchased the Apogee Jam as a replacement. Here are the reasons why:
1) The connector on the iRiffport (the one that goes into the iPad) is not a strong connection at all; it feels as though it could disconnect at any time. I have a stand to put my iPad on when jamming such that the iPad is in landscape mode, so the cord feels as though it will come out of moved the wrong way. With the Apogee Jam, the connector is just like the iPad's connector, except it ALSO has the "prongs" that come out of it, securing the connector into the iPad. To remove the connector from the iPad, you need to squeeze the buttons on the connector to make the "prongs" go in so it can be removed...very, very secure. I use the "Gumdrop" case on my iPad, which has a flap that goes over the charging port when not being used. This flap feels pretty tawt when it is open while the charging port is being used. IMPORTANT: if you have such an iPad case, like me, I certainly feel that the Jam will provide a much more secure connection to your iPad over the iRiffport. In fact, the structure of the iRiffport connector was so large, that I felt that it did not fit well through my case. On the other hand, the Jam's connector is the same small size as the iPad's original connector. This is also something to consider if you intend to use your iPad in portrait mode on a stand with the connector on the bottom of the iPad.
2) Probably the largest reason I prefer the Jam over the iRiffport: you can hear sound directly from the iPad. With the iRiffport, you MUST use headphones or attach external speakers. I tried headphones with the iRiffport and playing the guitar was very awkward. Nonetheless, with the Jam, I could attach headphones or external speakers to the iPad if I chose to do so. I wanted something that could make my iPad an amplifier for easy mobility around my house, without having to purchase another amplifier or external speakers. With the Jam, I have this.
3) The Jam has a gain meter (i.e., an LED) and a gain control. The iRiffport does not. When not being used to measure the level of the incoming audio, the LED lets you know if you are connected to the iPad, but not to any software (blue light), or if you are connected to the iPad AND to a software application (green light). There are no batteries needed for the Jam or the iRiffport.
4) I personally like that I can use my own guitar cord with the Jam. If the cord breaks, I simply replace the cord, not my iPad connection device. The iRiffport uses its own cord, and the connection to my guitar did not feel as strong as my "normal" guitar cable I used with the Jam.
5) Although a fairly minor point, it is nice to know that the Jam is advertised by Apple (look at their website and their Garageband video). And, since I have Garageband on my iPad, I was pleased to see that the advertising material on the Jam states specifically that it works with Garageband.
So far, I'm very pleased with the Jam.
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I bought a cheaper interface first, to 'try out the concept' of playing and recording with an iPad. As a guitar player and songwriter, feel free to take my word for it. It works!
That said, the cheaper mic port connectors can be noisy and problematic, and will be quite unpleasant if you have any hopes of using some of the higher gain settings on any of the amp sims in GBand or elsewhere.
If you play guitar, sing and/or write songs and want to do so on the iPad, save yourself the $30 or $40 you'll end up spending on a cheaper interface and go straight to the Apogee. You'll save money because once you run into the limitations of the other interfaces, you're going to end up buying the Apogee anyways!
The Apogee will give you a clean and direct digital connection to the iPad. The mic input on the iPad actually has circuitry that changes the sound to favor the range of the human voice. Guitars sound okay, bass not so much. Again, any gain of any magnitude whatsoever will produce a lot of squealing and feedback in the headphones if you're using a cheaper interface.
In GarageBand with the Apogee, guitars sound great and so does my Fender Precision bass. I play it through a cleaner amp setting and it sounds tremendous. I haven't run a mic through it yet, but it's a clean interface so with an adapter any dynamic (no phantom power, sorry) mic will sound great. Plenty of great vocals (and instruments) have been recorded over the years with simple dynamic mics, so please don't buy into the advertising myth that you absolutely have to have a shock-mounted, phantom powered microphone to get a great recording. You don't.
There's also the question of volume. The cheaper interfaces are too quiet (one way of dealing with the feedback issue). The Apogee lets you play plenty loud with whatever sound you like. Very nice I must say!
For songwriting on the go, traveling, whatever, Garageband and the Apogee can't be beat. I say this as a long time Windows user, and I can assure you I'm not dumping my Thinkpad anytime soon, but this is really a blast. Being able to tap out a beat, record guitars, vocals whatever on this little iPad is really nice in terms of songwriting workflow. As other have said, you'll get so involved the time just whooshes away!
If you want phantom power and a more sturdy, powered setup, try the Alesis audio dock. For me, though, this is perfect.
Bottom line: If you're a songwriter looking to replace your old four track, SKIP the cheaper interfaces. Spend some more money now and you'll be glad you did.
*** Addendum: Latency with GarageBand is very good, but not air-tight. You'll feel a bit of drag when doing any sort of moderately fast soloing, but it's not that bad at all. I've just been spoiled with the very low ASIO latency I get on my PC. My feeling is that this is not due to the Apogee hardware, but rather imposed by the software. GB has to gear itself for the best latency under the worst circumstances, which would be an iPad 1 with virtual instruments and effects on every track. Hopefully future releases of GB will give users some ability to tweak latency for various scenarios and hardware levels.
I also tried this on my wife's Macbook with the (included) USB converter cable and it works great. No driver installation or anything. Very nice!
Why 4 stars and not 5? You've got to jump through some serious hoops to get a 5 star rating, otherwise it has no meaning! Apogee did a nice job here but that's it. There's nothing special going on here that won't be done at least as well and more cheaply by other manufacturers. Apogee could have priced this much more cheaply but prefer to cash in on the cachet of their name. This is in their own best interest, and seeing as they're the first to introduce a compact digital interface for the iPad, I'm happy to pay the premium for now.
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I bought the Apogee Jam after being thoroughly disappointed with the iRig guitar interface. Like most inexpensive interfaces, the iRig uses the Mic input on the headphone jack of the iPad/iPhone for results that are noisy and low-fi, which simply takes the fun out of apps like Amplitube or GarageBand.
The Apogee Jam uses a direct digital in via the Dock connector, and cleared all that junk up in a hurry. It works perfectly in both Amplitube (v2.5 and up) and GarageBand, with low noise and a clean, fat signal. The input gain control is simple and useful, and because the headphone jack isn't being used you can hear your instrument through the iPad speaker if you wish.
There isn't much more to say. I am using it with a 3rd-gen iPad and iPhone 4S, and finally have a pocket-sized guitar rig that I can really enjoy. Huzzah!
HEADS UP for people with newer ipad with lightning connector, you will need to purchase a lightning to 30-pin connector. Other than that seems pretty solid.
