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World's Longest USB Audio Interface?


At nine feet long, the IK Multimedia StealthPlug guitar-to-computer interface is possibly the skinniest way to go digital. The StealthPlug is a cable with a USB plug on one end and a quarter-inch guitar plug on the other. In between, there's a little arrowhead that converts the analog guitar signal to digital and the computer's digital signal back to analog so you can hear it.

stealthplug.jpg

The arrowhead also contains a headphone jack and volume up/down buttons, making the StealthPlug an improvement on the slightly cheaper SoundTech LightSnake. And the StealthPlug also comes with a much better software bundle, featuring a slimmed-down version of IK's AmpliTube effects processor; the full version of Mackie's well-regarded Tracktion audio/MIDI sequencer; IK's SampleTank 2 SE (a software sample-player); and 500MB of guitar, bass, and drum grooves from Sonic Reality.

stealthplug-closeup.jpg

It wasn't clear whether the StealthPlug's headphone output has the option to mix in the direct signal for zero-latency monitoring, but early buyers report that the latency through the software guitar effects is as low as 5ms. The StealthPlug supports both ASIO and Core Audio.

I first saw the StealthPlug at NAMM last January, so presumably IK spent the last ten months polishing it. If the StealthPlug upholds IK's tradition of good-sounding plugins, it should be a terrific bargain—not to mention a compact, easy way to get your guitar and computer talking. It sells online for as little as $99.

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Comments (5)
Read More Entries by David Battino.

5 Comments

@baris: Nope. This is audio, not MIDI. But you can plug your guitar directly into the DI input on your Mbox to record its audio signal.

baris said:

hi,

i have a question. does stealth plug converts analog audio to midi? and can i use stealth plug with my sound card 'digidesign mbox2'?

i'll be glad if you can enlighten me :)

baris

Nick Page said:

I would like to point out a new piece of equipment used specifically for audio recording that I highly recommend to all avid music lovers wanting to import their music to a PC. The product, called Focusrite Saffire is available on http://www.reverb-store.co.uk/product-detail.asp?prod=258. The device uses hardware-powered plug-ins for tracking, EQ, Compression, Reverb and Amp Modelling plug-ins all with zero impact on your CPU.

Stu said:

I bought the stealthplug about a month ago & it is brilliant. The sounds out of it are incredible with Amplitube and the feature to play along with songs means you can hear your playing & the song out of the same headphones, a great help if you are learning from books that come with cd's. Best guitar-related money I ever spent.

bag said:

I really like to read some more reviews on the stealthplug. If anyone have some info please post. Thanks.

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