StealthPedal

IK Multimedia has recently released the StealthPedal, it looks just like any other wah-wah or volume control pedal, but this pedal has unbelievable extensibility because of its ability to connect your guitar or bass to your computer! Plug in your guitar with a regular ¼ inch cable and connect the StealthPedal via USB, load the included Ampiltube X-Gear software and you’re rockin’ with an incredible amount of different amps, cabinets, and effects pedals!

Now the great thing about my review here is that I have never connected my guitar to a PC. I’ve thought about it in the past, but was never really sure how to go about it. The good news is that the StealthPedal solves that entire problem easily. First of all, the pedal itself is specifically designed to connect to your computer and it comes packaged with Amplitube Software, which is software that provides different amplifiers, stomp (effects) pedals, cabinets, racks.

There is one important note here, the Amplitube software isn’t designed to work with your computer’s sound card, so you have to output the sound to another source. For me, I simply ran simple 1/8 inch cable from the StealthPedal’s headphone jack to my computer speaker’s line in option. Worked beautifully! Alternatively, you can simply utilize headphones, or you can also the outputs on the StealthPedal to connect it to speakers.

In my opinion, there are two deal breakers when it comes to this concept:

1. How good is the audio quality
2. How easy is the software to use

Sound Quality

I used the StealthPedal on my PC, which to note is around 6 years old. I ran a simple 1/8 inch line cord to my computer’s speakers, made by Creative Labs (2 speakers and a sub-woofer). Since my PC is old I did need to increase the ASIO buffer size. Sounds complicated but it’s actually a breeze to do in the Amplitube X-GEAR software. Increasing the buffer size will also increase the latency, however, such a change is in milliseconds so I honestly cannot notice it. With the buffer size adjustment the sound produced is as clean as can be – no popping sounds, no fuzziness – just a clean guitar sound! Perfect!

Ease of Software

This is an area where a lot of software can fail, someone could create a great product but if it’s too complicated to use then forget it. The good news for the StealthPedal is that the packaged Ampitube X-GEAR software is surprisingly intuitive. In general, most of the use in X-GEAR will be in following sections: Tuner, Stomp, Amp, Cab, Rack. What makes these sections so intuitive is that they allow work just like the real thing. Each section has knobs and buttons that you can manipulate with your mouse. For example, the Overdrive pedal has knobs for Tone, Distortion and Level. Simply adjust the knobs to get the sound you desire. Same goes for the amp, depending on the model you choose you can adjust the knobs for middle, bass, treble, presence, reverb, etc.

You can turn the knobs on these pedals, they simulate the real thing.

As I said before, the knobs and switches operate just like the real pedals, so right off the bat there is comfort level in the ease of use. Customizations can easily be saved and loaded from the presets menu. Speaking of presets, here is another intuitive feature. Each Amplitube product comes loaded with presets, so with just a couple clicks of the mouse you can select from a multitude of rigs that have already been customized and setup for you. This of course saves you a lot of time, and you can further customize these presets and save them, or if you are like me, you end up switching from preset to preset and the hours roll by as you rock out!

Software Sound Quality

Here is where the product really shines. The Amplitube software can make amazing sound replications. The various stomp boxes, such as distortion, chorus, opto-tremolo, the wah-wah all sound just like high quality effects pedals you can buy at any guitar store. The amps and cabinets can replicate sounds that you can spend thousands on. Overall I’m extremely impressed at the overall sound quality and the capability of the Amplitube software packages.

Additional Capability

I think one could go on and on about the different capabilities of the StealthPedal, ultimately that’s not the goal of this review but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention some of these extensible capabilities.

1. The StealthPedal doesn’t have to solely act as a wah-wah, it can be easily be set to work with other features. For example, the built in switch can be used to activate a stomp box and the pedal can be set to control a particular knob. The best part of this capability is that it is incredibly ease to do.

2. You can connect an additional expression pedal to your StealthPedal via a ¼ inch jack cable. Therefore, if you want a wah-wah at all times, you can use the StealthPedal to control other operations and simply connect your wah-wah and your good to go!

3. You can connect a dual footswitch to the StealthPedal, and just like I mentioned in point 1, you can easily set each button to control different functionality. You would most likely use this to turn on and off a particular pedal. I have an old Roland amplifier that has a footswitch. I plugged it in to the StealthPedal, customized the External Switch function and was able to turn a stomp box on/off and cycle presets.

4. Amplitube X-GEAR includes SpeedTrainer. SpeedTrainer lets you slow down a song but maintain the pitch. With its looping ability, SpeedTrainer is a great hidden gem of this software. I’ve seen other trainer products sell for $200.

5. Delay pedal (stomp box)! Yes, the delay pedal is just so fun!

Bottom Line

I’m thoroughly impressed at what the StealthPedal has to offer. As said before, the sound quality is terrific, and the ability of Amplitube software to mimic real effets pedals and amp set ups is amazing. The extensibility of this product to replicate so many different pieces of hardware make the StealthPedal a tremendous value.

For more information on the StealthPedal take a look at the video below from IKMultimedia or visit their website StealthPedal section