I should have tried harder to get my 15 year old son Zach to write this review. After all, when the test unit arrived from IK Multimedia and I had dutifully installed its accompanying software AmpliTube 2 Live on my MacBook Pro and then my on the studio's G5, it was he that took over using the cable for some time after, allowing me but a glimpse of what he was doing here and there with it, working in silence via headphones, a borrowed Les Paul Special (mine!) and this new USB-audio-interface-in-a-cable called The Stealth Plug. But I digress. Kids don't write reviews for their parents publications, and if they do write something, they don't want their dad to see it anyway. More on that, later.

Billed as the world's first 1/4” to USB audio interface cable for the guitar (and bass), IK Multimedia saw a need and found a solution a lot of recording guitarists are going to love. And what's not to love? This is a one-way audio device and it does one thing. It get sound from the guitar into the DAW software. Period. No big audio boxes to drag around, you can now just whip out The Stealth Plug, slip it in the USB port, snap it into your guitar and you're ready to choose inputs on your recording application.

Its a really short review item if you just describe what it is and does, with how it performs. USB one end. 1/4” other, plug one into guitar. Plug one end into USB port. Set inputs on recording software, hear sound from guitar. At that point, it either works or does not. It does work. It works very well. It works exactly how you would expect it to work, right out of the box, no BS, no hassles, it just shows up in your list of Audio Devices in OS X's Audio/MIDI Setup, and thus also in whatever flavor of DAW you record with these days. There are no drivers to install, this is a Mac! It just works. Review over!?

IK Multimedia made sure the fun wasn't over by simply taking the cable out of the box, though. That wasn't enough for them, so they loaded the box with extras to make the already attractive $99 average street price for this wonder an even better bargain.

Included with the USB Audio interface cable are:

• AmpliTube 2 Live plug-in, guitar and bass amp and effects for VST, RTAS, AU (Only available with the StealthPlug) which runs in stand-alone or plugin mode.
• Mackie Tracktion 2.1 Audio/MIDI Sequencer
• SampleTank 2 SE with 64 Sounds Included for VST
• T-RackS EQ 6-Band Mastering EQ for VST
• 500MB of Sonic Reality’s Loops of Guitar, Bass and Drum Grooves

That's a pretty tall order of titles for most Mac-users who buy this product. However, a word of caution in that if you are an Intel-Based Mac user, the Mackie Tracktion2 software is not something you want to slap on your MacBook or new Intel-based iMac or MacPro. It has issues with it because it is not a Universal Binary application, though the coming Tracktion3 is Universal Binary. If you are a G5 or earlier users, just follow these requirements to see that you are able to run the various included software and fully use the features of it.

Power PC based Macintosh
Minimum: 866MHz Power Macintosh G4, with 512MB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4 or later. One free USB port.

Intel based Macintosh
Minimum: 1.5 GHz Intel Core Solo processor, 512 MB of RAM, Mac OS X 10.4.4 or later. One free USB port.

To do a review of The Stealth Plug requires a mini-review of each of the software titles it shipped with but we're really just going to focus on one of them, as its directly related to the target audience, and that is IK Multimedia's AmpliTube 2 Live.

AmpliTube Live 2 runs as a Plugin or in Standalone-Mode. That's pretty cool. Just plug in the Stealth Plug, open up AmpliTube Live 2 and you're off and running modeling a nice selection of guitar amps right on your desktop. You get an American Tube Lead, a British Tube Lead and a Bass Amp. As expected, the American one looks Fender-ish, the British one looks British-ish, and the Bass Amp looks like a Bass Amp.

You can change mics on the amps from close to far, and from condenser to dynamic. You can set it on-axis and off-axis. You get speaker combinations of 1x12 Speaker Open Vintage, 2x12 Speakers Closed Vintage, 4x12 Closed Vintage, and a 1x15 Bass Vintage Speaker. Those are the choices for speaker and mic configurations no matter which amp model you choose. Not a lot, but then again, its a very lite version of the all-powerful AmpliTube 2 - , and you have to have something to aspire to, ya know?

Where these choices shine in AmpliTube Live 2 is in the presets. There are 60 style presets found in total under the genres of Blues, Funk, FX, Heavy Metal, Jazz, Pop and Rock. They all sound really nice, and even if you don't like them exactly as-is, you can tweak them once they are set. There are 21 “signature” presets giving some pretty good takes on Nirvana, Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin, plus some for Stevie Ray Vaughn, Jimi Hendrix, Steve Vai and more. Nice job on those!

You get six choices of presets in the Pure Amps section under American Tube Clean, four presets under the Bass Amp, and of course, eleven choices for the British Tube Lead amp. Everyone has to pay homage to Spinal Tap! Complete Rigs gives you another 26 presets to play with for Bass, Clean, Crunch and Lead-Hi-Gain amp models.

Stacked on top of AmpliTube 2 Live you will find SpeedTrainer (in the standalone mode). With this you can import a song from your computer (MP3) and it will speed up or slow down the tempo and/or alter the pitch (one octave up or down in relation to the original pitch) tempo to help you sort out parts you've been wanting to learn from a favorite track. That feature was fun for making Paul Stanley sing like Mickey Mouse while working on this review and learning the Ace Frehley licks. OK, it was also good for slowing down the song 100,000 Years from KISS and figuring out in a few minutes how to nail the solo without having to read the tab. I guess I should mention the Metronome that is included in the right of the screen on top, with simple operation guided by two knobs and an on/off switch.

A Stomp Box board is included with the software, just toggle from Amp to Stomp on the bottom corner of the screen or via the Module selector buttons. Here you can set up your own pedal board with a tuner; Wah pedal, Overdrive pedal, Chorus, - Opto-tremolo, Delay, Volume pedal, Compressor and Flangers, even a Graphic EQ. Not bad. There is even a noise gate and master volume out from the pedal board, too. Remember, you get all of this software power along with uber -convenient Stealth Plug for about $99 on the street. That's hard to beat!

AmpliTube Live 2 alone is worth the price of admission to this concert. Maybe they should promote the software as coming with a Free Stealth Plug. AmpliTube Live 2 works with any audio input device, just like the Stealth Plug works with any audio recording program. You can use one without the other.

You will need to adjust your sample rate 41k, 48k, 96k to match your recording software and the buffer size when using this in order to find the optimum place for your computer and AmpliTube Live 2 to live in harmony. Not doing so might result in some nasty sounds or unacceptable latency.

AmpliTube Live 2 has a cool retro-vibe interface, its familiar enough that even the most inexperienced guitarists sitting in front of it should have no trouble sorting out how to plug in the cable, turn on the software and start hearing their guitar make some great tones, really quickly. The software, when run through a good set of headphones or monitor speakers, makes for a pretty great guitar playing experience in my opinion. You could conceivably run this thing as a live guitar rig using the right I/O choices.

Back to Zach
We got the Stealth Plug just before we took off on a crazy drive from Shastsa Lake, CA all the way to Nashville, TN, and the drive began on December 4, 2006 at 11pm. We packed up the office, the recording studio, a four bedroom house, plus three kids and a wife into two SUVs and began one very long drive across the USA. What better way to put the practical uses of the Stealth Plug to the test?

Zach sat in the back of my Ford Expedition with my MacBook Pro powered off an inverter unit, the Stealth Plug connected to my Les Paul Special and the other end connected to the computer. Working in GarageBand and making great use of the AmpliTube Live 2 plug-in's power, he set about recording his way across an 1950 miles drive through the middle of nowhere. As we hit different towns, Zach put the songs up on his MySpace page, and you can listen to them there. All of the guitar tones were made using the sounds in AmpliTube Live 2, the loops are stock Apple Loops, and the results were pretty good considering he's 15, and his recording conditions in a moving vehicle (crammed in the middle of an over-stuffed SUV) during a family move were less than studio-centric.

Our Bottom Line?
Every now and then something comes along that you review and decide you have to buy. This is one of them. We can't send it back. Its too handy to have around. Buy it for the cable. Buy it for AmpliTube 2 Live, or the whole combo of software titles that come with those two, but do yourself a favor and buy it. You will use this product a lot more ways than you might think at first, and will definitely use it the way it was intended, too. This gets five stars, rated excellent by AppleProAudio.com

For more information visit http://www.ikmultimedia.com

Review: Mike Lawson
Rating: 5 out of 5
Retail Price – ($129)/Street Price $99
Available: Now

This product is Rated Excellent by AppleProAudio.com