IK Multimedia Axe I/O + AmpliTube 5 Max + TONEX MAX Bundle Reviews

For Christmas in 2022 my wife gave me the IK Multimedia amplitube 5 max and Tonex max and is so amazing to play guitar, bass and keyboard's though.

The AXE I/O, ToneX Max, and Amplitube Max bundle incorporates a lot of content, so there is so much there to draw upon to sculpt your sound. Also, there is access to the ToneNet community which multiplies the possibilities. The AXE I/O interface offers a lot of control fir guitarists. Latency is neglible for me. It also does a good job of handling my other VST plugins as well.

I've been using the Axe I/O interface and with the Amplitube 5 Max software for around two weeks. I'm sold.

- The interface is nicely built and sounds clear as a bell. It also has some really cool guitar-focused features. I really like the Z-tone knob that you can use to tweak the impedance of the signal going in. I'm using it to round out the tone of my Strat. There is also an built in amp out feature that you can use to re-amp a track.

- Amplitube 5 and Tonex are amazing. So much there to play with, and many, many licensed amp tones. Tonex is a game changer in terms of access to all sorts of tones. Adding this software to the bundle with the interface is a huge value.

- Have to add that the Sweetwater engineer that I worked with - Evan - is fantastic. He worked with me to determine what I needed and pointed me in the right direction. Friendly, extremely knowledgeable, and just a great person to talk to about making music. An absolute gem.

Sweetwater got this to me sooner than expected as always, thanks! This interface with Amplitude is such a great 'amp'. Sounds and feels real too. Only wish is that I knew about it sooner!

If you are looking into Amplitube and you also need an audio interface look no further! This is basically a buy one get one free bundle. both products work amazingly! I did have issues with sound trying to use windows sound drivers, even with a high end MOBO with quality sound integrated I would either have horrible latency or have horrible sound break up. the solution to this was to run the Axe i/o on board ASIO and run the output directly to studio monitors. 10/10 would recommend!

I'm "old school" and much prefer the sound, dynamics and feel of real tube amps and analog effects. But I'm impressed with this thing so far.

Pros:

-Extremely realistic amp and cab sounds. I bet most people would not be able to tell the difference between these and real amps when listening to a recording.
-I love that Amplitube has the license to use the actual names of the amps – as opposed to other products that have to use made up names to describe the amps there are modeling.
-The effects are pretty good too, not Axe-Fx level good, but very respectable in their own way.
-The interface itself is fantastic with the added guitar-specific controls in the inputs, and the various options for outputs.
-More amps and sounds than one could use in a hundred years (which could be overwhelming as well).
-Unfathomable amounts of customization. You can reroute the amps, effects and speaker cabs in endless combinations.

Cons:

-I ran into three different issues during the initial setup that required manufacturer intervention: 1. The unit wouldn't register (you cannot download the modeling software without the registration). 2. When the software finally downloaded, it was the regular Amplitube 5 not the MAX upgraded version. 3. When the MAX upgrade finally downloaded, not all the collections were available. So that took more figuring out.

-After doing some reading online, it seems like many people have run into similar issues. To their credit, IK Multimedia customer service was very responsive and took care of each issue until everything got resolved. Sweetwater tech support was also on top of everything from their end.

At the end, I still give the product 5 stars because besides the setup issues, it is truly a fantastic sounding software. I cannot think of any other product out there in its price range that packs so much with such a high level of hyper-realistic sounding amps through an interface specifically designed for guitars.

I've been using the AXE I/o on the JFET setting with the Z tone furthest left, and so far have had some great little tones come out of this thing with Amplitube. I've been using a Blackstar head with a customized avatar cab for touring and gigging, but I'm debating on letting that all go to use the Silver Jubilee, JC120, and Soldano models. So far dialing in all my guitars and basses, and it's all sounding great enough to use for new recordings. I would be comfortable enough letting these out to the public, too. You don't have to deal with finding a room, paying for the room, and even buying the mics, it's all there! Abracadabra! Recommend mixing the 414 and the 57 for maximum tonal awesomeness.

In other reviews, I have seen some issues with the Axe I/O, and so far, no major problems to report on my end, and it does help a lot to keep the control program, and keep an eye on the ins/outs of AT5. I've had instances of gremlins switching out the channels randomly for no reason. I lost the out once, but it was fixed with an update, and luckily, the gremlins don't come as often, but they do come. If you lose sound from the Axe I/O or AT5, recommend checking your settings before moving on. Also helps to uninstall the Axe I/O driver and reinstall it through the control program. Did that once since it was being glitchy and weird for too long, and that actually helped it along. Hope that helps!

The bang-for-buck in the bundle was too good to pass up, but I expected a fairly watered down offering in the software. My main motivation for the purchase was the interface itself, and the AmpliTube was just some icing on the cake. The interface does not disappoint-- the quality is there, and I feel like it is absolutely gig-worthy. Also, my ears don't detect any latency, and it's nice having the tuner built in. AmpliTube was the surprising factor! It has nearly all the amps I have ever wanted, and some I never knew I wanted until now. Not only am I able to generate some seriously good, and usable tones, but the way you're able to tweak controls, and the way amps and equipment respond to those adjustments seems very authentic to me... you can build your rig with endless effects, and even alter the virtual environment your rig is in-- it's all the nerdy stuff I could ever ask for! Thanks, Chris, for hooking me up!

I absolutely love the Axe I/O. Once I downloaded the drivers, my Mac picked it up with no problems. Amplitube 5 MAX is awesome as well. Definitely worth it, 100%. No regrets whatsoever. Thanks to Luke for keeping me informed about availability and shipping it to me as soon as it came in!

The amplitube software is worth the price alone, unlimited tones, plus stand alone recording. It'll take months to go through the presets then theres all the variables you can do yourself, plus you get a top of the line interface for home recording.

Interface and software is great stuff. Presets sound amazing. You can create any artist tone with this software. Love it

I've been playing emulation software of a variety of sorts for a long time now and this is the first one that tricked me into thinking I was playing on my tube amp for a moment. Its not 100% perfect but wow, its really close and reacts like it should and just gives you so many options for tone as well as the reamping feature which is a highlight.

Almost knocked a half a star off for setup. Make sure you install control panel first and then AmpliTube 5. Also, the box itself can run a little hot but there is a small on/off switch on the back. So I keep it off when I'm not using it.

All in all I am very happy with the box, the apparent lack of latency issues and the ridiculous amount of control over the various amps/stomps/cabs/mics that are available. IK Multimedia did a helluva job on this one!

Works great and provides lots (and lots) of tone options. Only problem, at least on my unit, is that one channel has much more gain than the other. I can compensate by diverging the gain knobs so it's not limiting, just annoying.

So far, so good. I've had some experience with using virtual amps via the Fractal AX8 and via the native plugins in LogicX Pro. I wanted to take my guitar tones in my recordings to the next level and the bundle of Amplitube5 and the AXE I/O seemed too good to pass up. First on the hardware, the AXE I/O has plenty of audio inputs and outputs (two for Hi-Z inputs, 2 microphone) and non-Audio connections include the traditional MIDI in/out, USB, and pedal triggers. It runs at 96/24bit for good audio quality. The downside is that it uses a cheap wall-wart style power supply. This is not my studio sound module (I use RME), but it is a good sound module for using Amplitude in a live setting. Now, Amplitude 5. It's very good, very tweakable and you are given a wide variety of stomp boxes, rack gear, speaker cabinets (including Leslie), microphones, and lots of amps. One standout - the Fender Champ, is really great. With a strat you can really find that Layla-era Clapton tone. My tone palette does not include hi-gain tones...so I stick with mostly clean settings with just a bit of grit when I hit it hard. The Fender amps (deluxe, bassman, twin) are a little gainy for my taste. So are the OD-style stompboxes. For example, the tubescreamer is a little dark compared to every tubescreamer I have ever owned. Same with the Fulltone OCD....but this is in no means bad....they are actually very good....just not 100% the real thing. But I've found some nice shimmery Marshall tones and Vox-style tones with the Marshall and Dr Z emulations.
I used the AXE I/O and Amplitude 5 (on a MacBook Pro) for a gig I did yesterday. For the first try, I think it went very well. I was adjusting during the show to get the tones to better fit in the mix. This is a testament to the software as to how easily and quickly you can tweak your sound on the fly. The MIDI implementation is very straightforward - better than Apple's Mainstage, for instance. I use an old Digitech MIDI pedal (yeah, it's 30 years old) with no problem at all. The software was stable on my MacBook Pro for the entire 4 hours. No problems with that at all.
So, I give it 4.5 stars. It's not perfect, but it is really really good. I sent in two technical questions to their support line, and they responded to one of them.

First off, the price is great if you are in the market for both a good quality interface AND an amp sim. The bundle is well worth it.

My main complaint with my old interface was lack of headroom. This solves it no problem, I can run even my hottest guitars straight in. Latency is around 4ms on my system which is also a huge improvement. The DI feature is cool even though I seldom use it.

Amplitube 5 Max is an incredible feature. I could never get any of those free plugins to sound any good but now I can just pull up any amp and cab and have a near realistic sound (Try the free demo!!). I get many compliments and people asking what tube amps I'm using. They are stunned when I tell them it's all digital.

The software is a relative memory hog, but not terrible. I'm typically running 6 instances while recording which takes up about 6GB of RAM but very little CPU. Quite avoidable if you freeze tracks...

My biggest gripe is that Amplitube is tedious since it requires multiple pieces of software and internet connection on your recording rig when installing and updating. It would be great if it could be installed and validated via USB so that the rig could be kept 100% offline!

The axeio I/O box works great, I appreciate the extra features for guitar. Amplitube 5 is fantastic, however requires a lot of compute power!! Had to dial back to 44.1 to get full functionality, ie the good presets to work glitch free. I admit my computer is 10 years old, which is mostly the reason. Using it as a plugin consumes almost all of my DAW resources. However the quality of the sound is amazing!! Time to upgrade my desktop.

If you are familiar with Amplitube then you love it or hate it. I love it. With Amplitube 5 Max you 'effectively' have a comprehensive history of electric guitar tones, at your fingertips. Most of the amps, cabs, and pedals are branded offerings with spot on functionality and looks. Less of that wink, wink, nonsense in some modelers. The Marsha Plexy, Mesa Booger, and HalfWitt knock offs. Like you're getting away with something… I want a real fake Marshall, thank you.
The Axe Io surprised me. I really wasn't expecting much, but it is very substantial and sounds great. The headphone amp with tear your head off if you want it too. That's important, but the thing that makes this a no brainer for any bedroom rocker is the guitar centered focus. Variable impedance input with a switchable FET on the DI, and a re-amp out! Two mic pre's and control room outs. It's tight and has a nice build quality. With great power… There is so much more to the full experience that is Amplitube 5. Beyond the great models and effects, there are practice and learning tools, an active user community and enough toys to get lost for hours or get stuff done quickly. It's up you. No more excuses. Let's rock.

This software sounds incredible however, Amplitube 5 has crashed on me repeatedly after loading several tracks into my DAW. I have had a ticket in with IK Multimedia and have given them screenshots, videos, and computer specs without them being able to help me. As far as their support, they have tried to help but there seems to be no solution for me at this time. Version 4 does not give me an issue. The interface itself works fine and yes it helps shape your sound. Would love to give it five stars just can't right now.

I'm sorry I bought this. There are no windows-specific instructions at all. I had it working on another computer (noting good to say about it) but I give up on the current one. Guitar rig 6 is fine.

Amplitube 5 is what it is (if you like the demo, you'll love the complete package, if you don't like the demo...). The bundle comes with a free Axe I/O, so I can't complain about the price, but I expected it to have at least some added value. It is not plug and play and it is not easy to set-up correctly. After trying to get it to work with the Amplitube 5 stand alone app for about an hour, I gave up and tried it with Reaper. After some fiddling about, I was able to get it to record, but couldn't hear what I was playing or hear it on playback. After disconnecting the Axe I/O, I was able to hear the playback. After scouring the internet for several hours, I came to the conclusion that you can only monitor in realtime if you connect your headphones or speakers to the interface itself. Once the interface is plugged in it disables your computer speakers and headphones and, because it uses a proprietary driver, it also disables any interface using ASIO4ALL. Since computer speakers and headphones are not comptible with the Axe I/O, you either have to buy adapters or new headphones/speakers.

Pros:
-It's free
-Lot's of extra features

Cons:
-Difficult to set-up, with incomplete documentation and sparse online resources
-Won't work concurrently with other interfaces, MIDI controllers, or onboard computer sound
-No hardware muting (with gain turned all the way down, there is still a signal which can only be muted through the software control panel or DAW)
-Best for solo recording demo's, limited live recording capability

This review is based on a single day's use, if I were willing to put more time into troubleshooting, results might improve.

I bought this thing about a year ago. I've had two because the first one had the same issue, and I thought, well, there must be something wrong with my beefy PC. It doesn't mix well with PC. You'll have pops and crackles all the time as it has trouble dealing with low latency. Don't expect to lower your latency any lower than 512 buffer size.

I solved the problem by buying a new interface. Any interface will do a better job. If you are a Mac user, this might be a better option for you, but if you are a PC user, DON'T BUY!!!"

I wrote a mostly positive review when I first purchased the Amplitube 5 MAX bundle with the AXEi/o.

In retrospect, I may have been blinded by the excitement of a new piece of gear, which is common.

The Pros that I identified in my original review are still there. The sound quality of the effects and amps is still impressive. They are very realistic sounding, probably more than any digital modeling out there. So it is great for recording.

But there are so many bugs that IK Multimedia has not fixed. If you look into the forum on their website, there are literally hundreds if not thousands of posts of people having tech issues. Seriously, look on that forum and find the truth of what you might be getting into.

I have had so many issues that quite frankly I regret buying it. Installing and registering the product the first time was very cumbersome. Most recently, my entire library of effects disappeared from my account and IK Multimedia tech support is not able to restore my account for whatever reason. So my Amplitube 5 MAX is not working anymore all of a sudden.

Overall, the product has potential to be a great platform, but those software engineers really need to up their game. It's just not a hassle free platform.

The hardware is good (the AXEi/o), and for what the bundle costs I guess it is not that big of a financial loss.

I've used the Axe I/O for about a year and recently have decided to put it to the test in readiness to use in a working situation. The test was to run for 4-5 hours per day for approximately 2 weeks; total fail. The unit started (after a week)to get glitches which meant no sound , some sound then I shut down and rebooted the whole system (computer, software & Axe I/O); there was sound. At the end of week two the Axe I/O is not working, very disappointed in what appears to be a solid piece of equipment. It has never been used outside in a working situation and is in good condition.

I cannot get this stupid thing to generate anything but a (terrible) generic guitar tone. I have uninstalled and reinstalled the IK multimedia software, upgraded and downgraded my OS, tried countless combinations of usb cables and adapters, tried running through 2 different mixers trying all of their channels. I have followed every tutorial I can find, tried Windows, MacOS, and Linux, and all I get is a basic, terrible guitar sound. No combinations of equipment/software result in anything better than a terrible sounding basic guitar amp sound. At this point, even if I can get this to work, I would never trust it or rely on it, which basically mitigates buying a piece of equipment in the first place. 0/10. Buy a Boss Katana instead.

This review is of the AXE IO and it's Control App. For the last week things have been great with the AXE IO. Today it has completely stopped passing audio. I can monitor though the hardware, but no audio monitor. If I record, the audio PLAYS back fine with plugins. I've have tried all the usual things. From restart to uninstalling and reinstalling the IK Manager app. No help.

What disturbs me is a thread on this, apparently widespread issue, I found in the IK forums. The post was from a member that was having the same issue - AXE IO out of Date - No Audio. The IK forum moderator quickly moved off any actual assistance and went into a loop redirecting to IK support and how we apparently need to know how to 'get their attention'. This guy had been waiting on the support for a week. The moderator threatened to lock the thread. After the poster indicated that he had no help from support, the moderator locked the thread.

Until this issue is solved - the AXE IO, as great as it was for 5 days is a total fail - do not buy.