Product Reviews

This is one of very few PC audio interfaces designed for guitarists. It combines a guitar effects box, a basic drum machine, a USB sound card and Ableton Live Lite 4 GTR software for recording your music.

The hardware is superbly thought out, with a high-impedance guitar input and a headphone output at the front. At the back, the main stereo output is via guitarist-friendly quarter-inch jack sockets, and there's an XLR microphone input, a coaxial S/PDIF output and three sockets for connecting foot pedals to control the effects. It's a shame that the microphone input doesn't have phantom power for condenser microphones, though, and that there's no power switch. The front panel has dedicated knobs for input and output levels and four more to adjust whatever settings are displayed on the screen. The controls are very straightforward, but there are various extra options that require you to press a button twice

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to access them.

The built-in effects work regardless of whether the unit is attached to a computer. They include guitar amp simulation with a choice of 40 models named after classic amp designs. There's a wide variety of tones on offer but, sadly, there's no escaping the brittle, synthetic bite that digital distortion effects often produce. The FX section includes various tremolos, choruses and flangers. It offers a wide range of rhythmic filters and gated effects that score highly for originality and downright weirdness, but they didn't sweep us away. Basic delay and reverb complete the effects chain.

The rhythmic effects can be locked to the tempo of the built-in drum machine, or you can synchronise them to the tempo of your audio software. This proved tricky in practice, though, and the software control panel required us to unplug and reconnect the device regularly in order to adjust settings. The drum sounds and patterns are good enough only for private practice. Otherwise, the unit worked well as a sound card, with decent audio quality and reliable performance using MME and ASIO drivers.

The built-in effects are disappointing, but this is still a well-priced audio interface, especially when you consider that it includes the excellent Ableton software. You can upgrade to the full version of Ableton Live 6 for €349 (around £237). This software alone usually costs around £330, so if you intend to buy it anyway, in effect you can get the Black Box Reloaded for free.