Last week at NAMM I was lucky enough to catch Mike Campese perform at the Sonoma Wire Works booth at the 2015 NAMM Show. Mike was showcasing the tones the iOS app GuitarTone is capable of. Even though I’ve used GuitarTone several times in the past—even writing about them a few times over the years—I was blown away by the audio quality. My embedded video is not going to do that audio any justice because I was only using an iPhone to capture video/audio, but trust me … It sounded awesome and was loud enough to ensure the NAMM decibel police were on hand to protect all sensitive ears.
Everybody won on this day.
Essentially, Mike Campese plugged his backing tracks into the speaker system (see image below) and plugged his guitar into a new Sonoma Wire Works interface that then connected GuitarTone to the same speaker system. There is no guitar amplifier on hand here. There are no guitar pedals. All of the tone is coming straight from the iOS app itself.
I was very keen to look and listen as the performance went on. Mike’s guitar playing is phenomenal. That guitar neck sure received a workout on this day.
More importantly to me though was the interface collection that Sonoma Wire Workds had going on. From memory, Mike Campese was plugged into the GuitarJack Stage. This is the largest interface in the Sonoma Wire Works arsenal right now. Other interface options include:
- GuitarJack Mini
- StudioJack Mini
- StudioJack
Things have sure advanced since the original GuitarJack that I used back when I had an iPhone 3S. The current model of GuitarJack (model 2) is still around, but I have a very strong feeling that new and improved things are coming from the folks at Sonoma Wire Works.
If we’re lucky, GuitarTone, StudioTrack, FourTrack and the InstantDrummer apps will all get an upgrade. I’d love to see that happen. I’m a big fan of the StudioTrack/InstantDrummer range. If I could get them all working in AudioBus, I’d be a happy little camper. I’d then be able to compose complete songs in the Sonoma Wire Works app suite while people like Mike Campese performed live using the same tools.
It’s best for everyone that only talented people like Mike perform live. Nobody deserves to hear me play live. No matter how bad they’re been.
Guitar Tone Setup 
Mike Campese Guitar Tone