AmpKit - Guitar amps & pedals

Category

Description of App

AmpKit is the ultimate guitar amps, effects and recording app for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch*, now with iPad Retina display graphics and an even greater selection of gear in the Gear Store, including the first full-featured, modern bass amp available on iOS.

To enjoy the best possible tone with AmpKit, use Peavey AmpKit LiNK to connect your guitar or bass to your iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch*.

AmpKit offers:

  • The largest guitar and bass gear selection of any amp sim app: 36 amp channels, 24 effects, 21 cabinets, and 8 mics.
  • A massive collection of presets: 114 in total!
  • Five great cost-saving bundles including the new Summer ‘11 Pack with 6 brand-new amps, 6 cabs, and 4 new effect pedals.
  • Powerful features including recording session mix down, Audio Copy & Paste, background audio support, and much more.

Premier Guitar: "AmpKit is the most impressive amp modeling software that I've encountered for the iPhone."

Ars Technica: "Agile Partners' better hardware, beautiful graphics, abundance of effects, and the ability to use more than three effects simultaneously make that application a winner in our book."

CrunchGear: "AmpKit's guitar tones are great! From crushing distortion to kooky tremolo, there are many tones to choose from and it is easy to navigate through the options with speed and efficiency."

This free version of AmpKit comes with the following gear:

  • Peavey ValveKing amp (clean and lead channels)
  • Two ValveKing cabinets (4x12 and 1x12)
  • Two pedals (Noise Gate, Elevenizer overdrive pedal)
  • Two mics

An amazing array of additional gear is available for purchase through AmpKit's in-app Gear Store, for a total of:

  • 20 amps with 36 separate amp channels, each modeled after the actual circuitry of amplifiers from leading manufacturers.
  • 24 effects pedals, including advanced noise reduction, tremolo, distortion, fuzz, reverb, delay, 10-band EQ, octaver, flanger, phaser, vibrato, chorus, boost, compressor, overdrive, and an all-in-one envelope filter + auto-wah + manual wah with accelerometer tilt support.
  • 21 cabinets
  • 8 mics
  • More gear on the way!

FEATURES

  • Support for true high-gain operation.
  • Run a dozen or more effects at once.
  • Hear the difference dual-stage amp simulation makes
  • Amazing flexibility and tone control: place pedals virtually anywhere in the effects chain including after the cabinet and before and after the amp.
  • Effects Only Mode allows you to use AmpKit as an effects processor connected into an actual amp.
  • Mic positioning control.
  • 114 predefined amp / pedal presets.
  • Create and save an unlimited number of your own custom setups with Favorites and Locking.
  • Share your favorite setups with friends via email.
  • QuickJump: jump from one favorite setup or preset to another.
  • Advanced recording: AmpKit creates both “dry” and “wet” recordings.
  • Ability to "re-amp": re-record a previous session, applying a new amp and pedals setup.
  • Recording session mix down: mix down a wet guitar recording with the backing track it was played with.
  • Audio Copy & Paste: copy AmpKit recordings and paste them in other iOS apps.
  • Paste audio from other apps into AmpKit, a great solution for multi-track recording.
  • Instant access to your complete iPod music library so you can jam along.
  • Download AmpKit recordings to your computer, email recordings, or share using SoundCloud.
  • Multitasking Support / Background Audio: AmpKit can operate and produce audio when running in the background.

Follow AmpKit on Twitter: @AmpKit
Be an AmpKit fan on Facebook: Facebook.com/AmpKit

*Except first generation iPod touch

Version

1.3

Free or Paid

Free

Apple Watch Support

Not Known

Device(s) App Was Tested On

iPhone

iOS Version

7

Accessibility Comments

The newest version of this app works very well with Voiceover. Everything is now editable, you can pick amps, cabinets and pedals with no problem. You can adjust the signal chain, adjust pedal and amp controls, change amp channels, etc. When editing amps or pedals, the gear store, which allows you to buy further gear, is always displayed, however if you touch along the right side of the screen you can see the controls which can be adjusted. The recording screen has a couple buttons which are labeled as blank, but they do have labels in the middle of the screen. I'd imagine the developers will fix this next release. The two buttons are re-amp and live re-amp. The help page is totally accessible, and it's a good thing to read over before creating setups.

VoiceOver Performance

VoiceOver reads all page elements.

Button Labeling

Most buttons are clearly labeled.

Usability

The app is fully accessible with VoiceOver and is easy to navigate and use.

Other Comments

This app sounds awesome. You do need some sort of interface to get your guitar into the iOS device, such as Peavey's AmpKit Link, iRig's interface, etc. But if you have those it sounds really good.

Recommendations

6 people have recommended this app

Most recently recommended by Brettsta21 9 years 2 months ago

Options

Comments

By Scottsdale on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 20:06

Wow, didn't see this one coming at all! I remember contacting the the developers days after the initial release. Never heard back, so thought it was a no-go. Is it accessible because they've switched to using Interface Builder so we get lucky, or were you actually in touch with them I wonder? Either way, I'll be picking up the Plus version and emailing in some gratitude.

By Brandon Hicks on Wednesday, March 21, 2012 - 20:06

In reply to by Scottsdale

I mentioned them on Twitter, and they started a dialog with me. Went quiet for about 4 or 5 months, then all of a sudden they asked me to try 1.3 and the result speaks for itself.

By Brettsta21 on Monday, May 21, 2012 - 20:06

the only thing that I have found in this app that requires VoiceOver to be disabled, is when adjusting the metronome speed slider. VoiceOver doesn't even see it and you cannot successfully use the passthrough gesture on this slider while VO is enabled. Once VoiceOver is toggled off, the slider is about 1 inch directly above the home button, about the same position that the G and H keys would be found if you had the on-screen keyboard enabled. Once you have found where this slider is, its quite easy to find and use. This app is absolutely AWESOME and the sounds you can get out of this app are amaizing.

By Danny on Sunday, April 21, 2013 - 20:06

Each new version of AmpKit they make accessibility better. I've been in touch with the developers and there very! helpful, put a lot of time and effort into making the app accessible and go above and beyond for VO users. I own the Mac app version which is also amazing and have spent to much money buying in app stuff on iOS and don't regret any of it. I have an Apogee jam and it works perfect out of the box. Now that AudioBus is out it's the time to take iOS jamming & recording far more seriously. I get my sound from Ampkit, and pipe it through AudioBus to GarageBand and get seamless latency free results. I strongly suggest if you like the product or even if you know anyone who might, support these guys, spreading the word and being as posative and detailed in your communications with them as they will work on improving things. Developers like this deserve all the thanks and support we can give them so they keep up the fantastic work. Not all there products are VO friendly and they know this and currently can't find ways to make them so but try when ever possible to make Accessibility a priority in there apps. Show them it's worth it.
I am really sorry to digress, but are you saying that AmpKit on the Mac is accessible as well? I just sent a message to their support as I didn't want to shell out the money without knowing about the app's accessibility.

By Scottsdale on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 20:06

In reply to by Victor Tsaran

Yup, it's accessible on Mac too. I haven't used it extensively enough to say whether every single feature is perfect yet, but I've used it enough to confirm that you can definitely do enough to get your hands dirty and create some great sounds. Selecting amps, modifying controls, choosing cabs, mics, axis of mics, and adding fx all seem to work fine here. Still, your message to the devs is a good thing. They're well aware that VO users are enjoying the product on both platforms already, but extra numbers can never be a bad thing. I've got my fingers constantly crossed here that their accessibility work continues if they ever release AmpKit as a VST or AU plug.

By xenacat3 on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 20:06

In reply to by Scottsdale

Hi: I just wanted to thank everyone for their input on the accessibility of AmpKit. I just got my iRig and was about to buy Amplitube when I decided to do some last minute research on Applevis. I'm so glad I did. I'm downloading AmpKit now and am really excited to try it out. I'm not really a guitarist, but I'd like to start learning how the different effects can be used to create some of the signature sounds I love. Thanks again guys for keeping us all updated. Lisa

By xenacat3 on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 20:06

Hi: I can create a new preset and delete any effects which are currently stored there, but I can't figure out how to change the amp from the Peavey ValveKing to one of the other available amps. Has anyone managed to do this using VO? Thanks for any help you can offer. Lisa
To add an amp, select the setup (if it is a default one, you may want to hit cmd-d to duplicate it, then mess with the copy). Hit vo-j to jump to the table listing that setup's gear, and move to where in the table (which is laid out in the order of your effects chain) you want the new amp. Press cmd-g, find your amp (or pedal, or mic, or whatever you want) and hit enter to add it. Use cmd-delete (I believe) to remove any gear from your setup when in the table for that setup. Oh, cmd-g is a toggle, so you can hit it again to close the gear panel.

By xenacat3 on Tuesday, May 21, 2013 - 20:06

In reply to by mehgcap

Hi: I really appreciate your fast response. However, I failed to mention that I'm trying to work with the IOS version on my iPhone 4S. It really is quite accessible, except that I can't figure out how to change amps when editing a setup. Adding and deleting effects seems to be pretty straight-forward, which makes me think there must be a way to do the same with amps that I'm just not getting. Thanks again for trying to help. Lisa
Sorry, I didn't even notice this was an iOS entry. Just open a setup and hit the "add pedals" button near the bottom. I haven't bought any additional amps, so i don't see the option to change anything, but I imagine you could do that here if you had more amps installed. Let me know if that does not work. Also, the creators of Ampkit have amazing customer service - tweet or email them and I'm sure they can help much better than I.

By Steve on Wednesday, October 21, 2015 - 20:06

This app was purchased by Ultimate Guitar and appears to have been abandoned. ToneStack from Yonac Software looks promising. Accessibility is a bit better than Amplitube and Mobile POD, but the tones are excellent. The app developer also acknowledged my initial request to improve VoiceOver support. It might be worth other musicians asking the same to gain more attention.

By Chris Smart on Wednesday, October 21, 2015 - 20:06

Ooo thanks Steve. I'll definitely give that a look. :)
I've given up lobbying Positive Grid, the folks behind the truly awesome Bias, Bias FX, etc. I love their build-your-own amp approach, but it appears they're not interested in accessibility. OH well, moving on. :)

By Matthew Bullis on Sunday, February 21, 2016 - 20:06

So you only get one amp with the free version then? It's really unclear about what you get free versus the add-ons, and the description for the free version really applies to the plus version. Also, the prices are different for add-ons in the plus version of the app.

By Sergey on Thursday, October 21, 2021 - 20:06

Perhaps I am missing something obvious. I own an Audient ID4 MKII interface with my mike and guitar connected to it. I don't see any way to select a channel to which is plugged in. I do see hardware and usb interface options, but trying to activate them leads to nowhere.