Just to address some of the comments below.... 1) we don't get paid by brands to make these videos. We make a living by selling stuff through the Andertons store & all the matters to us is that you get something that you'll love. 2) We use the presets whenever we do these demos because we don't have a week to prepare for each demo. If the presets aren't representative of how the unit sounds, then I'm not really sure what the point of presets are. 3) we plug these types of units direct into our interface so you can hear the cab emulation from the unit - we hear it through our monitors & you hear it through yours (ie, you aren't hearing our monitors). 4) we obviously each have personal preferences about gear & all the presenters are encouraged to voice their opinions - we aren't guns for hire! So take this demo how you will - I thought Tonex was a fine piece of kit for the money, but I'm not sure we'll see it being used by Joe Bonamassa any time soon - I might be wrong & will happily eat my words if thats what happens!! And if you get one & you get the best sounds you've ever had then thats awesome & I hope it inspires you to play more as, after all, thats the whole point of getting new gear!! Cheers, Lee

I've been playing my Kemper for years, mostly using it for amp/cab with my pedalboard in front of it (because I love my pedalboard and use it with my real amps too - Carr Mercury and Brunetti Wizard). I sold a Fractal in favor of the Kemper. No regrets. I've always loved the Kemper. In that context, I bought the tonex not expecting too much. I was wrong. Selling the Kemper. The Tonex is awesome.

I appreciate the hard work you guys do to educate us about all this gear. Had a lot of fun watching you guys mix music with laughter. Been playing for over 45 years and heard and seen it all. But it seems everything I find awesome you guys find issues with. Have a cup of ginger tea and chill! The ToneX is incredible regardless of price. The sounds are first class. But you have to turn the knobs to dial it in just like you would a new amp. Turn the damn knobs and make the sound better. There, I said it! Have a bloody nice day! Going to take a walk now on the Darkside and visit my local music store and turn all the amp knobs to 12 o'clock! See, now you got me doing it!

Would have loved to see this video with Pete over someone who is clearly not interested in this modelling tech. The Captain fumbling through this is just a wet blanket.

Yeah, I really like the idea of this, and I'm pretty sure that it's going on my would like to buy list.

As somebody who owned a real AFD100 for many years, I think the profile here sounded really great. Best tone in the video for sure.

As someone living in an apartment, I really like this pedal, because I just want decent guitar sound and guitar recording experience, getting rid of mics, amps or DAW lag, at a decent price. I was going after one of the UAFX pedals before this came out.

I'm surprised they're not more impressed with this unit. I think it's incredible.

I was a bit negative at first when I saw this Andertons video as it was the first one I had seen but now after I've seen a lot of other reviews and comparisons of all the contenders, the Tonex is a clear winner by far. Well done boys.... All of these amp models are done on the lowest of the three modelling resolutions due to the long wait unless you have a newer high end nvidia adapter (like I do) so I can use the highest setting and not worry about a 15 minute wait vs a 5 hour wait. Even on the lowest resolution, this unit destroys both the Quad Cortex and Kemper away. I'm a dyed in the wool tube guy but that's the point. I want to capture my custom replica builds and be able to use them at a volume that doesn't damage hearing. This is perfect for that task. I have some amps that only rich rock stars or collectors have available and to be able to have them all in one easy to switch pedal is a dream come true. I have an exact replica of a tube rectified 1967 Black Flag with brand new NOS Drake transformers. I have 20 other replica amps like this and profiling these amps as well as the Tonex does is my dream. I ordered one........We will see how good it does.

It’s widely recognised that the captures are every bit as good as QC or Kemper also. This isn’t a “cheap” product in that sense.

The guy with a jacket seemed so bored. I think he's more excited to film another QC ad :D

16:10 Guys, the FX chain loops the signals between pre and power amp. The TONEX can be fed directly into a power amp. Put your effects in front of it and that's it. You don't have to find a fly in the ointment now, just because the pricing of the other profilers/modelers becomes obsolete by this device. ;-)

Normally I really love your videos but with all due respect and a lot of love, this one was a bit of an exception. I think you guys need to listen through bigger, better studio monitors, maybe add a subwoofer. If they're small and that far away it's gonna be tough to make them sound engaging to you. Many people, including famous artists, record in the studio while listening to their sound, miked in another room, through the control room monitors. If they are good monitors at a decent volume it can still be a great playing experience. A couple of points that I felt should have been made: It does in fact act as a USB recording interface, and it is extremely low noise and high dynamic range with a huge frequency response. It plays back captures made on your computer or stored within the tonex software, so you don't need your laptop on stage. It takes pedals generally a lot better than fractals, kempers or neural cortexes, and reacts more like an amp would to those. Many times in a live situation or in recording, the delays and reverbs and even modulations are added after the microphone stage, so putting those sort of effects after this pedal would sound essentially identical to that, and would a better analog to the way many a professional setting would work. If you want full range out of those devices you don't run them through your guitar cabinets. We have fractals and kempers here in our studio, and I believe that this keeps up with them from a capture and IR standpoint, irrespective of the price point. When you factor that in too, it becomes quite amazing. You might want to revisit this pedal after a rethink. I think you might have done your sales on this product a disservice.

You have to use these types of products to their strengths. None of these profiling/ capturing units will give you “amp in the room” tone. You’ll need an actual cabinet if you want real air moving. It can, however, give you “amp mic’d up in the next room” tone. The room, mics, and any boards/mixers that we’re used will all color the tone. So they’re great for consistency if your playing live going to front of house or recording. You don’t have to depend on any sound guys or use their house sm57’s to mic up.

It's been said many times, but still - I'm in awe when I see and hear Digital John short intro. So funny :)

Just think of it as the Amp, get all of the other things from Pedals, HX Stomp or whatever full modeler or pedals you have. With HX Stomp or Helix, you have a ton of power adding different amps, using effects pre and post amp, then can use snapshots, and full midi triggering of the Amps in Tonex seamlessly, without a gap. An FX loop on this pedal would only help with the headphone out. Using it with a modeler like HX, you can pre or post any FX in any order. This and a stomp or HX effects can shrink a pedal board, and allow uses to capture their own amps and not have to take them to a gig. Convenient, but like most things, it's not for everyone. Playing through a tube amp is very cool, and as amazingly close as a lot of units have come, there is always just a little bit of something with a Tube amp and Cab that's awesome. FWIW ,I've been exclusivly in the Modeling/Digital domain since 2008, so my ear adapted long ago to monitor, pa "FRFR" systems. Still love tube amps though, I don't want to deal with them most of the time though.

Kemper needed this form factor about 10 years ago 😂

Captain, aka Lovely Lee, I think you should have run it through a FRFR Cabinet, like the Line 6 Powercab or the Headrush for getting more of that air movement feel. Though I could be wrong. Would be nice though to see an in depth follow up video with Digital John on this, using a FRFR and how he would use it with other units like the HX Stomp and Neutral DSP. Also would like to know what kind of equipment you would put with this Tonex pedal on a pedaltrain Nano Max or Nano plus for gigging. With experienced gigger Pete also putting in his two cents. So you would have a very versatile board and if you would for example would use the midi feature of the Tonex and in which way. Anyway, very nice and informative video. Keep up the good work!

I had amplitube on my ipads from like 2010 - fun to mess with. This looks fun too

Sounds pretty OK to me. Keep in mind the levels from the studio monitors in the room are peaking at a very conservative 80db

Tonex is not a competitor for Kemper or Quadcore either in price or functionality. It is a competitor for such devices as Iridium, UA dream 65, Ruby, Walrus AC1, etc. About the same price and much more advanced functionality. Add to this the profiling technology instead of modeling and then it becomes clearer why this product really deserves attention. Very impressive amp in a box

I really like tuning in to your gear testing but amp in the room .. anti digital bias is getting old. I consistently play on silent stages with in ear monitoring and I think this is true for many people. I need insights and advice for the best gear and approaches in this space. I hope we can hear more of that in the future. With that said thanks for all you do to serve the community.

Its the best part of a Kemper.. only better.. in a $400 pedal. Why is that so hard to understand?

Luckily there are plenty of stunning demos on KZfaq and very impressive a/b comparisons from those who've dived in properly. You have a huge following and are quite capable of tainting product sales through laziness. "That sounds like a hundred thousand amp to me *raise eyebrows*" well, that is exactly what it sounded like to the mic in front of it at time of capture. The hardware is spot on, blame the capture. TBH IK should curate the Tonex capture list so the first few are totally killer to circumvent lazy reviews (theyve missed a trick there) because too many digital "reviews" live or die by random patch selection (with an already closed mind). I think an honest description of this video would be "unboxing".

14:20 A little odd to ask an opinion for something that can be empirically tested pretty easily. Others have already done it. You make the profile, and then you record the same DI through the mic'd amp as well as the profile. Flip the phase on one, and null test them. Result: TONEX is the most accurate profiler available right now. Significantly better than Kemper, and even a little bit better than the Quad Cortex. It's *quite* accurate.

As a harmonica player, this Tonex player seems very enticing, if ... it can be patched with the elusive combination of unobtainably rare & expensive amps that actually sound & work well for amplified harmonica. Whether or not it'll be achievable at any stage it's hard to say, but I love the concept of having an all-in-one tone box, then plug into a clean amp, FR/FR speaker or PA. I think the price point of the Tonex is pretty reasonable considering what other products cost. In the meantime, I'll sit on the fence and think about it.

I'm sure this is a great product - I use their X-Space pedal - and for those who spend their lives on chasing or modeling amps it should work fine. It's all too much like falling down a rabbit hole for me and I just want to play guitar and make music. The reverb pedal is twiddly enough already. Have fun modelers!

Nice to see another affordable amp pedal for players who do silent stage gigs ...I can see this being a handy bit of kit for IEM players....presets seem a little overblown tho but they often are

I have not messed with any of the digital stuff, amp profiles, irs, etc. I use a tube amp and a shitload of effects. But this is really cool. It makes me want to get one and mess with stuff cuz its much more affordable than a kemper or a fractal or whatever the other ones are. It's cool, great vid guys.

I really like that capture technology is available cheaper, similar to what the Hx stomp / head rush is to the axe effects

This video will go down in history as the time Andertons misunderstood and dismissed the most significant product of the decade.

It’s a cool solution if you have a bunch of amps you like and you are a pedal user as well. It’s even great stacking with a HX stomp or a quad cortex. For 400 quid - no brainer.

Think of this unit as The pre amp section of the amp, put the delay and chorus between the tonex pedal and whatever you may be using as a power amp.

I hoping somebody does a “full IK” video. Capture an amp with Tonex. Build a rig around it in Amplitube. Then push things to the X-Gear and Tonex pedals for use without a computer. I’m not even sure how possible that it, but it’d be good to see how close we are.

Tonex is doing the most accurate amp captures on the planet right now, and this little piece of gear is amazing. Can't believe how dismissive they were of it. The fact that IK brought this to market for 399 is incredible. Kemper rested on their laurels, and Neural _still_ hasn't delivered on their QC promises. This fills a great niche for people that want the most accurate amp tones, but nothing else.

Would like to see them setup and shootout ToneX into a power amp against the heads of a Fender, Marshall, etc. through the same mic'd up cab.

I like Digital John but bear in mind that he does some work for Neural DSP, so he can't really say its better than the QC. When John says no one when making captures get it bang on the money he touches his nose which indicates that he's not being 100% up front about the subject. I imagine Neural and Kemper et al are on the back foot with this surprisingly reasonably priced unit.

Try Joe's Favorite Patch - Bonamassa's Actual Dumble ODS, it's the best capture of the ODS gain I've heard or played on any platform. And Kemper has quite a few good variations to choose from.

As a big fan of the channel for many many years, even from the time you still recorded in black and white, i have to say, you totally missed the game changer this pedal is. This device is not simply cheaper then Quad Cortex and Kemper and therefore you can hear the quality drop. This is the normal argument sellers make when they do a review, more expensive is better. 80% of Kemper and Quad cortex owners dont capture/profile themselves. They just use it as a profile/capture player. Those users have been ignored by Kemper and Neural DSP, since there was no competition, so why would they just create a player. That is what IK Multimedia did. Just a capture player. If you want to capture yourself with ToneX, you dont have to buy ADDITIONAL hardware, just use your computer. Once this concept is understood and explained properly, Kemper will go bankrupt, since the ToneX pedal is better as a ordinary player. You put your normal effects pedals before your ToneX pedal, as you would do on your normal pedal board with an amp, and your time based pedals after it. Get an FRFR speaker and you are done. For 1/3 of the price. The standard version comes with 150K Joe Bonemassa Dumble OD amp captures and many, many more. More captures will follow in the ToneX cloud.... Another anticipated use is with a multieffects pedal, e.g. Digital Johns favo pedal, the Valeton GP200. Put the ToneX pedal in the FX send and return loop, disable amp and cabinet on the GP200, and you have the best rig in the world. Or wait 1 year, and IK Multimedia will bring a Amplitube player pedal on the market as well. My expectations from Andertons videos on this pedal were most probably too high, since I think you totally missed the gigantic step in guitar/amp technology this pedal is. They didnt want to compete with Kemper and Neural DSP on the capturing part, they assumed everybody owns a computer already, and that is the smartest business decision they have made. On stage you dont need your computer, just the player. So f****** smart of IK Multimedia, an undercut as they would call it in F1 driving.... 😉

Love the colour of that guitar!

It's a 400 quid unit that has a lot of tones that are great for playing at home and will fool most people down the pub when your doing sseetchild of mine....Lee as a business man probably isn't happy with these as I wouldn't be either....as a player I'm very excited

As the Cap gets older, he's sounding more and more like an old eccentric British scientist in some mockumentary - I love it!

I've decided to get the Tonex Pedal because I've tried the free version of the tonex plugin and I loved it ! Try it before you go ahead and spent 400 Bucks in a product that maybe you don't like.

It would have been nice to hear a strat played as well.

So far, the IK profiles sound about the best. People will get better at it though. I think its a cool product. Its not on par with the QC, or Kemper, its better at profiling.

If this was approached as a dedicated mic less studio tool with conceivably every amp in existence on your desktop indistinguishable from a mic”d amp for 400 bucks how can you not be in awe of this unit . The fact that you can also gig on silent stages anywhere in the world with a suitcase sized rig is astonishing !! Let’s give the tired old “ doesn’t flap my jeans “ comparison a rest and focus what it does do.

There's a catch to the Pedal. It's not a profiler, it's a profile loader/player.

Cant wait to profile all 78 amps and 101 effects of my Spider V amp in this thing! 🔥🔥🔥

We need a blind test with Lee, real amp vs Tonex capture, on both studio monitors and a 4x12!

Its like a Helix Amp. Just the amps. Which as an HX effects user, I'd like to have just for those direct gigs.

Neural DSP almost got me but the QC doesn’t work with their plugins. Now that IK got hardware for their amp plugins…that’s pretty neat

One of the best tone X videos to date. As so funny seeing the Captain trying to like the world of digital amps. 😃

Who needs a tube amps anymore in our era , apart from snobs I mean

Doesn't need an effects loop

Just wanted to say thank you for this review. I like the skepticism. I'm still on the simple valve amp side of the fence and every now and then I'm tempted to buy something like this, but each time I look the message I get is "nearly there". Still it would be great to hear reviews that cover critique of "clean" tones compared to valve; distortion and effects make it difficult to hear the nuances.

I just don’t understand why with the Quad Cortex they did a 30 minutes video comparing the real amp vs the capture and with the Tonex pedal is like “let’s hear a few presets and that’s it”.

Can you do a Marshall plexi sound shootout but only using digital amps? E.g Code 50, Valeton, Tonex, Mooer, Valeton, Vox vt.

do a video with it in the effects loop!

So essentially, it is isolating the capture and "profile" concept at a lower price point than was previously available. This is great if you are a player who enjoys using a pedal board and wants to bundle up your amp (and possibly cab) tone into a pedal format for live gigs. I don't see much use for it in the studio or for anyone already using full modelling capabilities of existing units like Helix, Kemper etc.

I think this is more intended as a Strymon Iridium killer than as a full-blown multieffect. In that regard, an FX loop would be a good thing to have - frankly, I'd want my signal chain to be as amp-like as possible, and that generally involves putting modulation, reverbs, delays etc between the pre-amp and the IR in a (partially) digital rig. I also think a lot of these products have pre-sets that aren't necessarily representative of what the unit can *really* do - which is a shame for demo videos and especially first-impressions.

For $399 this is the best option if you just wanted a hyper accurate amp profiler without any extra fluff. It's also the cheapest of any amp profiler.

I am thinking of using the Tonex pedal as my amp/cab replacement on my Valeton GP 200 loop, would like to know if the difference is enough to do so.

I love this thing. For 1/6 th the price of a Kemper, I can capture my favorite amps and drive pedals and take them with me. Add a GT1000 core and a EXP pedal and you have a super small portable rig with all your favorite tube amps and pedals, for far less than a Kemper, QC, Fractal, etc

The general consensus is that the captures are actually better than kemper and QC. Some accuracy tests have been done and ToneX nails it the closest. I will admit some of the preset captures aren’t that good though.

Besides using it with pedals it could be a great addition in the loop of a modeler/multieffect for better or more varied amp tones, maybe you already own an old modeler/multieffect but while the effects are still fine the amp tones are not.

Can you do an AB-testing video with the Kemper and the bias fx pedal?

I’ve spent over 2k on a custom built 1974x and pedals to get one good tone. Not flexible at all. This lets me configure whatever I want without having to spend thousands for each amp. I can load them up and go play and the audience wouldn’t know the difference. Hell in a dark room you wouldn’t know the difference. Selling all my shit tomorrow.

I've messed about a fair bit with digital, in fact my entire set up now is on guitar rig on pc....and that was as clear as mud in parts I've got to say lol

Should they have transfered the captures to the pedal and then put it on a pedal board to output to a powered cab or pa system to get a more convincing sound?

Love the idea here. I notice all knobs except reverb stayed in the same place while changing through all presets. Is there no need to adjust bass, mids, treble per preset ? Maybe even a little to adjust for room or venue ? All the videos on this pedal and I just haven’t seen anybody explain what happens to knob settings when you change presets If you have the bass on 10 for one preset Will the bass be on 10 for next preset ? Or will it load with the bass at wherever it was in the software ? If so, so you have to adjust every preset when you load it ? Difficult if your using multiple presets for one song

Librarian girl... that´s why I watch your videos. 👌

I would like to hear Tonex pedal with a power amp like the Seymour Duncan Powerstage and a real cab.

“For 400 quid, its ok” ha! Somebody doesn’t want to admit defeat, and I think Digital John might be on the Neural payroll

Did you purposefully have the gain far of centre in all your tests....as this deviates from the intended capture?

These things are great, now all I have to do is get a computer science degree and an Audio Engineers degree and I ll be able to use it.

Is it THAT big of a deal if your time-based effects are after the amp and cab as they would be in a studio recording?

Do you have to buy The ToneX Software additionally or is ist included when buying the Pedal?

comparing this to one of UA/ walrus/ strymon PEDALS Is probably a better comparison than to any of the floor modellers and what you might get at a price point.

Is it the same size as the hx stomp? (thinking on building a new mini pedalboard 🤔)

We need a shootout!!! Kemper vs Quad Cortex vs ToneX. I think the ToneX will stand its ground...

Sounds good. If you set it up better you for sure get great results...Itll see well for sure. Wait and see.

You really should have captured some of your amps for a video on tonex

Can you load additional software into a ToneX. For example, can one loan the IK Multimedia AmpliTube Joe Satriani Collection Software Suite into this?

Every time I see something related to the digital vs valve thing, I can't help but think about the time I was shopping for a 7 string and played through a PRS Tremonti amp at a store. That was a few years ago, and my first time playing through a valve amp. At the time I just thought the guitar (Jackson Misha Pro) was great, but only recently I started wondering if it was really just the amp that impressed me and I didn't even realize.

If you are an "AmpliTube" user at home and you want to take your tone(s) to the stage ... this is the - easy - way to go ... and it is pedalboard friendly

SAtudio monitors are one thing.... powered speakers are another. I bought a 250 watt powered PA speaker for a practice space vocal amp once. It can REALLY get a thump going when i run my daw into it from the interface. Ive actually used it live once, with my scarlet and a cheap HP labtop because of output transoformer failure in my old blue voodoo head (literally at rehersal morning of the gig). No PA either at the "venue", so my blues jr and kitana weren't an option. I had more compliments afterward on my sound then i EVER had with the blue voodoo. It's actually the only show ive ever played where more then one person complimented my tone directly after the show) No matter how much i prefer the feel of using the head in a live mix setting, the compliments on my sound were not lost on deaf ears, thats for sure. (I was using a marshle silver jubilee amp sim, tube screamer vst, and stl tones nadir with an orange 2x12 impulse, got my pushed clean and gritty sounds rolling back the guitar volume) Im getting a tonex for sure, could profile my live rig itself and use that as a backup instead of some sketchy DAW rig The tonex has me abandoning all of those ideas. And that must be a set of non potted PAFs in that les paul. The microphonics were painful with headphones

Think of this more like the next gen of the Iridium or the UA amplifier pedals.

XLR out and simple effects loop and they could’ve charged double. Every time I picture how I’d use this, I just end up realising I only need the plug in, as I wouldn’t use it live. At $399 I want one in spite of that. But if it had those features, I’d have paid for one already.

Not sure what to make of this review. Usually love these videos but it seems rhe Captain has already made up his mind. The real strength of this pedal is to capture amps. Going through the capture presets in the box is mever gonna show the best of it. The Quad Cortex is the same as is the kemper. A real review capturing an amp would be better. I own and Axe 3 and had and sold a QC. The captures on tbis are as good or better than the kemper or qc. I guess the Captain wont want to sell these over the price of a kemper or qc.....thats just business i guess. The effects loop question has been answered also.....Iridium and QC don't have them. Just feels like a "don"t buy this we want to sell amps,qc and kempers" no malice intended. Maybe you can do a capture of a real amp or better a still a classic blindfold test between the tone x , qc and kemper. Now that would be a fun video.

I picked up on Lee’s body language early in the video and concluded this was going to be a painful video. Gave up watching after 10 minutes and headed to the comments section. I’m not entirely sure what the point of this video was. More effort went into the Miku pedal demo. A lost opportunity.

Can I conect this directly to a avtice monitor? thanks.

Presumably, the box takes over a lot of the processing your computer would normally do too? I think this thing is a godsend for people who already use Amplitube or similar. I've had too many bad times with modelling to use it myself but younger brains should embrace it!

Can one take any amplitube modelled amp and transfer it to the pedal?

What finish is that Les Paul? I want to say it’s the lemon burst but it looks so orange in this video.

What model Epiphon is the guitar? Incredible sound!

Interesting that the impression of the pedal is "it's cool for £400". I've been checking other vids where they A/B vs the real amp they captured and they sound identical.

It’s like a Kemper version of the iridium…use it like you would us an Iridium but instead of models, it uses profiles. It’s even priced as a competitor to the iridium and the walrus, etc

ToneX on the go for $399?! And Digital John for the cherry on top! Fuck me these are great days!

Should do a blind test VS the QC, Helix and Kemper

The capt needs to see the pedal as an amps control panel, with the software being the way to swap out marshals for fenders and other amplifiers.