The thing I appreciate most about Pete Thorn’s videos is that he shows you how many ways you can use any given product he’s demonstrating. I have one of these Audient Sono interfaces and they are great for guitarists. The one thing though that this unit lacks is a switch to bypass the tube preamp itself on the guitar input. If I’m using the Sono at times as an interface into amp plugins, I would prefer the uncoloured sound of the guitar itself into the plugins. You can turn off the internal Wall Of Sound but the input is always going through the tube preamp. This is true even if you feed the DAW and amp plugins via the “No Cab” channel from the Sono. One could always plug the guitar in a direct box and then into one of the XLR channels bypassing the tube preamp and internal Wall of Sound but it would be way more practical with a switch to bypass the tube preamp on guitar input. Regardless, great unit as Mr Thorn demonstrated. Quite the talent.

I have been waiting for sono's review like this! Thanks so much!

I've seen a couple of reviews/demos of this, and all have sounded, um, iffy, but you have made it sound superb. Maybe it shows yet again that "it's not the gear, it's the guy (or girl) using it". Thanks for another great demo Pete!

Thanks for doing this video. Seeing a pro's take on this makes me feel a lot more comfortable with pulling the trigger on getting one of these for my recording rig. Thanks Pete.

Great to see and hear some acoustic stuff...thanks!

It's just incredible to me how much music you have in you!! Sounds awesome!!

Thanks Pete! Totally getting one of these.

I noticed that the new bass (and the bass playing) are sounding awesome!

Cheers Pete thorn. great tones.

Another amazing product... Seems these last few months has made the business of home recording with decent tone just gets easier and easier with some really innovative new products Suhr PT 15 to name one... Great demo.. thank you Mr Thorn !!

The demo is pure fire!!! 🔥🔥🔥

Such a great intro-song!!! I would buy it😜

Love your channel Pete! thank you so much for doing all these demos and sharing your valuable insights and pointers. I was wondering if you could do a video on how to program the H9 max ( I just got one) via midi cables and my channel switcher so that I can get 3rd part harmonies on one channel and 5th s on another etc. I got the Midi ports underneath my Friedman pedal board like you and would like to see some tutorial videos on how you wire your pedalboard to record to your interface, but I think I'm going to be using the H9 mostly for harmonizing and ocatave effects, since I have good reverbs and delyas and good OD pedals already.

Love the Supro! The mids.

Great idea for a product.

PETE YOUR TURNING INTO ONE OF MY FAVORITE MUSICIAN [GUITAR]. FOR WHAT ITS WORTH. THANX AGAIN. I LOVE GEAR

Sweet demo! 👍🎸🤘

Good video. Very well done.

I tried one of these out in Singapore recently. It's pretty good. I don't really need it, but I do really want one!

like the acoustic and electric mix

Good video , thanks

I've been using a SONO for almost a year, it's a sleeper hit!! Did you know you can have it set up wet/dry, as well as run it into a guitar amp, DAW, and a stereo direct out, at the SAME time?? Yes!!

That's pretty damn cool!

As always, thanks for the video I wish you would have done some A/B with and without the Pre, to hear how it colors the sound Keep Jamming (love your tunes)

Sounds great! I'd like to see an out of studio review/demo for the Zoom GCE-3. It's tiny and seems like it would be a cool on the go, carry with you laptop recording accessory. Take it to the park and shred.

Awesome Guitar player!!!

Thanks Pete, I've seen these before but is this an updated version? Two notes have updated their gear over the last year and I have been looking into getting their power amp and cab sim that also includes this DAW software. Damnit so much choice out there. Keep Rockin Dude!

Pete's signature guitars are so clean and simple looking, yet still so damn sexy

I like that!!!

Suena estupendo 🛎👍

That clean tone almost sounded ”nostalgic” (in a good way) GREAT story. #coachella 🤣

Very good 👏👏😊

Didn’t catch the “Lifeson Chord” on the D28 originally... 👍👍

That's a great video! I saw you have reviewed also the Two Notes Cab M and the Audient Sono. I would like to play with not amps; guitar > pedalboard > Cab M or Sono > Powered Monitors or Headphones. Which of these two units do you think would provide a more realistic base tone and use the pedalboard to color my tone? I am ware that the Cab M will require an interface in between it and the monitors. I am just looking for the best clean platform in order to use my pedals to color the tone. Thanks again for your videos!

Man you are awesome =))

I haven't DAWed in about 8 or 10 years... just getting back into it with an upgrade to Acid Pro 10. Would something like this work in Acid? Thanks.

I’m looking for an interface for use with my iPad live for when I can’t/don’t want to lug an amp. Would this work well or do you think I’d be better off with something else that’s smaller like an Apogee Jam/One? This would be a limited space (possibly biking to a gig/rehearsal) situation. This looks great but may be too big for what I am thinking

I like it, but I think I am going to go with an Audient iD14 and a Torpedo Captor so i can run amps to IRs. Something about the Sono's preamp reminds me of the JHS Colour Box for some reason. Kind of like a good mic pre that can be driven and tweaked to add character and warmth to a tone.

Superb, Pete. Just came across the SONO in my Sweetwater Catalog, and searched for a Review on KZfaq. I always enjoy and prefer your reviews. I would consider using this on my pedalboard as a Tone Shaper PRE to Effects-Amo, even. It be INTERESTING, if YOU did that?

Love your Channel Pete my son has a Two Notes Studio and a UA Audio Apollo Twin MKII Quad with Thunderbolt. I've been contemplating picking up an Apollo 8xp Quad for more inputs and to assist in the heavy lifting in recording. So would you recommend saving up for the 8xp or I've looked at the Two Notes C.A.B. or the Audient Sono as well for a more portable way to use the Two Notes stuff without dragging around the Two Notes Studio. He has a high end PC but we've had some issues with sound artifacts while recording and unfortunately UA hasn't been much help (tried all recommendations). I am going to upgrade the 1TB HDD that is used as the storage device to a Samsung SSD. Maybe that will cure the problem. I'm sorry for rambling you are a pleasure to listen to both on a guitar and vocally . have you thought about Audiobooks or Wildlife Documentary narration? :) Again, Thanks for just being Pete Thorn!

So how close can you get to a black face fender amp tone using this? Would an amp in a box type pedal get you there? Would love to hear some samples of trying to reproduce specific amp tones.

PETE!...I have to know! Do you compose all of the music you play for your demos?? I watch your videos only to hear you play your music...AWESOME! (I use an AXE-FX)

So how would you handle your external (rack) modulation without a loop?

Ah, "Jail Break" brings me back to my old band days.

This is an awesome demo! Thanks!! Q: How do you think a Victory Kraken or any of the other preamps, would sound in front of it?

So are you using a gate somewhere in the chain or is the unit really running that clean with no noise?

Would this pair well as an interface coming out of a Captor X so that I can use my head, or would another interface make sense considering all the other features that the Captor already has?

How does it work with other amp sims software, like I wanna use mainstage app and my THU sim stuff. I have an Apollo solo, and I don’t really like it, to complicated.

What's the difference between Le clean by Two notes? thanks

Can you use virtual pedals with it? I mean sending the guitar signal to my DAW, then adding virtual pedal plugins and then send it to the Two notes CAB SIM and then back to record in my DAW.

Pete I meant to ask you, in terms of 60 cycle hum or noise from single coils or pickups in general what do you usually do to get rid of that?

Hi, thanks for nice review. Did you use any kind of noise gate during recording this video? Some reviews say that the headphone output is somehow noisy... did you also experience this while your work with Sono?

How did you record the drums??

Hello, great review video! I am thinking of picking a Sonos up! May I ask, 1. (bit subjective) would this be better than an Eleven Rack, if you or anyone has used one? 2. I use SSL2 audio interface. Would I be able to just connect the Sonos into it and record from there into my DAW? Thank you!

Hey Pete, what's that bass you're playing, I really like it. Is it a WAL?

Damn Pete - cranking out a cool, catchy tune for a product demo - like it's nothing - again & again. Great demo, thanks!

Is that a Boss ES8 I saw on your pedalboard?

The beginning made me think of Back to the Future.

So what is a good preamp to put on my board n use all the time thru fx loop in ?

Hey Pete, Do you think the extra stuff is worth the 150 bucks difference between the Sono and the iD14?

Is this still worth it in 2021?

I've been trying to do something like this with a Vox Silk Drive and analog pedals into my Gen 2 Scarlett 18i8, and then into amp sims? My goal was to add "front of amp" analog pedals into sims, but utilizing the Nu-tube Vox pedal as an overall preamp/headroom buffer if that makes sense? This interface has been around since your demo and can be had for less than $300 currently, but IDK if it's overall what I'm chasing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The closest to an actual amp in a pedal preamp I've ever experienced for direct recording was a Victory V4 "The Jack" all tube pre I briefly owned, although the voicing wasn't my flavor, and I ended up selling it. What I'm basically after is a direct to interface pre that can be "slapped" with fuzz/boost/wah/distortion and overdrive like an actual amp convincingly enough within a budget. Seeing that I love the advancements of Amp sim tech, but not so much the digital dirt pedals offered with them. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ The Vox Valve Energy series pedals are damn close tho IMO, and the Silk Drive set to clean/slight crunch works well when stacked in front of most amp sims IMO. Well, I mean... It seems to add more than it potentially takes away in terms of the gain structure and "feel" to my hands/ears. If that makes sense? I am really currently interested in IK Multimedia's new Axe I/O interfaces... as they not only offer a J-fet input, but also their "Z-tone" input impedance pot, which I think may possibly be my underlying issue when attempting to use front end analog stomps with sims and plugins. Love your channel Pete! Any thoughts on what I described would be graciously appreciated! Stay Golden man. Cheers!

I bought this audio card 4-5 months ago. I am extremely disappointed from the unit and audient support. I bought this audio card in order to replace my Scarlett 2i2 1rst gen. After I bought it I re-recorded all the rhythmic guitars for 6 metal songs. After that I was trying to figure out the tone of the guitars using vst plugins. I struggled a lot because I noticed that the signal was getting dirty easily with crackles etc. I did an experiment to see if the valve preamp is noisy and the problem comes from there. Well, increasing the gain of the signal at parts where I was recording but I was not playing the guitar I expected to hear noise floor but I found sth else. Just by recording from the valve circuit and even having the output volume of the unit at 0db, I found out that in the track there was recorded whatever was playing in the background e.g. the metronome. I did the same experiment with a backing track. E.g. I have the rhythmic guitars playing and I play the solo and recording in in another track. A part of the rhythmic guitars was recorded in the solo track. It doesn’t matter if I had the volume of the backing track at 0db. This means that all my new recorded rhythmic guitars have had extra noise from the recorded metronome. Loading vst overdrives, distortion and digital amps the noise was exaggerated and I got more noise. I did the same experiment with the Line in inputs and there was not the same problem. This means that recording from the Valve input, which is why I bought the audio card, is not an option for those who want an as silent as possible DI signal. From the audient support through the email they told me that the unit must be defective and that I had to send it to my seller. My seller told me that the unit was ok and refused to do the above experiment even after I asked audient support to tell him about my problem. Audient support told the seller that everything is ok and that probably I am the one who doesn’t know how to optimize my DAW. After that I found the audient community on facebook I made a video of the experiment and asked a question there. Daniel Mills (technical support manager of Audient) answered this: “A very small amount of cross talk is expected in the valve gain due to the gain staging that is used and the fact it is an unbalanced circuit, however, this will typically be buried well in the noise floor of the input and practically inaudible under normal usage. However, if you are normalising this signal so the loudest peak is a 0dBFS then you will of cause hear this alongside the massively amplified noise floor because of the normalision.” What I did in the video was that: I recorded from the valve input to one track with the guitar plugged in but its volume at 0, while having another track and the metronome playing at the backround. I recorded silence. Then I normalized the signal and apart from noise floor you could hear the metronome and the backing track playing. This is for audient normal. But for me and my needs isn’t. This just makes my DI dirtier when I use different vst amps and overdrives. Another problem unrelated to the previous one is that when I plug an instrument to Line In 2 the leveling meters of the audio unit doesn’t respond. To this question Daniel Mills didn’t even bother to respond. Overall this audio unit sucks big time. I have the chance I would replace it with something else. Don’t buy this unit if you really need clean silent DI tracks.

The line out of the Egnater Tourmaster sounds better to me.

It is hard/imposttible to evaluate the product(s) when the basic sound comes from a distortion pedal.

Better of buying a scarlett or cheaper decent interface and a two notes captor..

To me it sounds worse than most amp sims while simultaneously being more cumbersome. It might just be my preference though.