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Alesis brings a pair of new musician-friendly iPad docks to NAMM
If there's been one must have accessory at NAMM this year it's been the iPad. That's right, no mixer, instrument or microphone is stealing the show, it's Apple's 9.7-inch slab of touchability that everyone is after. Alesis is just one of many companies creating compelling musical offerings around the iOS tablet with its latest products, the AmpDock and DM Dock. The DM Dock turns your iPad into the thumping, bumping and crashing heart of an electronic drum system. You can tap out rhythms and build drum sets with the touchscreen, but it's when you start plugging triggers into the 13 1/4-inch inputs that it really comes to life. The AmpDock, as you may have guessed, turns that A5 processor's attention towards your axe. There's a standard 1/4-inch jack as well as a combo XLR / 1/4-inch plug for connecting a second guitar or a mic. The AmpDock also has a separate pedalboard that allows you to control some program parameters while keeping the tablet safe from stray stomps. Check out the gallery below, as well as the video after the break.
Sanyo Eneloop Pedal Juice battery pack preview
It's Christmas Day, which probably means that at least one toy that you received (or gave) won't be fully functional until Monday. Why? Batteries. It's an age-old problem, that "batteries not included" thing, and it's one of the reasons we've fell so in love with Sanyo's Eneloop line. Without question, the Eneloop rechargeable AA batteries are amongst the best and most reliable that money can buy, so whenever another Eneloop product pops out, it obviously catches our eye. Sanyo's branching out pretty severely with its latest device, and being that at least 3.5 members of the Engadget staff have strummed a six-string once or twice, we had to take a closer look at the Pedal Juice when given the chance. For those that missed last month's introduction, this pedal-sized block of energy is designed to provide 9V power to six or seven effects pedals, miniature amplifiers or electric drum pads (amongst other musical doodads). So, does this thing live up to the Eneloop reputation? Find out after the break. %Gallery-111994%
Boss turns DS-1 Distortion pedal into USB mouse, changes the game forever
Any touring guitar player worth his / her salt likely owns a Boss TU-2 Chromatic Tuner pedal, and while he / she certainly balked at the MSRP at checkout, they probably couldn't live without it now. And this, friends, is yet another item that you surely cannot live without... but sadly, you'll have to. As the story goes, Boss was offering up this DS-1 Distortion USB mouse as a limited run item on its UK website, but at just £29.99 ($43), they unsurprisingly sold out in record time. Now, there's nary a trace of the device on the outfit's webstore, but at least you've got MusicRadar's hands-on images in the source link to soothe the hurt. What's that? It only makes things worse? Dim the lights, grab the eye-black and cue the Brand New, please. [Thanks, Geoff]
TC Electronic PolyTune tunes all your strings at once
We haven't seen much reason to trade up from our ancient Boss tuner in all the years we've been playing guitar, but the new TC Electronic PolyTune might finally persuade us. Billed as the "world's first polyphonic tuner," the PolyTune supposedly lets you tune all your strings at once -- you simply strum away and the display tells you which strings need a tweak. There's also a standard needle mode, two chromatic modes, a real-time stream mode that shows you pitch changes as they happen, and built-in memory so you can lock in your favorite settings. No word on price or availability, but we should find out more at NAMM this week. Check out a video of the prototype in action after the break. Update: Tipster Lane sends in a screenshot from our webOS Engadget app showing the PolyTune with a $150 MSRP and a $99 street price. Check it after the break. Thanks, Lane!
Korg Nanokey controller repurposed into MIDI foot pedal
Korg's Nanokey MIDI controller is pretty awesome in its own right, but using it with your feet gets a little difficult under "normal" conditions. We can't say for certain why Marc Fischer decided to convert his perfectly good control board into a MIDI foot pedal, but frankly, that's beside the point. The point is he did it, and he did it with just a bit of ingenuity, some wooden blocks for risers and a bit of Plexiglas to cover up the missing keys. Hit the read link if you're interested in doing something similar, and feel free to ask the man himself where that gorgeous shag carpet came from. Kinky! [Via MAKE]
OpenStomp Coyote-1 open-source guitar pedal now shipping
It's only been a couple months since we first noticed that the OpenStomp Coyote-1 guitar pedal project had started development, but it looks like it's ready to go -- the web store is up and taking orders for US and Canadian customers. Your $350 gets you an 80MHz eight-core Propeller processor, a 16x2 line LCD screen, two footswitches, four knobs, an additional input / output jack, video out, an RJ11 expansion port, and a microUSB interface, all in a purple steel chassis. Not bad for the money, especially since the available source and fully-documented hardware means this thing should be taken in all sorts of interesting directions -- anyone going to throw down for this bad boy?
