Hello everyone and welcome to Epic Tutorials unboxing, review and tutorial for IK Multimedia's
iRig BlueBoard — a Bluetooth MIDI pedal board which is available for $99 on Amazon.com
— there's a link in the description below if you want to check it out, so let's start
with the unboxing.
The iRig Blueboard comes in the familiar IK Multimedia packaging which as you know I rather
like.
It's easy to open without ripping and inside the box you get the Blueboard itself, four
triple A batteries, one quick start guide, a product catalogue and most importantly a
registration card with a unique serial number on the back that you will need in order to
use this with IK Multimedia apps.
The Blueboard itself is made from high quality plastic that feels pretty sturdy and features
four backlit soft-touch pads.
On the side of the Blueboard you have two quarter inch inputs to connect expression
pedals and on the bottom it has a battery compartment for the four triple A batteries
to power the device and an on off switch.
As the Blueboard uses Bluetooth 4.0 it uses very little juice and should last you ages.
In order to use the iRig Blueboard you will need to download the free Blueboard App from
the App Store which is available for both iOS and Mac and then make sure bluetooth is
turned on on your device.
Once you turn on the iRig Blueboard and you will see the bluetooth icon flashing.
Launch the Blueboard App and tap on the text that says "Tap here to connect your Blueboard".
Select it from the drop down list and it will sync with the device.
Now with the Blueboard synced if I tap on a pedal you can see it lights up on the app.
There are two program modes available in the Blueboard App.
The first is Program Change and this allows you to change presets or programs in compatible
apps.
If Prgram Change Mode is not currently selected you can access it by tapping Menu > Settings
> Prog Change.
For example if I launch Amplitube, I can use my pads to cycle through up to four different
amp presets at a time.
If this is the first time you are using your Blueboard with an IK Multimedia app you will
have to register it before it will work.
Simply tap MENU then ACCOUNT and enter the serial number that came with your device along
with your username and password.
I will tap TOOLS and then Play under Audio Demo so you can hear this take effect.
You will notice it changes almost instantly but there is a very slight delay between my
hitting a pad and the new preset loading.
What this is doing is cycling through the presets available under the Preset area and
I can swipe through multiple banks.
You can switch banks on the BlueBoard by either holding the A or B pad to cycle up and down
through them then tapping a pad to load a program from within that bank of four.
The iRig BlueBoard works in exactly the same way with another excellent guitar modelling
app called JamUp Pro.
I will just close Amplitube and launch Jamup with the Blueboard app running in in the background
and I can instantly start moving through my amp presets and banks in the same way as Amplitube.
Now if I go back to the Blueboard App, we can choose our second program mode called
Control Change Mode which is used to send specific MIDI control changes to compatible
apps by tapping Menu > Settings >
IK Multimedia's Amplitube app offers an excellent implementation of this.
Simply make sure your are in Control Change Mode then launch Amplitube.
Then tap and hold on a foot switch to enable MIDI Learn.
You will notice it turns Yellow and the assign control window opens.
Simply tap the pad you want to map it to and now
you can engage it from the Blueboard.
(DEMO)
Jamup offers similar functionality but for it to work, open the BlueBoard app and make
sure the MIDI channel is set between Channel 1-16 and not on ALL.
In fact we can even save a preset in the Blueboard app to easily access later.
I'm going to tap up to Bank 5 which is currently blank and tap the name to rename it JamUp.
Then I can tap the channel which is currently set to ALL and change that to 1.
If I knew exactly what MIDI control change numbers Jamup was looking out for I can tap
them and set them, but Jamup has a MIDI Learn feature so I will use that for now.
If I open Jamup Pro I just need to tap the COG to open Settings then scroll down and
make sure Enable MIDI Control is on then tap MIDI Control Assignments.
Now you can select an assigned control and tap on it or add your own, then you can either
choose a CC number which would correspond to what you had set in the Blueboard App or
you can tap MIDI Learn, and tap the pad just like we did before.
Now I can tap Done, find a toggle stomp effect and load it and turn it on and off with pad
A.
The possibilities with this are endless.
However Guitar Modelling Apps are not all that the Blueboard can be used with.
LoopyHD is my favourite looper for iOS and the BlueBoard is perfect for this.
I will close out of Jamup and open Loopy.
If I tap the arrow icon in the upper right I can tap Settings, then MIDI and you see
BlueBoard is available as a control input.
You can tap the Chevron to start add a binding, but for this to work properly let's set our
BlueBoard back to Program Change Mode by switching out of the app, then selecting MENU > SETTINGS
> and choosing Program Change.
This means we don't have to double tap to turn the pad on and off.
Now in Loopy HD simply tap Add Binding, select an action or use the default and press the
pad you want to trigger it on the Blue Board, then tap Save New Binding and repeat the process
and soon you will be ready for some really poor beatboxing.
(DEMO)
Look all in all this is a great device and for $99 it's excellent value for money however
the build quality isn't comparable with the metal bodied guitar pedals you are probably
used to but it gets the job done and feels rugged enough.
The Blueboard app works flawlessly and for iOS musicians it's an essential addition to
your kit, however being Bluetooth there is a very very short delay between hitting the
pad and the change taking effect.
Almost too short to notice but it's there so don't expect the immediacy of a real guitar
stomp box.
I really do love my Blueboard and will give it 4/5 and you can check epic tutorials.com
for more details on our iRig BlueBoard review.
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and we will catch you soon with more Epic Tutorials.