“And now for something new and fascinating”. There is nothing we like more than learning about new ideas that we haven’t discussed before. One of the more recent things to catch our eyes is the JamStack.
The JamStack is a small speaker that attaches to the bottom of your electric guitar, providing a portable solution for you to rock out with. It attaches to the strap button at the base of the guitar. There is a soft layer and spring-loaded system that helps protect the guitar from any scratches and it also provides an additional button if you would still like to use a strap as well.
It has a mount for you to insert your smartphone into and it makes use of it for controls and effects. With support for all three major OS devices (iOS, Android and Windows), the JamStack sounds like it will be quite versatile to anyone’s needs. You have a lot of your typical amp effects to play with, as well as backtracks that you can add into the mix of things. You can even tune the guitar with it and take lessons as you play.
There are two cables involved that connect to both the guitar and your phone. The sound from the guitar is then received and processed by the app on the phone and sent back to the amp.
The JamStack itself, is a 10-watt speaker, made to be lightweight (under 2lbs) to help with portability. They are promising a battery life of up to 8 hours, allowing for most situations, regardless of where you want to practice or jam out. It’s almost like having a Bluetooth speaker for your guitar instead of your phone, only it’s wired to the guitar.
It isn’t completely wireless since it still needs to plug into the guitar and phone. However, it does support Bluetooth in extension to this, allowing you to use it as a Bluetooth speaker as well for your favorite playback devices (phones, tablets, etc.). Of course it won’t Bluetooth to the guitar itself, so it’s technically only “somewhat wireless” when it comes to this, and completely wireless when it comes to alternative use situations.
Currently, you won’t be able to get your hands on one just yet as they are at the tail end of development. They will however begin their pre-order phase May 2nd via their website and Indiegogo for their second release round. Their first round was already completed via Kickstarter last winter (2016) and they have announced that those customers can expect to get theirs sometime in August of this year.
1 Comment
A central feature of the promotion of this product is how loud it is. It isn’t. If you have a guitar with double coil pickups, the volume is ok on the passthrough setting but there is volume loss and sound dropout when you use the amps.
Don’t even bother considering this if your guitar has single coil pickups. On passthrough setting, the sound sounds like it is coming out of a soup can. Its performance with amps is pathetic. The tests that led to these results were done in conjunction with guitar techs at a guitar store.
And for strike three, the company has horrible customer support. It can take 7-10 days to get a reply, or never. They refuse to acknowledge the single coil/double coil problem even though they must have known this to be true from their own testing.