Jamhub TourBus: Rocking Out With the Volume Down

Price: $699

Give even the head-bangiest metal band the 85-knobbed Jamhub TourBus and it can quiet down. The semicircular $700 device acts as a studio?complete with effects and personal monitor controls?and one that's silent to anyone who's not plugged in. Seven people, each with his or her own settings, can connect to the device and listen to the group through headphones, each adjusting his or her own settings to duplicate those of on-stage playing or to avoid volume-related arguments.

Each person gets an instrument in, mic in, and headphones jack, along with controls for effects levels, input and output volumes, stage pan (to mimic physical location on a stage), and, most importantly, levels controls for everyone else in the band. So, if you're shredding away on lead guitar at turned-to-11 volume, that's fine?everyone else can turn down your levels to something they can live with. This setup would work nearly perfectly if it weren't for the fact that turning down one player's levels turns down both the instrument and vocal inputs for that person?you can't turn down someone's unsavory singing without turning down their possibly pleasant instrument playing too. Still, it's a tiny price to pay for the convenience of rehearsing as loudly as you want, anywhere.

Learning the Jamhub interface isn't as daunting as all the knobs and inputs would suggest. The inner ring of each player's left knob controls the instrument input level, while the outer ring of that knob controls the mic. On the right are the levels controls for effects (which affect vocals only) on the outside and headphones volume on the inside. The virtual stage is adjusted with the pan knob in the center. The rest of each player's controls are for limiting or boosting everyone else's volumes in that player's headphones.

Jamhub intends players to use the back row of knobs for recording. It allows them to adjust the levels of each input for well-calibrated output to a computer, but they can also be used for an eighth musician. Or you can use the rear inputs to play along with a recording; each player treats the recording as if it's just another musician, adjusting the volume of the song to the level he or she wants to hear.

As with all the inputs, the rear ones accept stereo plugs only; mono plugs will send sound to only one side of the headphones. The Jamhub comes with two mono-to-stereo adapters, which should be enough as long as you have only two guitarists (most guitars are mono). The only other accessories you absolutely need are 1/8-to-1/4 headphone adapters, a bunch of cables, and, if you want to record straight to a computer, a USB cable. The device comes with an SD card for recording and two remote units, so that drummers and other players who tend to sit out of reach of the Jamhub can make adjustments without leaving their instruments.

The Pop Mech office is heavy on guitarists, so we tried the Jamhub with a couple of guitars, including the Fender Modern Player Telecaster bass and classic Telecaster guitar above. It takes just a few minutes to set up?something you should do before you start playing to keep interruptions to a minimum. Then you can jam away, as we did to the envy of passersby gawking through the glass walls of our conference room-turned-recording studio.

Source: http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/gadgets/tech-news/jamhub-tourbus-rocking-out-with-the-volume-down-15608282?src=rss

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