Apogee Jam Guitar Adapter

Apogee has recently launched the Jam Guitar Adapter for iDevices that essentially allows you to plugin your favourite guitar to create quick masterpieces. Jam is a sleek semi-cylindrical, simple looking device that has a slot for guitar cable jack at one end and connects the iDevices via USB port at the other end . It also contains a single gain control wheel and a LED indicator that indicates the connectivity of the device or the input levels, using statuses with blue, green & red colours.

Jam comes with cables having separate wired connectors for iDevices and Apple computers. The cable seems too long to be handled comfortably which could have been easily avoided since guitar cables by default are longer and can cover most of the distances between them and the iDevices. We would have appreciated if the Jam would have come with an option of connecting to iDevices wirelessly therefore eliminating the hassle of cable connectivities, especially when it is becoming a norm these days.

Apogee recommends the adapter to be used with GarageBand as it doesn’t have it’s own proprietary software. Anyhow, Jam works fabulously with GarageBand as well as with Amplitube that iRig recommends. It also works pretty well with AmpKit especially due to simple plug n’ play options with least manual settings.

The closest competitor to Jam is iRig, AmpKit LiNK and Amplitube. Though these devices are cheaper then Jam, they do come with extra attachments and applications that results in shedding lot more money than the device cost. Bottom-line is that Jam is quite pricey at $100, whereas its counterparts varies from $20 to $40 without the add-ons. Jam also has an added functionality of connectivity to Mac computers that actually justifies the premium of $50. Another major difference is, Jam can actually convert the analog signal to digital by using the iPad dock port therefore producing much clearer tone and better unwanted noise reduction.

To wrap up it is easy to say that Jam actually does what it says and hopefully better than its competitors. It is handy, portable and above all satisfies all the necessary requirements needed from an adapter of this class.