In this review I present you the XTone Pro from Xsonic. This is a super cool USB 2 input audio interface which doubles as a MIDI pedalboard! Great piece of gear which works great with your favorite amp emulation software on your computer or mobile device.
Disclaimer: this gear was sent to me by the brand
XTone Pro Xsonic review
Pros
- Manufacturing quality
- Audio quality
- USB cables and USB-C adapter included
- Many inputs and outputs
Cons
- Switch LED management
- Operating instructions not always easy to understand
Conclusions
At 226€ the XTone Pro is very well positioned, the price/performance ratio is quite good. We have a two-input audio interface that also does MIDI with a 6-switch pedalboard: not bad!
The audio interface sounds good, nothing to say about that.
Things get a bit more complicated when you try to program the switches to drive a simulation software via MIDI. The user manual is a bit confusing in this part. It is thus necessary to clearly distinguish the notion of mode and group.
Thus you have 3 groups which allow you to have several sets of Control Change to send via MIDI and 3 modes.
Once we have understood the difference, we can tackle the programming of the switches. This depends on the simulation software. In the video I use Axiom from Blue Cat Audio.
For Axiom it turns out that it's the red MIDI mode that should be used.
The choice of the controlled pedal or effect is easy as you can see in the video.
Another important point: you can feel that the pedal has been designed to change preset and not to drive pedals (which would make a thousand times more sense for a guitar-oriented product!). Indeed, only one of the 6 LEDs of the switches from A to F can be lit at a time, as if you were activating a preset and not a pedal.
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The Guitar Channel podcast about the Xtone Pro
The audio version of the video is available in the podcast on iTunes, Spotify and below:
Podcast: Play in new window | Download | Embed
Until the next gear review or interview, keep on playing the guitar!
Pierre Journel.
