JBL Bandbox Solo & Trio: You NEED to Try THESE!

Do you ever get that feeling, when you see a new product, that it’s so obvious an idea that you can't believe it hasn’t existed before?

Well, I got that the other day when I checked out these new ‘amps’ from JBL. I put ‘amps’ in quotes there, because their main draw is actually something quite different…

So, what’s going on here? The new JBL Bandbox range is two portable practice amps with the amazing ability to play back your favourite songs via Bluetooth, but with elements such as vocals, drums or even lead guitar removed! Your favourite songs (any songs, really), divided into main sections (stems) and then given back to you to edit and mix as you like! The main kicker is how easy it is: I’m talking about a few button presses, and not a lot more!

If, like me, you always wanted to hear John Bonham’s magisterial drum performance from Led Zeppelin’s In My Time of Dying, but without the rest of the band - at all -  then now you know what you need to buy in order to achieve this!

Does it work? 

Oh yeah, it works!

How does it achieve this voodoo? In truth, I have no concrete idea other than ‘clever software’. There’s advanced technology onboard that can sense and identify different ‘stems’ of a track, and allow you the option of selecting which parts you do or don’t want to hear. I did spend rather too long in the office with it, since there’s an addictive desire to try ‘just one more tune, to see if it works!’

For example, gathered around the bigger JBL Bandbox Trio, we did the following…

Isolated Eddie Van Halen’s guitar on Runnin’ With the Devil (and then isolated Diamond Dave’s vocal ad-libs);

Listened to Jim Morrison’s ghostly isolated voice on The Doors’ People Are Strange;

Freaked out to Jimi Hendrix’s solo on Voodoo Child, with no other musicians playing;

Checked out James Brown’s vocals on The Payback, without any other instruments;

…and so on. Ideas keep suggesting themselves, because it’s so fun and interesting to listen to music that you know so well, in such a new context. However, there are practical reasons for this, too!

Imagine this as a practice tool? It’s one thing to be able to play along to a song in order to learn it, but it’s quite another to play along to that song WITHOUT the original guitar part! And that’s AFTER you’ve soloed the recorded guitar part first in order to learn the piece!

There are other applications too: 

• you could create alternative melodies or embelishments to songs you know and love; 
• you could remove vocals and guitars to create instant pro backing tracks;
• you can even just re-EQ and remix the track using the amp’s onboard mixer and effects in order to hear a familiar tune differently. When you apply your imagination, I’m sure there will be even more exciting things to try out.

It’s important to get across the notion that both JBL Bandbox models - the smaller Solo and larger Trio - perform their magical track-segmenting in real-time, using onboard software. It doesn’t send your files away to a server somewhere far away and then receive the altered file. There’s nothing like that: it’s all happening directly as you play. I don’t know of any other technology available in hardware at this price that can do what these JBL Bandboxes do!

It’s worth noting that you also still get a great sounding practice amp with either Bandbox! There’s a generous helping of amps and effects onboard here, with deep editing and more achieved through a specially created phone app, the JBL ONE app. Select an appropriate tone for the song you want to jam along to, or try out something totally different in its place!

Both amps are portable enough to take anywhere, and both can connect via USB to a computer for recording purposes.

There’s an onboard looper too, and a pitch shifter to make sure that slightly off-key recordings can still be played along to. There’s also a tuner and metronome built in, making either JBL Bandbox the ideal practice tool.

It’s powerful gear, but it’s applied in a very easy-to-use way.

Go for the JBL Bandbox Solo if you want to have the main features available in a super-portable package. Go for the larger Bandbox Trio model if you want more hands-on control outside of the app, and more options at your fingertips. Both will deliver the same level of stem-AI performance, the same great guitar tones and the same app flexibility. 

Go with the model that fits your lifestyle and playing habits better, and just get stuck in! There is so much fun to be had with these new JBL Bandboxes!