In honour of the AmpKit Retina graphics update we mentioned earlier today and the limited time 50% off AmpKit+, we thought it would be fun to find a few tracks on SoundCloud that have been made with AmpKit. Hopefully it will give you an idea of some of the sounds you can re-create in Agile Partners' authentic sounding amp sim.

AmpKit comes with SoundCloud export built right in to the app so it is very quick and easy to share your riff, chorus or even whole song idea with the world. It is also possible to import a backing track or drum loop and play over it in AmpKit, or you can use one of the provided loops complete with bass and rhythm guitars.

There isn't any punch-in type of recording in AmpKit itself though, so you often end up with imperfect one-off takes or maybe the third, fourth, fifth (you get the idea) attempt being shared to SoundCloud.

With that in mind, we have selected three different samples that demonstrate just a few of the many different types of sound you can get from AmpKit.

'Ready Set Jam' by TheRedDash

"Messing around with some Drum back tracking" is how this track is described by Dash from New York, but it features the rich, well sustained Rock sound that you can conjure up in AmpKit without too much effort and reliably every time. We liked the tight, compressed rhythm style at the start too.

'Duckie Dux' by toño châvez

A tongue-in-cheek title for this track but toño demonstrates very nicely the auto-wah pedal sound here, which is actually quite difficult to get right in our experience.

'Strat Your Stuff' by shred_777

We have featured Timothy Khalil's (a.k.a. shred_777) work once before, but we liked the funky Blues sound of this track a lot and it provides us with a sample of the Stevie Ray type of tone that makes us so happy. Nice one Timothy!

Just three short samples of the sounds you can create with AmpKit on your iOS device.

Good enough for a Commerical album

Of course, if you want to take it to the ultimate level and incorporate AmpKit as your main guitar amplification for commercial productions, you can do that too, as perfectly demonstrated by One Like Son in our bonus track below. To find out more about their album made entirely on an iPhone 3GS be sure to read our post.

Over to you

We hope you enjoyed listening to our AmpKit made picks this week, but as always, we want to hear from you too whatever iOS app you use. If you have your own iOS created sounds (preferably with the iPad, but not essential) here's how you can get them to us:

• Join our iPad Creative SoundCloud group then click on the 'Share a Track' button on the group page
• If you're on a computer, click 'Send us your sounds' at top of the sidebar --->
• Leave us a link to your track on SoundCloud in the comments below

We're looking forward to hearing you soon.

Wow - this thing blows us away! A full-on floor based Pedalboard with an iPad dock and a Free DSP app made especially for it by DigiTech. This monster is designed for live gigging when connected to your iPad and guitar amp/PA.

Set for a 'June 2011' release, although it is not out yet (more likely July now), the DigiTech iPB-10's main problem for some will be the price, at a SRP of $699.95 (we've seen it on pre-sale here in the UK for £522).

Pricey

We know that these multi-effects units go for a lot of money, even without the iPad functionality and this looks like a very solid metal chassis unit including a chunky expression pedal. For a professional musician this might be affordable but we still feel that it is a lot of money. Combined with even the cheapest iPad you're looking at over $1000 of kit to place on the floor and then stamp all over with your hefty size 10's.

Well connected

We will let you read all the detail on the DigiTech website, suffice to say that the iPB-10 has plenty of connection options for live, studio and practice setups, check out the back panel below (select the image to see a large version). And that's not to mention the software involved on board and in the iPad app.

We want one - look at the Specs!

We are definitely drooling over the iPB-10 and the accompanying iPB-Nexus app and we would like nothing better than to get our hands (or boots) on one but we will just have to look at the pictures and dream.

Here's the specs:

• Drag and drop pedalboard design
• Arrange pedals in any order
• Touch screen control
• 87 pedals
• 54 amps
• 26 cabinets
• Drag and drop footswitch assignment
• Real-time view of pedal settings with direct access to pedal control
• Up to 10 pedals, 1 amp, and 1 cabinet can be added to a setup
• Unique setup assignable to each preset
• Infinite number of presets, 100 footswitch accessible
• Store, organize, and rate presets using My Tones library
• Compatible with iPad2 and iPad

More details on the iPB-10 and the iPB-Nexus app (including a rundown of the pedals, amps and cabs modelled) can be found on the DigiTech website.

Nothing to do with ice-cream or lollipops, Agile Partners and Guitar World are launching today a brand new app Lick of the Day for students of the Guitar.

We think this looks great, it uses video and animated tabs to show you how to play some of the awesome licks you will of heard and more generic riffs in various styles, presented in a GarageBand-like lesson interface for your iPad.

Lessons will be hosted by top guitarist such as Joe Satriani and Zakk Wylde, covering various genres including Rock, Metal, Blues and even Jazz.

The free download of the app gives you five licks to learn and to access the daily lessons you have to subscribe. The prices are reasonable, $4.99 for one month, $12.99 for three months and $19.99 for a six month subscription (the best value option).

If you are learning guitar or if you want to improve your repertoire or keep your skills fresh this is a great idea. You can even utilise your subscription on your iPhone or iPod Touch too all for the same price.

The video above shows you all you need to know, a list of the features from Agile Partners' website is below, and the free download of the app should be going live in your local app store today.

As always, let us know in the comments below what you think and especially if you decide to subscribe.

Lick of the Day Features

• High quality videos of Guitar World’s award-winning instructors and guitar celebrities, such as Zakk Wylde, Joe Satriani, Gus G., and Phil Collen, demonstrating licks in a wide range of styles: Rock, Metal, Blues, Bluegrass, Classical, Jazz and more
• Timeless celebrity videos from the Guitar World Vault
• Standard and tab music notation for each lick that scroll in sync with videos on iPad
• Practice mode with settings that control music notation tempo, looping, audio synthesis, a metronome and more -- a great way for guitar players of all skill levels to practice each lick
• Dynamic fretboard that shows finger positions synchronized with the music notation (lefties can invert the fretboard)
• Performance notes written by Guitar World's instructors
• “Star” your favorite licks to find them later easily, and sort licks by genre and difficulty
• Download licks to any iOS-based device that you own -- iPad, iPhone and iPod touch

This has got us excited (yes, again!). 4pockets.com, makers of Windows Mobile apps for Guitar and Audio amongst other software apps plus Aurora Sound Studio HD for iPad have just released a teaser trailer of their new app StompBox for the iPad.

This is a 'rack based' Guitar amp modelling and effects app and only the second Guitar FX app specifically made for the iPad that we are aware of (IK Multimedia's AmpliTube being the other).

The rack based approach makes for a less good looking app than AmpliTube, but there will be colour skins available for each module and some of the audio samples in the video sound really good.

Big features to get excited about though are media import with variable speed audio playback without changing the pitch and A/B type looping of audio sections (for learning those tricky guitar solos) plus a 4 Track Recorder module!

It remains to be seen what the other sounds, especially the distortion, are like in reality, but the feature set looks very impressive, the interface is designed for the iPad and there a number of unique features that differentiate StompBox from the other guitar effects apps.

Check out the video below and as soon as we know more we will post it here.:

(Our thanks to PalmSounds blog for the heads up on this one, be sure to check out Ashley's site for more portable audio goodness)