IK Multimedia – close up

IK Multimedia is an international music technology company founded in Modena, Italy in 1996, IK Multimedia now operates worldwide with offices in Italy, the US and the UK. In 1996 two Italian engineers got together to solve a problem, could you get the sound of classic analog gear from a computer? Or put another way “could you emulate electronic circuits using DSP algorithms and feed an audio signal through the computer and get the same sound?” The answer was yes, the piece of gear they emulated was a vintage Abbey Road console, and a company was born.

The company’s best known for products made for music production, creation, live performance and has also expanded to various music segments. The most notable in recent years are their apps and accessories for Apple’s iOS platform using Apple’s iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

IK released its first product GrooveMaker, a loop-remixing software package, in 1998. 1999 saw the release of T-RackS, an analog-modelled desktop mastering solution. SampleTank, a multi-timbral, sample-based virtual instrument workstation plug-in, was released in 2001.

AmpliTube, a guitar amp and fx plug-in modelling the entire rig for all platforms, is released in 2002. Amplitube was the first mainstream program to demonstrate what could be achieved with virtual amps and effects, Amplitube was then eclipsed by Native Instrument’s powerful Guitar Rig, which incorporated a pedal so that guitarists could take their virtual show on the road.

A new version of SampleTank was released, including a resampling engine enabling the user to independently modify the time/pitch/formant parameters of the sound samples. In 2004, IK Multimedia released Amplitube Live and Amplitube LE.

In 2010 IK Multimedia brought out the the first guitar interface for iPhone/iPod/iPad and have subsequently produced a host of mobile applications that provide affordable effective mobile interfacing solutions.