Teenage Engineering's portable amp cranks out cool guitar & mic effects

Known for its distinctive product design and whimsical approach to making music gear, Sweden's Teenage Engineering (TE) is back at it with a multi-instrument amp that's got a fun side.

The EP-35 K.O.-Amp is, as its moniker implies, a 35-W combo amp with inputs for a guitar and a mic – and a bunch of preset effects for each of them. It'll also connect wirelessly to your phone to play backing tracks, and you can even load up more tracks and drum loops with a USB thumb drive.

The Amp also plays nice with a wireless foot pedal that features two large buttons: these can turn effects on and off, engage the amp's looper functionality, and control backing track playback.

This isn't a conventional guitar amp per se, but rather a tool to explore your creativity and experiment with different sounds. By that I mean, this isn't necessarily made for seasoned guitarists chasing a particular tone or looking for something powerful to plug their extensive pedalboards into. There are plenty of other options for that kind of thing, including this compact portable option from Blackstar we covered recently.

There's an interesting range of guitar effects that you can turn up to 11: Twang gives you a surf rock-sorta sound with delay, chorus, and tremolo; Blues adds a saturated retro overdrive; Indie features a spacey phaser, and Envelope engages an auto-wah, along with a slapback delay as you dial it to the max.

For the mic, meanwhile, you can activate a lo-fi radio sound, a lush ambient echo, and a vocoder sound with tone adjustments. My favorite, though, is the one that turns your voice into a full-on bass synth.

TE hasn't put out a video of the EP-35 in action yet, but you can hear these effects in B&H's video below (starts at 6:08):

As a rock guitarist who's owned a few amps and messed around a lot with effects pedals and processors, I'm not particularly excited by what I'm hearing. It's just not for someone like me who likes classic amp sounds, heavy distortion, and total control over each aspect of their tones. You can't separately tweak the individual parameters in each effect here, or shape the sound with an equalizer. I also haven't seen any demonstrations of the Amp at the end of an effects chain, so it's hard to say how it'll hold up when you plug in old-school pedals or a modern multi-effects box.

That's not to say the Amp is a bad product. It's designed in the true TE spirit of enabling musicians to have fun and try new things – so it serves a different purpose entirely. I can see more experimental artists like Ariathome going to town with this. With its compact size, 12-hour playback time on a full charge, and the ability to run six inputs simultaneously, it could be a good choice for buskers and impromptu outdoor performances.

There are even more neat tricks up the EP-35's sleeve. It can connect to your computer via USB and act as a sound card to record your playing; the Bluetooth connectivity allows it to simply serve as a wireless speaker; there's even a port to connect an FM radio antenna and tune in to local stations.

You can also buy and plug in a thumb drive loaded with two sets of files on Side A and Side B, like a cassette. The first includes backing tracks to jam along to, while the other has drum loops for sampling. Of course, it'll support your own files as well, and you can shuffle through tracks using the pedal.

The EP-35 can be paired wirelessly with a second amp for stereo sound, or daisy chain multiple amps together and expand your sound for a larger audience.

While it's not for everybody, it could well be a blast for the right kind of inventive musician. I also like how it can pair up with a range of TE accessories almost natively, from the multi-function pedal (US$99) to the EP-133 K.O. II sampler that can sit on top of the amp with pegs to hold it in place.

Find the EP-35 on TE's site, as well as on B&H's store at $399.

Source: Teenage Engineering