TC Helicon, a Music Group (Behringer…) company known for vocal related products has recently announced four new audio interfaces for mobile devices: GO VOCAL, Go, TWIN, Go ACOUSTIC, and GO GUITAR PRO. The more interesting is: the new products are very familiar to us from an Italian company called IK Multimedia and the name “GO” from Roland.
If you take a closer look at the products, there are very few small changes to them but otherwise, they are identical to. As already reported by the Chinese Music Tech website Midifan and CDM, the products look like the IK Models:
- TC-Helicon GO Vocal – IK Multimedia iRig PRE
- TC-Helicon GO Twin – IK Multimedia iRig DUO
- TC-Helicon GO Acoustic – IK Multimedia iRig Acoustic Stage
- TC-Helicon GO Guitar Pro – IK Multimedia iRig HD 2
IK Multimedia Clones?
In terms of features, both products have the same, even the connectors are in the same places. The labels, on the other hands, are a bit different, but they are quite similar to the original products. What you get more with a purchase of the original IK Multimedia product: free software like Amplitube which is not included in TC-Helicon’s new products.
The question remains: can we call such products clones? In my personal opinion yes, because they mimic IK Multimedia’s mobile devices with the same design and features but offered at a cheaper price. With the synths like the Model D or the MS-101, I find clones to aggressive because the Behringer team has always expanded them with new features or transformed in Eurorack format.
New Business Strategy?
Regarding the reputation of TC-Helicon, I agree with Peter Kirn of CDM. If the company now takes the same step as Behringer and copy other products from other companies and make them cheaper available, it can quickly damage the reputation of TC-Helicon. Behringer’s affair with the heavily inspired BOSS pedals is still a topic today and damaged the reputation of the company a lot.
It will also be interesting to see if IK Multimedia takes legal action against these new TC-Helicon products. We will see how this goes on.
The TC-Helicon GO series is already listed at many retailers and starts with 19€ for the GO Guitar.
What do you think about these new TC-Helicon products? Please let me know in the comments.
More information here: TC-Helicon
No! I don’t see anything contrived here. IK products are expensive but the quality and durability do not match. Typically, a product like Irig stream has been used by a lot of people and it has been a while since it broke the OTG lightning cable, the “preamp” is quite weak, which makes me very disappointed. TC Helicon or Behringer their products do this so that IK’s products are clearly different in size and internal circuitry, why are they said to be fake? Can you define what is called a knockoff? In my opinion, imitation means copying the shell logo, the outer box label is 99% similar, then it is called a fake. Understand ?