I don't know about you, but I spent the better part of my teens playing along with Metallica and Slayer records. I'd turn my amp up, turn the stereo up so it sounded like I was a part of the band. Man, that was some good times. I still do it occassionally, but not as often.

DVForge has released JamPod, a device that allows you to play your guitar along with your favorite songs thru your iPod. Back in the day when I did it, I got pretty loud. My mom would always yell downstairs whenever I'd be playing along with S.O.D. She really hated them. But if I would have had the JamPod, this would have never been an issue.

The JamPod plugs into the the top of dock connector iPods, connecting to the iPod's Audio and Remote ports. The JamPod has a 1/8” headphone jack for your headphones and an input jack used for connecting your guitar to the JamPod (the JamPod includes a 2’ cable that has a 1/4” plug on one end and an 1/8” plug on the other). The JamPod also has a volume wheel that adjusts the output of both the iPod and your guitar.

Everything is powered by your iPod, so you can go to the beach and rock out to the new Slayer (not Metallica, they're washed up now) thru your iPod headphones. The JamPod seems like a great little gadget to me.

My concern is, what does the guitar signal sound like? Is it just a clean guitar? To me, there's no point playing along if you can't at least get a kick butt distortion sound. Otherwise, playing along to Slayer clean would sound just plain stupid. Effects plugins perhaps?

Anyway, it looks like the JamPod is a cool little adapter for all of us iPod geeks. The JamPod goes for around $30. I'll be putting the JamPod on my santa list this year.

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