JBL BandBox is an all-in one guitar practice tool with a rare brilliant use of AI

AI may be in the process of ruining music but JBL has found a pretty compelling use for it — for actual musicians — in the BandBox Solo and Trio.

At first glance the BandBox Solo and Trio look like pretty ordinary wireless speakers, just with a heavy duty style. But they are intended for musicians, as practice amps.

The BandBox Solo is primarily for guitarists, where the Trio has multiple inputs. But the USP here is a form of AI that lets you separately tune out part of a song, like the drums, vocals or guitar line. This will make it much easier to jam along to a song, without needing to hunt down a proper backing track.

It’s called Stem AI, and can do its magic on any tunes you stream to the box over Bluetooth. No need for internet access either.

Let’s start with a bit more on the BandBox Solo. It has a 6.35mm input, and when you plug in you tell the Solo whether you’re using a microphone or guitar.

This is a digital guitar amp. It has amp models, and even effects, so you don’t need anything bar the BandBox Solo and your instrument. A neat LED display up top shows what mode you’re currently in, and there’s an integrated battery that lasts up to six hours.

There’s more too. The BandBox Solo has a drum machine, a tuner and a looper. And while it’s pretty petite and isn’t going to give you Marshall stack equivalent sound, you can feed its output to a larger speaker using the 3.5mm socket, or plug it into a phone or laptop over USB-C. This turns it into an audio interface.

Oh and there’s even an integrated mic, making it a one-box singer-songwriter rig. So while the BandBox Solo’s £199.99 asking price may initially seem a lot for what appears to be a Bluetooth speaker, it’s actually way more than that.

Then there’s the BandBox Trio. This one, you guessed it, has three inputs.

There’s a mixer, with a screen to show each’s current settings. And you can apply different effects, or amp models, to each too. Bass, electric guitar and mic all at once? No problem.

It will provide much larger sound too. The BandBox Trio has 135W of amp power for its 6.5-inch woofer and dual 1-inch tweeters. And not only is battery life longer, rated at up to 10 hours, you can pack a spare as it’s designed to be replaced in seconds.

Once again, though, you can feed it through to a bigger system if you need to.

“This is the first speaker to feature an on-device Stem AI algorithm capable of removing vocals or instruments, without the need for cloud processing or an internet connection. With this breakthrough, it’s easier than ever to practice, improve and enjoy playing music either on your own or with friends,” says Carsten Olesen, President of Consumer Audio at JBL parent company Harman.

The BandBox Trio costs £549.99, and both it and the BandBox Solo will be available from February.

• FiiO’s new retro Bluetooth headphones look straight out of the '80s

Skip the search — follow Shortlist on Google News to get our best lists, news, features and reviews at the top of your feeds!