Norse Guitar Feeds

In 2026, more and more touring guitarists are turning to digital amp modellers to get their tone, with increasingly professional-quality sound available in progressively smaller units offering unprecedented benefits in terms of how simple they are to transport and set up. 

Many musicians also love the fact they can programme and save a tone, and it’ll sound the same at every show and at every venue. But some gear purists and analogue lovers think this is a problem.

• READ MORE: Looking for a new multi-effects processor? Get this exclusive Line 6 HX Stomp XL from Sweetwater with $100 off – and a freebie included…

As Analog Man founder Mike Piera explains in a new interview on the Products of Music YouTube channel, there are some elements of analogue gear which digital amp modellers can’t replicate.

“I don’t personally try out the digital modelling things,” he says. “I have no interest in them. Because to me, it’s not any fun. Where are you gonna go next? Are you just gonna stream your sound over the internet and you don’t even have to play your guitar? I want to play my guitar. I want it to go through real pedals, real amps and real speakers.”

Piera explains how, in his opinion, rigs reliant mostly on digital elements and amp modellers often benefit from throwing a piece of analogue gear somewhere in the signal chain.

“I do get exposed to a lot of the digital modelling,” he goes on. “The King of Tone [classic overdrive pedal] sounds pretty good into a Kemper or some of those amps.

“For example, a client of mine, who is one of the best guitarists in the world, was playing at [New York City’s] Madison Square Garden… He had been using the King of Tone with his digital modelling amp…

“My friend who came with me, he was like, ‘Man, that guitar sounds amazing.’ And it did sound amazing, but it didn’t sound like a real guitar. It sounded fake. It was so great how you could hear everything, but I didn’t enjoy it. But there were a couple songs I thought sounded really good, and I checked with the guitar tech, and he did kick on the King of Tone for a couple of songs, and it helped. It sounded more real, I don’t know why. Maybe starting out with a sound with some analogue glitches and things and then going through all that digital stuff, it still preserves some of that tone.”

Piera admits that relying on digital modellers and PA systems as opposed to analogue guitar amplifiers is “certainly easier”, but asks if it’s “worth it”.

“[If you use in-ears and you’re going through the PA], you’re not going to get any sustain, because you get sustain by the sound going from your amplifier into your guitar,” he continues.

“A Strat – you’ll hear those strings vibrating. It gives you that Strat sound. I guess most of that comes from the strings, but your amplifier sound vibrating your guitar is quite important, and gives you that sustain. You’ll see guitarists moving around the stage to find that spot where they have the sustain.”

Many artists have made the switch, either fully or in part, to having their live setups powered by digital amp modellers in recent years.

Last year, Metallica guitar tech Chad Zaemisch reflected on the band’s decision to ditch real amps while playing live, and how it freed up stage space to ultimately put on a better show. “Not many people want to watch a band stand in front of their amp line,” he reasoned.

Other artists have sung the praises of digital amp modellers, with Jim Root revealing in 2024 that he was using a Neural DSP Quad Cortex with Slipknot. Elsewhere, Black Sabbath legend Tony Iommi revealed the same year he’d been tinkering about with a Kemper, admitting it was “quite hard to tell the difference” between it and traditional analogue amps.

However, Sheryl Crow guitarist Peter Stroud urged beginners to steer clear of amp modellers, arguing that using an analogue amplifier helps players better understand their instrument.

The post “You’re not going to get any sustain”: Analog Man legend Mike Piera thinks people who use digital amps and in-ear monitors are missing out on a huge part of guitar tone appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

How do you improve one of the coolest guitar stores? Well, at Chicago Music Exchange Andrew Yonke (CEO) & Daniel Escauriza (Vintage Inventory & Purchasing Manager) created an area where players can not only experience the best vintage guitars and holy grails available, but the Vault also celebrates player-grade, stone-cold tone stars at any price point. And the best part of this room is that it's open to even us gear mortals.

Yungblud has found himself with a much wider audience over the past year, and despite criticism from listeners and artists alike who have labelled him an industry plant, he argues it took him 10 years to get to this point.

Yungblud released his first studio album 21st Century Liability in 2018, but the past year has been life changing for the 28-year-old musician. He put out his fourth album IDOLS in June last year, collaborated with Aerosmith on an EP – and at the VMAs in what ended up being a contentious performance – and performed a poignant rendition of Changes at the Black Sabbath Back To The Beginning gig, which earned him an army of new fans.

• READ MORE: Yungblud got the Changes gig just 48 hours before Black Sabbath’s farewell show

Speaking to Rolling Stone for its Music Now podcast, he says, “I’ve been doing this for 10 years now. People have just found me now, and it takes 10 years to become an overnight success, doesn’t it?”

Yungblud is later asked if he wishes he was ever in a band, and despite his collaboration with Aerosmith, he replies, “No! Fuck no! I am not made to compromise. In the past, when I’ve listened to opinions and almost met someone in the middle, my art’s been shit. Watching Steven Tyler and Joe Perry together, the compromise is the fucking magic. But for me, it doesn’t work. It just makes me mad.

“People don’t realise I’m in control of everything. One of the biggest misconceptions about me is that I had everything handed to me by the industry. The industry has told me to fuck myself at every single turn,” he explains. “I find it really funny when people think that about me. If I’m an industry plant, I’ve planted the fucking plant myself.”

Asked about the advice he’s been given from others, he shares, “It’s funny, it’s all the same advice. Everyone’s like, ‘We were hated. People thought we were posing.’ Aerosmith went through it. After Ozzy left Sabbath, people were like, ‘He’s a pop star.’ He had to really stay true to his fucking self.”

Yungblud will begin touring in April this year. You can view the full list of scheduled shows via his official website.

The post “The industry has told me to f**k myself at every single turn”: Yungblud pushes back on the idea that he’s an “industry plant” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Imagine what it would feel like to be complimented by one of your biggest musical heroes – that dream became a reality for Cory Wong, who was once given shining praise by none other than Prince.

Wong has just released a new album, Lost In The Wonder. The modern funk artist has a rather large discography, but while he was still finding his feet and playing local gigs in Minneapolis, Wong found himself playing for Prince. The megastar had stopped by to watch Dr. Mambo’s Combo, the band of which Wong was a member at the time, whose experienced members had been mentoring him.

• READ MORE: Cory Wong explains his “steady motor” method to keep his picking hand in time

He tells MusicRadar​​, “There’s this club in downtown Minneapolis called Bunkers. It was the hang for musicians and to some extent still is. All kinds of people would come to hang and sit in, from Slash and John Mayer to Roy Hargrove and Jonny Lang.

“Prince would come in all the time to watch the band,” he shares. “Anytime he was hiring new musicians to play with him, he would bring them to Bunkers and make them listen to how the musicians would approach the music, as well as the repertoire itself…

“Prince sent one of his people to bring me over. He’d always sit in the back corner with his entourage and security around because he’s Prince – obviously everyone would want to go and say hi, which is to be expected,” he says.

“When I saw him, I said ‘Hey, how are you doing?’ And he replied ‘Oh, you sound so great, man… I love what you do because you’ve got such a sound, it’s such a thing, keep doing your thing because when I hear it, it’s such a sound!’”

Wong says that it was the biggest compliment one could possibly get as a guitarist: “It wasn’t just about playing a great solo, which would have been nice enough. But from artist to artist and guitar player to guitar player, Prince telling me I had an identifiable sound was by far the biggest compliment I’ve ever gotten.”

He adds: “I knew he meant it when he said it. Sometimes, when I’m feeling down about myself, I can go back and hear his voice in my head. It’s something I’ll never forget.”

Cory Wong’s new album Lost In The Wonder is out now.

The post “To me, that’s the biggest compliment you can get”: Cory Wong on the praise he received from Prince that he’ll “never forget” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Sweetwater is currently offering $100 off the Line 6 HX Stomp XL floorboard amp and effects processor, which comes in an exclusive colour and includes a freebie.

Floorboard amp and effects units are becoming increasingly popular, helping touring artists scale down their rigs and keep things uber-portable. This exclusive burgundy version is priced at $649.99, and you’ll also get a free Eminence IR Sampler Pack chucked in the deal for good measure.

[deals ids=”2PWB3ZZTePXVLm9YwLNeLP”]

This expanded version of the compact HX Stomp floor processor offers eight switches, enhanced MIDI capabilities, and an intuitive pedal editing mode. Like the original HX Stomp, the HX Stomp XL offers eight blocks – amps, cabs, and stomps – per preset, and adds a fourth snapshot per preset for further sonic tweaking.

• READ MORE: Superlunar SR-01 review – a designer dirt pedal that sounds a lot more rock’n’roll than it looks

There are over 300 onboard amp, cab, and stomp models from the Helix family, M-series, and legacy Line 6 products, and 128 presets in total. There’s also an FX loop for front- or back-loading stomp effects, support for third-party cab IRs, and many more features.

The HX Stomp XL can be used as a standalone rig or as a command center for your MIDI-enabled gear. Find out more in the video below:

Line 6’s hotly anticipated Helix Stadium XL Amp Modeller and FX Processor is also now available at Sweetwater, and you’ll get a free Eminence IR Sampler Pack included with your purchase. The Helix Stadium and its deluxe XL sibling, which were announced back in June last year, were tipped as a tough new rival to the beloved Neural DSP Quad Cortex. They bring entirely new modelling tech, cloning capabilities, and high-resolution touch screens.

Shop this deal and more at Sweetwater.

The post Looking for a new multi-effects processor? Get this exclusive Line 6 HX Stomp XL from Sweetwater with $100 off – and a freebie included… appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The world might be talking about Bad Bunny’s blockbuster halftime show at this year’s Super Bowl, but props must be given to Green Day for opening the event in style with a brief but powerful set comprising Good Riddance (Time of Your Life), Holiday, Boulevard of Broken Dreams and American Idiot.

The keen gear heads among the hundreds of millions of viewers round the world spotted something interesting about the band’s performance, though. And that’s that frontman Billie Joe Armstrong appeared to soft launch a new signature head and cab with Marshall. 

• READ MORE: “Make this stuff too hot to handle”: Chris Buck calls for help after gear stolen

To the side of Tré Cool’s drum riser, fans noticed a somewhat unfamiliar light blue Marshall stack, and quickly began speculating as to what exactly it was. Many – who possess fantastic eyesight, we must say – have noticed a little plaque in the top left corner of the amp head, which appears to read “Dookie” (a nod to the band’s landmark 1994 album).

While it hasn’t been officially confirmed yet, Marshall has made a series of social media posts strongly hinting at the imminent arrival of a Billie Joe Armstrong signature amp.

“Green Day showing the world how to keep it loud,” the brand writes in one post.

View this post on Instagram

Another shows Armstrong standing next to the monstrous amp stack – which, incidentally, is taller than him – alongside the caption, “Are you seeing what we’re seeing?”

View this post on Instagram

Billie Joe Armstrong’s Dookie sound is widely regarded as a masterclass in chunky pop-punk tone. That album was recorded largely using “Pete”, a modded 100-watt Marshall Plexi 1959SLP.

As we say, it certainly looks like an official announcement is close, but for now, we can enjoy speculating using the information we do have. We’ll keep you in the loop as we know more…

The post Did Billie Joe Armstrong just soft-launch a signature Marshall “Dookie Mod” head and cab at the Super Bowl? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

What do Justice Tripp, Wes Eisold, Kevin Baker, Dave Weinberg and Frank Carter have in common? Well, aside from being some of the most revered and influential singers in modern hardcore, they’ve all shared a stage with Jim Carroll, a guitarist who’s a punisher’s dream – essentially a heavily-tatted Zelig with a Les Paul Custom cinched at his waist. “I guess I’m fairly versatile,” he says, playing it down during a Zoom call from New York. “I like a lot of different shit.”

• READ MORE: The Molotovs want to be the solution to the problem of “insular and wallowing” guitar bands – this is how they’re going to do it

But, in fairness, that self-deprecation is perhaps only natural given how long he’s been bouncing between gigs. Hailing from Worcester, Massachusetts, Carroll came up in a febrile hardcore scene at the turn of the millennium, joining local band Hold Strong while still in his teens. “I went to one of their shows and they announced over the PA between songs that they needed another guitar player,” he recalls. “So, I went up to their merch table. I ended up playing with them when I was 17, 18 and they were in their late 20s. That was a big thing.”

From there, dominoes kept falling. Carroll moved to Boston when he was 19 and started touring, chipping away at a rep as a collaborator capable of switching gears with verve and adaptability. He played with Weinberg on some early Suicide File recordings and would later indulge his inner rocker in Carter’s post-Gallows project Pure Love, while pulling double duty as a touring member of American Nightmare and the Hope Conspiracy, switching between backing Eisold’s mile-a-minute-bark and Baker’s muscular roar. Of late, though, it’s been his job to tune in to Tripp’s way of thinking as a member of Angel Du$t.

Chilled Out

And that remains a unique proposition in hardcore thanks to the genre-defying sprawl the vocalist has embraced since Trapped Under Ice hung up their recording spurs almost a decade ago.

Angel Du$t was originally a side project for Tripp to have fun with his buddies Michael Quick and Nicholas Heitman, alongside Daniel Fang and Pat McCrory of Turnstile. Turnstile’s tilt for unprecedented stardom for a hardcore band has been based on their willingness to push its musical boundaries, and it’s something that’s baked into Angel Du$t in different but no less experimental ways.

On their new record Cold 2 The Touch, Carroll and guitarist Steve Marino, better known for his indie-rock solo work as Bugg, make themselves right at home, lending sinuous riffage to songs such as Pain is a Must, warped pop flourishes to Man on Fire and straight-up hardcore carnage on The Beat. So far, so Angel Du$t, you might think, but it’s been a while since the group has sounded this sure of itself, this hench.

“That’s Justice’s brain,” Carroll says. “He’s described it to me as ADHD music. He always wants something new to catch the listener’s ear. It’s been a cool way of approaching music, because I feel like it’s not my natural way of doing things. It’s been fun to jump into it and then try to write songs that will fit what he’s doing, and what he wants.

“I think Steve is the same way – we’re filtering our way of writing into the Angel Du$t vision. Approaching this record, I definitely tried to put my stamp on it. I like big guitars, I like layers, I like cool psychedelic elements that go with heavy music. I feel like I was pretty successful with that.”

Cold 2 The Touch was recorded with producer Brian McTernan, who worked on a lot of Angel Du$t’s early stuff, including their debut A.D., and also Nonstop Feeling, the first LP by another TUI offshoot: Turnstile. Given Carroll’s long history in hardcore and the fact McTernan has been around since the early 90s himself, as vocalist of the underrated Washington, DC youth crew band Battery and a Boston-headquartered collaborator with everyone from Cave In to Snapcase, it’s surprising to discover that they were strangers when recording began.

“I grew up seeing his name on seven inches,” he says. “When we went into the studio and I met him for the first time, we realised we have a ton of mutual friends. We clicked. We definitely have a lot of the same interests — he’s great at getting good guitar sounds and making things huge, but he’s a great songwriter as well, and makes great suggestions [when it comes to] harmonies and melody. He’s a guitar player, a singer. It was cool to work with him. We had to shove a lot into a short period of time, so it would get hectic at times. But it worked out.”

Pumping Iron

In truth, Carroll’s tenure with Angel Du$t has been hectic from the drop. It began in his local gym, where bassist Zechariah Ghosttribe is a trainer. “One morning he was talking about how their guitar player couldn’t go to Brazil, and it was kind of screwing up some shows they had,” Carroll recalls. “And I was like, ‘If you need a guitar player, I’ll go to Brazil for a weekend. That sounds all right.’ Justice and I had met over the years, but very briefly. We got on the phone later that night and talked about it. Two weeks later, we went and did a couple shows with No Warning. We had a good time, they had some stuff coming up, and he was just like, ‘If it’s something you want to do…’”

Serendipity aside, Carroll and Marino make a lot of sense as a pairing given Angel Du$t’s split personality. In the past, Marino has described playing with the band as “exercising a different muscle” to his own songs, and from the outside the same is true for Carroll. Where Marino is being drawn into heavier realms than he’s used to, Carroll is pushing different buttons to the one he needs to rely on when on stage with American Nightmare or Hope Con.

There is a moment a minute or so into Cold 2 The Touch standout Zero when all of this comes into focus: the guitars slow and Tripp barks out a line that feels like a mosh call, but instead of a breakdown we get Carroll peeling off a solo. It’s a bait and switch that serves as a perfect encapsulation of what Tripp calls “aggressive rock and roll”.

In the studio, Carroll’s search for punchy tones took him down an unexpected path. Using a JCM800 as a starting point, and with everything from a Pro Co RAT to a API Tranzformer and a JHS Bonsai in the mix pedals-wise, he settled on a Rickenbacker Dakota 650D for most of his contributions, swerving away from the 2000 Black Beauty that’s been his go-to for decades and the 2017 humbucker-rigged Fender Jaguar that’s served as his Angel Du$t live guitar. “Brian had a handful of guitars in the studio, and I played that on the first day,” he says. “It felt great, it had a good sound. You could run the gamut of nice, gain-y distortion, and cleaner, more percussive, classic Marshall sounds. I think I played that on every song.”

Solid State Logic

On the road, Carroll is still wearing a few different hats. For him, touring means switching between the more abrasive sounds required by American Nightmare and Hope Con, with Angel Du$t presenting a different, more tonally nuanced challenge. So, if he was playing a show tomorrow, what would he be taking with him? “I am playing a show tomorrow,” he replies. It’s with AN at Rough Trade in NYC, before a couple of dates with youth crew icons Gorilla Biscuits, so the Les Paul is up.

“These days, I have a Quilter Tone Block 202 and then I’ve been playing through a Line 6 HX Stomp XL,” Carroll adds. “If you told me five years ago that I would have a solid state head and a digital modeller, I would have called you crazy. But it’s made travel and jumping between bands so much easier. I fit all my stuff into a Pelican and a two-guitar Gator case.”

“I know that every night when I plug in, I have every band programmed,” he continues. “It’s just a flip of the switch. At festivals or shows where you’re not the headliner, I can get up there and set my stuff up in five minutes. I don’t have to think about pedals and dead cables, trying to find where things are going wrong. It has its downsides, because it’s like a computer on stage and, if you’re playing a smaller hardcore show, you have people running up and maybe trampling on stuff.”

And there are a lot of feet out there right now ready to do that trampling. Hardcore is as big as it’s ever been, and that’s down to people like Jim Carroll slogging it out during some lean years. Over the past two decades and change, every good show, every bad show, every connection, every recording session, has led to this niche, outsider music catching fire in a manner few could have expected it to.

He’s seen it all first hand, just like so many of his peers have. It feels fitting that Carter and Eisold both guest on Cold 2 The Touch, underlining the fact that hardcore, before merch, Grammys and social media beefs, is about pulling together with your friends. “It’s just a case of, ‘Hey, do something on this,’” Carroll says. “Make it cool.”

Angel Du$t’s Cold 2 The Touch is out February 13 through Run For Cover.

The post How Angel Du$t became the most unconventional band in hardcore appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Few players have been more instrumental in shaping the sound of modern metalcore than Converge’s Kurt Ballou. But to hear the producer and guitarist tell it, the 6-string was originally a consolation prize, not a calling. “My buddy Rob and I had this pact to start a band together, but we both wanted to play bass because we were both really into Rush and Iron Maiden at the time,” he says, calling in from his God City recording studio in Salem, Massachusetts. “And those bands have fantastic guitar playing, but they also have these bass heroes in Geddy Lee and Steve Harris, respectively. So, we decided that whoever could save up money for a bass first got to be the bass player, and the other one had to play guitar. I obviously lost.”

It’s a good thing the chips fell where they did. Since Converge formed in 1990, Ballou’s chugging-yet-sinuous brand of guitar brutalism has proved to be the perfect foil for vocalist Jacob Bannon’s throat-rending forays into emotional catharsis. It’s a sound that has evolved exponentially since the band’s early days, though never lacking ferocity. “The music that I was making was about trying to find a voice that was true to me and to what my influences were, but wasn’t parroting something that I was a fan of,” Ballou says of the band’s earlier work. “You start out by emulating, and you either emulate poorly and come up with something original, or you just find your own voice and get to something that’s original. I think that’s what we got to eventually, but it took a while.”

A decade into their career, Converge had already solidly established themselves in the extreme music world. But with release of the album Jane Doe in 2001—the band’s first to feature the almost supernaturally kinetic rhythm section of drummer Ben Koller and bassist Nate Newton—Converge demonstrated their ability to challenge, and sometimes even transcend, genre tropes with a deft balance of fury and finesse. Their new album, the bleakly titled Love Is Not Enough, is their first in nearly a decade (Bloodmoon: I, a 2021 collaboration with doom metallist Chelsea Wolfe and Stephen Brodsky of Cave In, notwithstanding). “Converge is basically our side hustle,” explains Ballou, who spends most of his time producing and mixing other artists. “So, it’s not like we’re beholden to an 18-month album cycle. But there was definitely a feeling that like, ‘Oh yeah, it's been too long.’”

Love Is Not Enough was well worth the wait. Songs like the album-opening title track are relentless blasts of aggression, replete with riffs and half-time breakdowns sure to incite circle pits the world over, while brooding, delay-and-reverb-drenched midtempo numbers like “Gilded Cage” continue to expand and refine Converge’s palette. Throughout the album, a compositional discipline reigns that never allows the listener’s attention to drift. “It’s a good idea in anything creative to leave people wanting more rather than giving them too much, and if you try to limit how many ideas are in one song, you can increase the impact that that song has by keeping it tight and memorable,” Ballou says. “It’s like when you listen to newer Metallica. I actually think there's a lot of cool shit on St. Anger, but they just beat every idea into the ground. Instead of doing something four times, they do it 32. And if they’re like, ‘Well, part A sounds good going into part B, but part A also sounds good going into part C, and part C sounds good going back to A, but part C also sounds good going to B, then they do it every possible way in the song. These are all cool ideas, but I think it’s better to just find the best ones, tighten up your arrangements, and give people the best version of the thing rather than every version of the thing.”

Converge’s economical arrangements are certainly integral to what gives their songs an instantly recognizable contour, but the bespoke alternate tunings that the band have explored since Jane Doe are perhaps what distinguishes them most. “There were only a few songs in the first 10 years of Converge that had any alternate tunings because I was always really against them,” Ballou says. “Every time I tried drop D, I felt like what I was coming up with was really generic and basic. It took a while before I cracked the code to making something that felt like me.” Ballou credits Neil Young’s soundtrack to the 1995 Jim Jarmusch film Dead Man with finally opening his ears to the possibilities of alternate tunings. “It was atmospheric, vibe-y stuff that really spoke to me,” he says. “There was also a guy named Alex Dunham, who was in the bands Hoover and then Regulator Watts and Abilene, who had a similar vibe but also played slide. And so, I started experimenting with slides. But then you realize, like, ‘Oh, I don’t want this major third here. Let me get that out of there.’ And so, you start changing the guitar’s tuning to get the chord shapes you want. Eventually, I just stopped using the slide but stayed with those open tunings.” Ballou also cites other heavy bands like Cave In, Melvins, and Neurosis with providing him with inspiration, as well as indie rock legends (and alternate tuning icons) Sonic Youth.

“You start out by emulating, and you either emulate poorly and come up with something original, or you just find your own voice and get to something that’s original.”

“I feel like if you really boil it down, Converge is sort of like Sonic Youth meets Slayer meets New York hardcore,” Ballou says. “And I actually have a tuning I call ‘Open Slayer.’ It’s C–F#–C–F#–C–F#, which is a take on Sonic Youth’s C–F–C–F–C–F.” Ballou’s favorite tuning, however, is one that he and the band refer to as “Wacky Tuning.” And while the internet will tell you that it’s C–G–C–F–G#–C, the guitarist will neither confirm nor deny this. “For whatever reason, I’ve put my foot down,” he says, smiling. “I’m not going to say what it is. It’s a challenge for people to figure it out. But we’ve used it almost half the time on every record since Jane Doe.”

For the recording of Love Is Not Enough, Ballou auditioned many of the amps in his studio’s collection, only to return to his stalwarts. “It's funny, when I have a record where there’s a little more time in the budget to experiment, like we have with Converge, I will tend to set up more amps and do shootouts,” Ballou says. “And a lot of times I’m just like, ‘Oh yeah, the shit I use all the time I’m using all the time for a reason—this is the best shit that I have!’ There are a few amps that really are the best at everything.”

He continues, “On this record, for the main rhythm guitars, the left side is this uncommon amp from Belarus made by Sparrows Sons. There’s a handful of them that are out there. I own two, and they don’t sound the same as each other. My purple one has a very “home brew” kind of vibe. And it’s just really great sounding. I don’t know what kind of circuit it’s based on. And then the right side is a 100-watt HMW, which stands for ‘Heavy Metal Warfare,’ by Dean Costello Audio. Both amps ran through Marshall 1960 cabinets that have a mix of Celestion Classic Lead 80s and Amperian speakers, miked with Shure Unidyne SM57s and Soyuz 1973s.”

Instead of relying exclusively on his amplifiers’ preamp sections to produce crushing gain levels, Ballou prefers to hit the amp’s front end with a pedal. It’s a practice he adopted early on in Converge’s career, when he primarily employed a ’70s-era Traynor YRM-1 45-watt head, which he still owns and used for many of the clean and semi-clean sounds on Love Is Not Enough. “There’s something about starving the low end and tightening things up with a pedal that I still like,” he says. “The Traynor is somewhere between a Fender Twin and a Marshall JMP kind of circuit, so it wasn’t designed to go ‘chug, chug, chug.’ I was forcing it to do that against its will by hitting the front end with a Boss OS-2 [Overdrive/Distortion], which has a really good midrange push to it.”

When pressed to unpack the concept of “starving the low end” a little more thoroughly, Ballou, who has a degree in aerospace engineering, is more than happy to expound. “In any negative-feedback-based op-amp overdrive, there’s always this sort of shunt to ground that happens in the negative feedback circuit in order to get gain. And basically, you have to high pass that—meaning cutting the lows—because low end tends to overdrive before high end, and you can end up with a signal where the low end is distorted but the highs are clean,” he explains. “So, to get that searing tone with high end and mids compressed and overdriven, you have to starve the bottom end going into the overdrive circuit. To do that, a lot of pedals—like, say, the Boss Metal Zone—have a bunch of EQ stages working under the hood that precondition the signal before the drive section by cutting lows, and then post-condition after the drive section to add it back in. So, you’re starving the bottom end going into it to tighten it up and make it more responsive, and then you’re boosting the bottom end at the output to restore what you’ve lost. The same theory applies when you’re hitting the front of an amp.”

Ballou eventually graduated from the OS-2 to using a Boss GE-7 graphic equalizer pedal “set to a frowny-face EQ with the output gain jacked up,” and now favors the Onslaught, a pedal that he designed for his own God City Instruments brand of stompboxes, guitars, and basses. Although he also used a Wild Customs electric, a pine T-style partscaster with Lindy Fralin pickups, and a First Act Sheena with EMGs, the bulk of the guitar parts on Love Is Not Enough were in fact tracked using GCI guitars that Ballou designed himself.

“My father’s a machinist and owns a machine shop and has CNC mills and stuff, so making shit was always just sort of normal to me,” Ballou says. “There was a summer where the studio was slow and my dad’s shop was slow as well, and I went down the rabbit hole and built about 30 guitars. I was making the bodies that I had designed on the CNC machines, and having Warmoth make the necks with a custom headstock.”

The guitarist would assemble and set up the instruments himself, a process that he found less satisfying than dialing in the design and specifications of the instruments. “I am definitely better at the design aspect of it than I am at the craftsman aspect,” he says. “Now I’ve got a relationship with this fantastic factory in South Korea that’s doing the building for me, but I still do all the quality control of each instrument myself when they get here.”

“I feel like if you really boil it down, Converge is sort of like Sonic Youth meets Slayer meets New York hardcore.”

Kurt Ballou’s Gear

Guitars

God City Instruments Craftsman

God City Instruments Constructivist

God City Instruments Deconstructivist baritone

Amps

Studio:

Dean Costello Audio 100-Watt HMW

Sparrows Son

Traynor YRM-1

Marshall 1960 4x12 cabinets with Celestion and Amperian speakers

Live:

Line 6 Helix into Quilter Labs Tone Block 202 heads

Picks, Strings, & Cables

D’Addario Duralin Standard Light/Medium Gauge (.70mm) picks

D’Addario NYXL (.011–.056) and NYXL Players Choice (.013–.064) custom set for baritone strings

D’Addario cables

While his production runs often sell out—as of this writing, there are no guitars available for sale on the God City Instruments website—one thing that never fails to bedevil Ballou (as surely it must his peers) is the mercurial and unpredictable taste of the guitar-buying community. “I am always amazed at the things that people are particular and not particular about,” he admits. “And people are very, very particular about colorways. Sometimes, I order guitars in a color where I’m like, ‘Yeah, whatever, it’s white,’ and, boom, they sell out. Then sometimes I order a colorway, and I just think like, ‘Oh my God, this color looks fucking awesome!’ And then it’s slow to sell.”

He continues. “I love doing it, but I get really scared because none of this is done through pre-order. So it’s all out of pocket to me. Twice a year, I have to wire half my life savings halfway around the world to get a batch of guitars. And then when they come in, I’m just crossing my fingers that they’ll sell!”

Guitarist Chris Buck is the latest victim of musical gear theft, and he’s appealing to the internet for help.

In a new post on Instagram, Buck – who alongside Yamaha, recently launched his new signature Revstar at NAMM 2026 – makes an appeal to anyone who has seen or may come across his stolen gear, which includes a brand-new, unused Schmidt Array SA450 pedalboard, plus two cases with a selection of accessories.

• READ MORE: Vista Musical Instruments acquires Scottish retailer Kenny’s Music and confirms relaunch plans

“While I was in the US for the launch of my signature Yamaha, my car’s rear window was smashed in Bristol and a load of gear stolen,” he writes, promising to reveal more details about the theft in the coming days.

Alongside the Schmidt Array SA450 pedalboard, two Peli 1510 and 1640 cases were stolen, the first with accessories including guitar cables, capos, guitar straps, two Audix Cab Grabber mic stands, picks and a lid organiser. Buck says this case had two Telefunken stickers on it at the time it was stolen, but admits these would be “fairly easily removed”.

Meanwhile, Buck’s stolen Peli 1640 case is adorned with a “Let’s Get Loud” sticker, a Mythos Pedals sticker, as well as purple tape and “Heavy” tape from airport travel. The foam inside is moulded to fit a Schmidt Array pedalboard.

Buck says he believes the stolen items are still in the Bristol area, and urges anyone who comes across it, in person, “at a Cash Converters/car boot sale or online”, to contact him at chrisbuckguitar@gmail.com. 

“If we could make this stuff too hot to handle, that’d be great!” he concludes.

View this post on Instagram

Sadly, music gear remains a prime target for thieves, and many high-profile musicians have found themselves victims of this crime. Last year, for example, Australian jazz/funk band Hiatus Kaiyote saw “tens of thousands of dollars” worth of gear, including Jackson and Ernie Ball guitars, stolen from their studio space.

Similarly, New Zealand rock band the Beths had instruments, pedalboards and even their entire rented backline stolen from their van while on tour in France.

But musicians aren’t the only victims of such gear thefts, and brick-and-mortar retail spaces regularly find themselves victim, like when thieves managed to steal a $5k Gibson Les Paul in 2024 by simply walking out of a store with it.

The post “Make this stuff too hot to handle”: Chris Buck calls for help after gear stolen appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

You can now save over $50 on Positive Grid’s Spark MINI Vai portable amplifier thanks to Sweetwater.

The 10-watt amp, developed in collaboration with Steve Vai, was launched in 2024 and reflects the “unique tone and style” of Vai’s influential work. It’s ultra-compact and battery-powered, featuring a host of features requested by Vai himself, including four onboard presets and an exterior design that oozes Vai character.

[deals ids=”36eJFa66h7yMVCZJwEWt5J”]

Just like the original, the Vai MINI hosts a dual angled-speaker design that utilises a personalised EQ, omnidirectional bass response, and custom damping to produce a tone to match amps much bigger in size. Users can also access more than 100,000 additional tones and presets via the Spark app, as well as tools to help you practise. Its built-in USB-charge battery delivers up to eight hours of playtime.

• READ MORE: “He saved my bacon!”: How Steve Stevens saved an “inexperienced” Steve Vai from tonal humiliation

Instead of the standard black or white Tolex of the Spark MINI, the Vai version features a deep red burgundy exterior coupled with a Mandala design on the grille, made famous on Vai’s Hydra guitar. You’ll also get a matching 10-foot guitar cable featuring 24K gold-plated connectors and a durable burgundy weave nylon jacket to match the aesthetic.

In addition to the aesthetic glow-up, the Spark Mini Vai also offers a collection of loops and backing tracks pulled from Vai’s catalogue, as well as four new Steve Vai-curated presets. These are: Fresh (a bright, clear voice), Mild (a lightly distorted tone), Hot (ideal for crunchy rock rhythms and leads), and Fire (saturation for solos with vocal-like character).

We rated the MINI Vai a 9/10 in our 2024 review, noting it offered brilliant sounds in a compact package, and the accompanying app made editing presets easy and offered a wide range of effects.

Shop this deal and find out more via Sweetwater.

The post We scored Steve Vai’s Positive Grid Spark Mini amp a 9/10 – get it now with over $50 off appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Handheld gaming consoles aren’t exactly designed with live guitar rigs in mind – but that didn’t stop one guitarist from turning Valve’s Steam Deck into his entire live setup.

In a new video, 26-year-old virtuoso Sebastian Garcia, aka Sebastiside, breaks down how he’s been using the handheld console as a fully fledged live guitar rig – running Reaper and Neural DSP – and says it’s already survived real-world shows, including a performance at NAMM.

“It really surprised me how well it worked,” says Sebastiside. “For instance, I am using the lowest buffer size on the Steam Deck, which is 16 samples. And even though it’s so low, it’s not crackling or doing any weird glitches… Everything is functional.”

• READ MORE: This guitar has a bridge suspended in mid-air by magnets – and it sounds (and looks) insane

To get there, Sebastiside first installed a lightweight, “de-bloated” version of Windows on a small SSD partition, pairing it with Reaper as his DAW of choice.

“This modified Windows version removed all of the bloat and all of the garbage Windows comes with,” he explains. “I think this is very important for the Steam Deck specifically because it’s so limited.”

From there, he loaded Neural DSP – specifically Archetype: Rabea X – along with the same plugins he uses at home.

“So my Steam Deck recognises my audio interface just as any other computer. After you install the drivers, everything works as expected. All of my plugins are here. All of my EQs. So, for example, I have FabFilter… and I can apply FabFilter Pro-Q to my guitar channel,” says the guitarist.

That familiarity, he notes, is what makes the rig feel less like a workaround and more like a genuine replacement: “It’s really interesting because you can’t really do that on a pedal board or anything. Everything is different. So, it felt really comfortable to have my home setup in a live setting.”

Control is handled via the Steam Deck’s touchscreen, trackpads (“It’s basically like a laptop’s trackpad”) and buttons: “The way you control Reaper is by going into Steam itself. Steam lets you configure every single button,” Sebastiside explains. “You can choose whatever you want them to do. It could be as complicated as you want.”

Key Reaper functions – like recording – are mapped directly to buttons, while the touchscreen lets him tweak mix parameters on the fly.

According to the musician, the only real hurdle came with scaling plugins to the small screen. Some guitar plugins are simply too large for the Steam Deck’s screen, making controls hard to access. The solution, says Sebastiside, is enabling high-DPI compatibility, which “lets you resize the plugin however you want”.

Once everything is dialled in, Sebastiside locks the session down completely to prevent accidents mid- live show.

“What I did was very simple,” he says. “I just routed every single part of the mix that was going through front of house to output number one. And then I routed every single part of my in-ears to output number two. So that would be the metronome basically. So, I just have one slider for front of house and one slider for in-ear mix as well. I also made sure to hide all of the other tracks because I didn’t want to accidentally move them or delete them. I’m too paranoid with it.”

As Sebastiside explains, one of the Steam Deck’s biggest advantages is its portability: “I don’t have a laptop. So, this is basically my laptop,” he says. “I can put this inside the guitar case. I don’t even need an extra bag.”

Battery life has proven equally impressive. With a session running at 88% battery, Sebastiside says the console estimates over six hours of use.

Perhaps most surprising, though, is how the handheld stacks up against traditional computers. According to the guitarist, the 1TB Steam Deck he has delivers even lower latency than his desktop system – something he attributes to Reaper’s efficiency and the handheld’s surprising power.

“As I said, I am really impressed with how well this works and I find it extremely reliable,” he says. “I will keep using it and I will keep doing things with it.”

The post This guitarist is using a Steam Deck as his entire live rig – and it’s genuinely impressive appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

[Editor’s note: Vista Musical Instruments and Guitar.com are both part of Caldecott Music Group.]

Vista Musical Instruments has acquired the intellectual property, brand assets and goodwill of Kenny’s Music, confirming plans to relaunch the Scottish music retailer under its ownership.

The acquisition was completed in coordination with Hilco Global and secures the future of the Kenny’s Music brand within Vista Musical Instruments’ wider portfolio.

• READ MORE: Yungblud got the Changes gig just 48 hours before Black Sabbath’s farewell show

Founded in 2008 by Kenny Graham, Kenny’s Music became a key part of Scotland’s music retail scene, serving musicians across Glasgow, Dundee, Aberdeen, and Dunfermline. The retailer earned a strong reputation for its close ties with local artists and commitment to fostering a thriving music culture through expert service and community engagement.

The acquisition follows the company’s announcement last October that it had ceased trading and would move into Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation (CVL), “despite our strongest sales ever in recent years.” At the time, Kenny’s Music ran both an online store and brick-and-mortar locations across Scotland.

Vista Musical Instruments says the acquisition marks the start of a new chapter for the brand. As an initial step, a revitalised digital home for Kenny’s Music is now live at kennysmusic.co.uk, where customers can sign up to an official newsletter for updates on the brand’s evolution and upcoming milestones.

While a new online store is currently in development, customers can reach out via the website to a dedicated team member for personalised concierge services, expert gear advice and professional consultations.

The Kenny’s Music community will also gain immediate access to a wide range of global brands, including Fender, Martin, Heritage Guitars, Harmony and MONO. Products will be available with next-working-day delivery in the UK via Vista Musical Instruments’ sister retailer, Dawsons.

Commenting on the acquisition, Vista Musical Instruments CEO Meng Ru Kuok says: “We’re excited to welcome Kenny’s Music into our VMI ecosystem. While the brand’s recent pause was unfortunate, it followed a period of its strongest sales on record. There is a great foundation here to build upon, and we appreciate Hilco Global’s professionalism in helping us ensure this legacy is reimagined for the next generation of musicians.”

Find out more at Kenny’s Music and Vista Musical Instruments.

The post Vista Musical Instruments acquires Scottish retailer Kenny’s Music and confirms relaunch plans appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Artificial Intelligence can already fake your favourite band’s riffs, remix their voices and spit out passable soundalikes in seconds. But according to Zakk Wylde, that’s about as far as it goes.

Speaking at a recent Q&A session in London, the Black Label Society frontman and longtime Ozzy Osbourne collaborator weighs in on the growing use of AI music generators – explaining why, novelty aside, they stop short of replacing the real thing.

• READ MORE: “You never say never”: Zakk Wylde says new music with Pantera’s tribute lineup is possible

“AI is fine,” Wylde says [via Blabbermouth]. “It would almost be like if me and you were sitting around going, ‘Hey, guys, can you write a song you think Black Sabbath would write?’ So it’s no different than that.”

“But you’re never gonna be able to replace what is coming out of Ozzy’s mind, what’s coming out of Tony Iommi’s mind, what Geezer’s [Butler] thinking when he’s gonna write lyrics, and how Bill’s [Ward] gonna approach the drums on a riff, what kind of drum beat he’s gonna play,” says the virtuoso. “‘Cause when you get a record from whatever your favourite artist or your favourite band [is], you’re getting a piece of them. So you can’t ever replace that.”

Wylde argues that while AI might convincingly imitate a band’s style, it can never recreate the people behind the music or the personal chemistry that defines great records.

“It’s just like saying you’re gonna write AI Pantera. You can’t replace what was going on in Dime’s mind and what Vinnie’s gonna play. Pantera is those four guys – so it’s Philip [Anselmo], Rex [Brown], Dime [Darrell] and Vinnie [Paul]. And that’s that,” he says. “I mean, that’s Pantera. So, just like any other band is… That’s who it is. You can’t replace what’s coming out of Elton John’s mind, what he wants to sit down and play on a piano and what Bernie Taupin’s gonna write lyrically. That’s the beauty of the human element of music.”

Still, Wylde believes that AI has its place, particularly when it’s treated as a creative toy rather than a replacement.

“But, I mean, AI is fine. It’s fun, in regards, though, if it’s gonna write something that sounds like what Led Zeppelin would write or what Black Sabbath would write. And it’s just, like, ‘Oh, wow. This came out pretty cool,’” says Wylde.

“I mean, with Black Label, we always start with the Zappelin-Sabbath mashup. And I think it’s great. I remember when Ozzy heard it the first time, he was, like, ‘Oh my god. Zakk, have you heard this thing?’ I’m, like, ‘Yeah, I think it’s great.’ It’s Whole Lotta Love, and then you stick in Ozzy singing War Pigs over the riff, and then Robert Plant comes in on the solo. I’m, like, ‘Dude, this is the coolest thing ever.’ So, it’s having fun with it.”

“But you’re never gonna replace Ozzy coming up with that melody, Tony coming up with that music, and Geezer coming up with those lyrics. And then Whole Lotta Love, Jimmy Page playing that riff and then Robert Plant singing the Whole Lotta Love scream over the top of it. ‘Cause that’s the real thing. You can never replace the real thing.”

The post “AI is fun… But you can’t replace what’s coming out of Ozzy’s mind”: Zakk Wylde weighs in on AI music appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Favoured by the likes of Carlos Santana, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Robben Ford and John Mayer, Dumble amplifiers have long occupied a near-mythical place in guitar culture. Built in tiny numbers by the late Howard Dumble and whispered about in reverent tones, they’re often treated less like amps and more like holy relics.

But not everyone is convinced.

In a new interview with Guitarist magazine, Eric Gales admits he doesn’t quite understand the obsession. While he acknowledges that Dumbles sound excellent, he says they didn’t offer anything he hadn’t already heard from other “great” amps. As the guitarist puts it, there was no moment where the “heavens opened up”.

• READ MORE: “The further I’m away from it, the more intense it is when I get with it”: Why Eric Gales rarely touches a guitar offstage

Asked why Alexander Dumble’s amps are held in such high regard, Gales replies: “To be honest, I don’t know. There’s a bit of a taboo fascination with them. Obviously, they are highly respected and deeply admired for the sound they make, but I don’t see the big draw factor.”

“Sure, they sound great, but I’ve heard other amps that sound great,” says the virtuoso, who played through a Dumble on his new album at the suggestion of producer Joe Bonamassa.

“I’m very honoured and privileged to have plugged into one a few times, but it wasn’t like a ‘heavens opened up’ sort of moment,” Gales continues. “I’m not speaking bad about them, I’m just saying there’s nothing the Dumbles did for me that other amps hadn’t done before, you know? I was just going off a suggestion and I trusted Joe enough to go with it. He has plenty of Dumbles and runs through them pretty rigorously. I had no reason to go against it.”

In practice, Gales’ setup was about as straightforward as it gets. He plugged his Magneto signature guitar into Bonamassa’s Dumble, and into his own signature DV Mark amp, and let his playing do the talking.

“If [the Dumble] was the only amp that was there and my DV Mark wasn’t around, I’m sure I would have been fine,” he says. “I have some really nice amps, like my Two-Rock, and the Dumble did nothing less than that. If it wasn’t as good, then I wouldn’t have used it on the record. I remember it had great sustain and delivered every single nuance I put through it. At the same time, my DV Mark was doing the same thing. Both amps were standing tall beside each other, doing a great job in giving me what I needed to accomplish this record. That’s all I can ask for.”

The post “There’s nothing the Dumbles did for me that other amps hadn’t done before”: Eric Gales doesn’t get the hype around Dumble amps appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$280/£249, suprlunr.com / northernstomps.com

The Superlunar SR-01 is a little white tragedy. This is something that belongs in a design museum, yet the only people who’ll ever really look at it are guitar players… just as they’re about to stomp on it.

• READ MORE: Gamechanger Audio Motor Pedal review – a radical synth pedal for sonic extremists

At least those players will be well rewarded, because this versatile fuzz, drive and boost pedal from New York – now available in the UK through Northern Stompboxes – makes a spirited attempt at the impossible: sounding as good as it looks.

Superlunar SR-01 – what is it?

The first stompbox from NY-based ‘audio design studio’ Superlunar, the SR-01 takes its inspiration from a cranked black-panel Fender amp. I’m assuming that means something manageably small like a Deluxe, Princeton or Champ – there is no record of anyone ever hearing a Twin Reverb at full volume and surviving.

So it’s first and foremost an amp-like fuzz, but the manual also promises subtle overdrive and even clean boost settings. You get quite the control array to navigate all that, and it comes in three parts: the big knobs on the left are for gain in the first clipping stage and output level; the push-buttons are for engaging fuzz mode and a high-pass filter; and the three mini-knobs are for input attenuation, second-stage transistor bias and treble.

Sounds a bit complicated, doesn’t it? Best just to leap right in, start twiddling things and see what happens.

Superlunar SR-01 – what does it sound like?

I came, I saw, I twiddled, and here’s what I found: the best starting point is with the two full-size knobs at noon, the buttons both off, the outer mini-knobs at maximum and the middle one at minimum. This is a very pleasing medium-gain drive tone with plenty of body and chime. It’s sweet, solid and thoroughly amp-ish.

To take the crunch out of the equation, you just have to turn the input attenuation down to about two o’clock (maybe lower with humbuckers); now output level controls how hard you’re hitting the front end of your amp, while the treble knob lets you tame the zing and the white button does just enough to keep you safe from flubbage when required. This is all good stuff.

The big black gain dial doesn’t actually have much effect until you turn the input level back up to full, at which point it can push the SR-01 just about to the edge of fuzziness… but it’s no use trying to resist the blue button, which piles on the saturation and adds a hint of squish as we tumble into the world of proper fuzz. It’s mighty powerful, but still with a tightness and clarity that’s definitely more black-panel than tweed.

And if you want more squish – lots of it – you just need to start messing with the bias control. This can make things gently velcro-like or, bumped up further and with the input level notched back again, give full-on gated splutter effects. It’s borderline anarchic, and really not what you expect from a pedal that looks this well educated.

Superlunar SR-01 – should I buy it?

If all your other pedals look like salvage from a nuclear accident site – scratches, dents, rust, missing knobs, unidentified stains – then frankly no, you shouldn’t be allowed to buy this one. But if you promise to look after it, what you’re getting with the SR-01 is a unique pedal that can cover a surprising amount of tonal ground. It’s great as an uncoloured booster or medium-gain drive, and it’s even better as a rampaging fuzz, gated or otherwise.

Superlunar SR-01 alternatives

It’s a very different proposition, but the Land Devices HP-2 ($229/£225) is another wonderfully impolite fuzz hiding inside a cleanly asymmetrical enclosure. The Origin Effects Deluxe55 (£279) could almost be described as the SR-01’s tweed cousin, while the Hudson Electronics Broadcast Dual Footswitch (£179) is a more conventional pedal that covers high and low gain just as effortlessly.

The post Superlunar SR-01 review – a designer dirt pedal that sounds a lot more rock’n’roll than it looks appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Guitar effects fall in and out of fashion. But I never quite understood the moment when Tube Screamers ceased to be cool. Players would complain about the midrange bump. Fair enough, mid bumps can suck air out of a signal. But then I’d watch the same players buy some other mid-pumping drive or distortion and rave about it. Perhaps it was the TS’s association with blues rock—an occasional punching bag among guitar’s leading edge. Perhaps it was the rise of the Klon Centaur, the affordable “klones” that followed in its wake, and the resulting chatter about “transparency.” Never mind that the Klon Centaur’s design shares much of its basic architecture with the TS, or as my esteemed former PG editor Joe Gore pointed out, that the sonic differences between the pedals are not always as different as they seem.

The collective conversation confirmed one thing for me: Guitarists are a weird, fickle bunch. Because for me, Tube Screamers have always been a reliable, forgiving source of overdrive that pair well with fuzz, distortion, and other drives, and amps across the Fender, Vox, and Marshall spectrum (though it really loves the first of these). Warm Audio’s Tube Squealer is a kind of super TS. It combines switchable TS-808, TS-9, and TS-10-style circuitry, a mix control that blends in clean signal (a touch of Klon), a humbucker/single-coil switch that shifts the midrange emphasis from the 800Hz range to the 2kHz range, and a voltage boost switch that engages a voltage doubler (another touch of Klon). It adds up to a very adaptable overdrive.

A Scream Across the Ages

Fundamentally, the Tube Squealer is a really satisfying TS-style overdrive. As a test, I situated it alongside a 1981 Ibanez TS-9 that was my primary overdrive for ages and always sounded excellent to my ears. Compared to the original Tube Screamer, the Tube Squealer in the TS-9 setting, and no clean signal in the overdriven/clean mix, is discernibly more compressed and less oxygenated in the high-end than the Ibanez. But is that better? That depends. Paired with a 16-watt, EL84-powered Carr Bel-Ray in its Vox-style setting, the Tube Squealer’s low-to-mid gain overdrive settings could seem redundant, while the TS-9 added a little more sparkle. On the other hand, the Tube Squealer’s more compressed profile lent a creamy cohesiveness to the Bel-Ray’s output that sounded fantastic with chords, and added a touch of anger to Peter Buck-ish arpeggios in the more aggro Lifes Rich Pageant vein—one of my favorite applications of the effect.

“The wet-dry mix control may be the most valuable feature on the Tube Squealer. It opens up a lot of fine tuning possibilities.”

With a late-’60s Fender Bassman, the Tube Squealer’s more compressed output illuminated the difference between the pedals more starkly. I enjoyed the warm, growly nature of the Tube Squealer’s basic distortion voice. And while the pedal felt more grafted to the amp rather than seamlessly integrated with it, I was reminded of an old J Mascis quote. To paraphrase: “What’s the point of using an effect if it’s transparent?”

There is a way that I was able to close the difference between the more compressed Tube Squealer voice and the more open TS-9, and that was by using the clean signal mix control. By dialing that knob up to noon (give or take, depending on the gain level), I could make the two pedals sound identical enough that most folks would be hard-pressed to tell them apart in a blind test. What that revealed to me is that the mix control may be the most valuable feature on the Tube Squealer. It opens up a lot of fine tuning possibilities.

Do Screamers Squeal Equally?

Though it’s nice to have the three TS voicings, the differences among them can be subtle. At low gain settings, in fact, they can be pretty difficult to tell apart. Higher gain settings make the contrasts more apparent, but even then the variations can sound really minimal. In general, they are evident as subtle EQ shifts. The TS-9 comes off as the most balanced of the three, the 808 seems to bloom a bit more, and the TS-10 has a bump in the low midrange that results in a smoothing effect. These voices are useful and fun to work with if you’re moving between guitars and amps in a studio, but I’d venture that they’d be nearly impossible to discern in a live setting.

The control that makes a big difference is the pickup voicing switch. The shift from the 800Hz peak to the 2kHz peak in the midrange is transformative enough to rip your face off if you’re not careful. With single-coils it’s spiky enough that your bandmates may ask you to take a time out. But the PAF-equipped SG I used in this evaluation became smooth and vicious in the 2k mode. In fact, I’ve rarely heard my Bassman sound so much like a JCM800. And it not only genuinely extends the utility of the Tube Squealer, it’s also raucous, rowdy fun.

The Verdict

Though the Tube Squealer’s three voices may be subtle to the point of a letdown for some potential buyers, the interactive power of the controls, when taken together, is impressive. The clean/dirty blend control adds considerable flexibility and tone shaping potential, and while I preferred the more compressed, classic TS sounds with the pedal in 9V mode, the voltage doubling switch adds a lot to the sound tapestry within. Given the extra utility here—and how close to vintage TS sounds these voices are in their most basic modes—the $149 price is quite reasonable, even when considering that new, basic Ibanez TS-9s are just $99. Even if you use the Tube Squealer to even half of its potential, it’s most certainly not your average pig.

Let’s talk about the range of a pedal control knob—its potential versatility, perceived value, real-world implementation, and creative inspiration. That’s a lot of fancy words to impose upon a 300-degree rotating potentiometer with a knob affixed to it, but here we go!

I’ve had this topic in mind since starting my writing career, but it crystallized while I was watching a recent episode of That Pedal Show featuring a CopperSound-loaded pedalboard. Co-host Mick Taylor made a comment about amp control knobs, positing that a knob should live between 3 and 8. A lot of players can relate to this—the idea that the core sounds in this range cover almost everything needed, while still leaving headroom on either side of the dial. This ties into versatility. It feels like the designer tuned it properly.

I’d counter that if a knob does too much—like a digital single-knob EQ—the “usable” range feels diminished. Which circles back to the same idea: The designer needs to tune the control properly.

Let’s talk about first impressions. Whether it’s a demo video or an in-person audition, the first engagement with a pedal almost always starts with “everything at noon.” This feels like a natural, logical starting point, and it ties back to the philosophy that control knobs should be flexible at both ends of their range.

When designing products, manufacturers try to consider all types of rigs. While not everything will work for everyone, the goal is to create products that perform well across different scenarios and setups.

Now let’s consider the outermost ranges of a knob. A reasonable question: “Why do I have to max this knob?” When a control only works at its extreme setting, I immediately wonder if I’m doing something wrong or if the pedal is designed for a more specific application than I realized. Both are plausible.

Here’s a firsthand example. I won’t name the pedal, but there’s a particular dirt box I keep coming back to—it has a great overdrive sound, wide gain range, and a pretty unique circuit. Those qualities make it memorable. But so does its shortcoming: The tone knob always has to be maxed. Any other setting made it too dark. I should mention that I play Telecasters almost exclusively, so it’s not like my guitar was on the darker side of the spectrum.

“When a control only works at its extreme setting, I immediately wonder if I’m doing something wrong.”

Was the tone control an afterthought? Was it only tested with a super bright guitar and amp? What happened here? At this point, the knob may as well not have been there—or it could’ve been hardwired internally to the max position. It’s scenarios like this that call versatility into question.

To counter that—and circle back to the digital EQ knob I mentioned earlier—a knob can have too wide a range. Let’s say this EQ control sweeps from 500 Hz at minimum to 1 kHz at maximum. That’s a fairly wide range covering a prominent part of the guitar’s frequency spectrum. For this hypothetical, let’s assume the entire dial is usable.

Now, let’s say we want to expand the range and add value. What do we do? We make the knob sweep from 250 Hz to 2 kHz. Better, right?

Well … there’s technically a wider range that covers more ground, but two significant problems emerge. First, the extremes become less useful. The low end gets too bass-heavy and conflicts with the bass guitar, while the upper end becomes shrill and unpleasant. Okay, so we just avoid the outermost parts of the dial. Don’t we like having that range available? Sure—but we still want everything outside of 3 and 8 to be friendly and usable. If the first and last 20% of the knob are unusable, then by doubling the frequency range, we’ve actually cut the knob’s usability in half.

The second issue is how the knob feels. At 500 Hz to 1 kHz, there’s a 1.6 Hz difference per degree of rotation. But if we’re only using half the dial’s range, that becomes a 3.3 Hz difference per degree. This often makes the knob feel overly sensitive.

Do you agree, disagree, or find yourself somewhere in between? Try this: Go to your pedalboard and amplifier and count how many knobs you have at your disposal. Then, without turning them, note how many are currently set at maximum or minimum. Any of them?

Spector Bass, in collaboration with pioneering bassist Doug Wimbish, announces the Doug Wimbish Euro 4 Aged White Signature Bass, a new addition to the Doug Wimbish Euro line for 2026. Available worldwide through authorized Spector retailers and online, the new model continues Spector’s exploration of lightly aged instruments inspired by Wimbish’s personal collection, recreating one of his lesser-known vintage basses, his white NS-2, while delivering a familiar, broken-in feel and sound for modern players.

The Doug Wimbish Euro 4 Aged White Signature Model features a light aged white nitro finish, offering the look and feel of a well-loved instrument straight out of the case. The body is constructed with maple body wings and is paired with Spector’s slim Doug Wimbish neck carve. A narrow 1.5" nut width and 34" scale length contribute to a fast, comfortable playing experience. The rosewood fingerboard features mother-of-pearl crown inlays, completing the instrument’s classic Spector aesthetic.

Electronics on the DW Euro 4 Aged White Signature Bass reflect a unique configuration within the Euro line. The bass is loaded with EMG Jazz pickups, delivering a responsive and articulate tonal foundation. These pickups are paired with Spector’s Legacy onboard preamp, developed in collaboration with Darkglass Electronics, and designed around a classic, 1980s-inspired two-band EQ.

Additional features include gold Spector hardware, which complements the aged white finish and reinforces the instrument’s premium presentation. Together with its distinctive electronics package and historically inspired design, the Doug Wimbish Euro 4 Aged White Signature Bass represents a deeply personal chapter of Wimbish’s musical legacy brought forward for today’s players.

Reflecting on the instrument, Doug Wimbish states, “This bass is a piece of my history. The original 1987 Spector that helped shape my sound—now ready for the next generation.”

For more information about the Doug Wimbish Euro 4 Aged White Signature Bass and the full Spector lineup, visit NAMM Booth #6802 or online at www.spectorbass.com.

Street Price: $3699.99 USD

It’s a familiar problem: You know your pentatonic scale patterns, but they’re only getting you so far. In this lesson, instructor Caitlin Caggiano breaks down the pentatonic scale and helps you elevate you patterns and deepen your playing. Want to learn how to make your pentatonics feel less boxy and more musical? How to use multiple pentatonic scales to emphasize chord tones? How to add certain notes to add more dimension and color to your playing? This lesson is for you.

February 6, 2026 Lately I have been using a thumbpick for a lot of songs, due to a broken thumb nail a few months ago. I remembered that there are a few songs I usually like to use it for, even if my nail is intact. Windy And Warm is not generally one of those […]

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