Although better known for budget guitar pedals, this year the Amazon Spring Sale has delivered a deluge of deals on better-known pedal brands. With up to 26% off Boss guitar pedals, it's a great time to stock up on some super stompboxes for much less.

The deals are only available on a select few pedals, but I spotted a big saving on a Waza Craft Metal Zone, the incredibly versatile DD-8 Digital Delay, and one of my all-time favourite loopers in the RC-600. It's not just pedals either, I also spotted a significant saving on one of the best pairs of guitar amp headphones in the Boss Waza-Air.

Having looked through the whole sale, I figured I'd pick out some of my favourites to help you cut through the noise. Here are 7 of the best deals from the Amazon spring sale:

NAMM 2026: Boss has anted up in the battle for multi-effects pedal supremacy, releasing budget-friendly but pro-quality entry-level GX series units for electric guitar and bass.

The GX-1 and GX-1B are all but identical in layout (the latter, for bass guitar, has a blue chassis), and are designed to be super-easy to use, portable, affordable, and promise tube amp dynamics courtesy of Boss’s proprietary AIRD amp modelling tech under the hood.

The same algorithms that make the GX-100 sound so impressive are put to work here.

Both units have three footswitches and an onboard expression pedal – all of which are user-assignable – a hi-res colour display, colour-coded hexagon buttons for your amp/effect categories, and 99 user presets.

As ever with these Boss multi-effects units, there are sounds, lots of sounds, with 23 amps and more than 140 effects to choose from.

That can be bamboozling. The factory presets are usually a good place to start. There’s also new feature here, Gear Suite, which Boss says will make your life easier. And that makes sense; if this unit is to be priced for beginners (expect to pay £225/$229/€259), then it has to be easy enough for beginners to use.

Gear Suite sounds like another interesting feature for tone-seekers. With each amp or effect come a variety of factory-designed Gear Suite settings you can scroll through, which is a more granular twist on the factory presets.

Where factory presets preset sounds fully dialled in (say an amp type, plus drive, compression, modulation), the Gear Suite has preset sounds for each of the GX-1’s amps and effects. It could be super helpful for beginners who are looking for a deep chorus pedal sound but are not too sure where to start.

Sometimes, portability comes at a cost. Smaller units can mean some features – and typically the ones that you need to use – are hidden behind second-function dials and switches.

There’s something reassuringly tactile and, well, kind of Fisher Price about those hexagon buttons all lined up there, allowing players to tap one to turn an effect on and off, or to hold the button down to edit its parameters. On the face of it, this all sounds easy enough.

And that is kind of the point of these units. They’ll get you started. Boss promises “great tone accessible to every player, regardless of skill level” and “frustration-free creation”. So have at it...

With the AIRD tech, the grown-up Boss sounds in a compact size, the rugged gig-ready metal housings, and the price, these look a decent bet for experienced players looking to give their pedalboard the night off.

You can power this via battery, USB or AC adaptor. There is Bluetooth, meaning you can play along with external audio. You can connect the unit to your DAW via USB-C and use it as a guitar audio interface.

Hook it up to the Boss Tone Studio app and there are various metronome and drum machine rhythm patterns to practise too. And there is a headphones output. The GX-1 units are expandable too; you

The GX-1 and GX-1B are available now. Head over to Boss for more details.

Can you believe it? It’s Black Friday week already! The biggest shopping extravaganza of the year is almost here, and that means a ton of awesome Black Friday music deals dropping left, right and centre. I don’t want to add to the chaos, but I have found a guitar deal that you don't want to miss. Right now, there are some fantastic discounts on Boss products, including the Katana, loopers, classic compact pedals, and accessories.

Whether you're thinking about upgrading your gear, adding some new effects to your collection, or picking up a perfect gift for the guitarist in your life, now is definitely the time to pounce on these amazing deals.

Check out some of the best Boss items currently on sale below and grab yourself a sweet bargain without having to wait until the big day on Friday.

Watch our Katana demo video

Need help choosing which Katana amp is best for you? Well, watch our in-depth demo video where our very own Si walks you through each amps features.

Shop more Black Friday sales

• US Sales
• Fender store: Player II Strat lowest price ever
• Guitar Center: Up to 40% Black Friday sale
• Guitar Tricks: $899 $99 annual sub
• IK Multimedia: Up to $150 off studio monitors
• Musician's Friend: Early Black Friday 50% off
• Reverb: Up to 80% Black Friday savings
• Sweetwater: Black Friday deals up to 80% off

• UK Sales
• Gear4Music: Black Friday deals are live
• Guitar Tricks: $899 $99 annual sub
• IK Multimedia: Up to $150 off studio monitors
• Native Instruments: Over 50% off UA bundle
• Plugin Boutique: 100s of software savings
• Reverb: Up to 80% Black Friday savings
• Thomann: Up to 70% off Cyber Week sale
  

Boss is promising “a new era in pitch shifting” with a pair of pedals for electric guitar and bass that present players with real-time control over the tuning of their instrument and some of the craziest, most expressive sounds you can eke out from your pedalboard.

The XS-100 is describes as a “pitch-shifting workstation” and it appropriately stacks the features high, with an onboard expression pedal (plus the option to hook up two external footswitches or another expression pedal) and an incredible eight-octave range, 30 user memory slots for saving your go-to settings, MIDI connectivity, and an integrated toe switch for performing momentary pitch-shifts.

And it is a ridiculously configurable guitar effects pedal; those momentary pitch-shifts can be programmed to rise and fall to your liking, and there are independent and adjustable pitch-change speeds for each direction of travel on the expression pedal.

Hook up an external footswitch or two and you can quickly toggle between virtual tunings across the eight-octave range.

Crazy, expressive sounds? Boss suggests motor revving, but really the limit is your imagination on that score. Certainly the XS-100 Poly Shifter looks very much like a strong competitor for much-loved and hitherto industry standard DigiTech Whammy.

For all of its features, the user interface looks relatively simple, with an LCD graphic display to let you know what’s going on with your settings and presets.

The linear pitch-shifting via the onboard treadle is obviously one of the show-stopping features – especially with that range, and all that control – but we can imagine a lot of players getting use out of its doubling feature. It could be super-useful for making one guitar fill some space in a live mix.

But if the XS-100’s all singing, all dancing presentation is too much, the XS-1 Poly Shifter streamlines these features into a Compact Series platform, allowing you to retune your guitar on the fly, add doubling effects, convert it into 12-string guitar with a virtual guitar capo to go all Johnny Marr x the Byrds.

The XS-1 Poly Shifter has a simple two-knob layout. There’s a rotary dial that allows you to tune-up or detune your guitar by seven semitones, and offers a three-octave range in either direction, with toggles for switching between momentary and latching operation, plus the capability to hook up an external expression pedal or footswitch.

Underpinning all of these sounds is some technology that the Boss R&D team has been burning the midnight oil on for a number of years now, with these state-of-the-art algorithms designed to present all this pitch-shifting activity with no unwanted artefacts and zero latency.

When it says “real-time” control, Boss really means it. The idea is that your guitar still sounds like your guitar, and more fundamentally, your playing still sounds like you while using these.

“The XS series provides balanced polyphonic performance that feels natural and musical across all playing styles, pickup positions, and pedal setups,” says Boss. “The attack and tonal character are fully preserved, and even complex chords and sustained lead tones –typically a challenge for pitch shifters – are reproduced with stunning clarity.”

As the demo videos and the features list suggest, these look like a lot of fun, and we like the simple control surface on both units. Even that tricked-out XS-100 presents looks easy enough to get to grips with. For pro players and heavy users, it might just be the new industry standard.

The XS-100 Poly Shifter is priced at £299/$349. The XS-1 is priced £194/$199. For more details, head over to Boss.

What is it?

Sitting at the cutting edge of guitar modelling technology, the Boss VG-800 is a system that can do everything from making a Strat sound like a Les Paul to transforming a Telecaster into a 12-string acoustic guitar. It’s a compact pedal that’s very pedalboard-friendly versus some of the previous guitar modelling efforts from Boss, but there are a couple of caveats.

The first is that unless you’re just interested in the amp and effects modelling, you’ll need to purchase the Boss GK-5 Divided Pickup or utilise the older Roland GK-3 with an adapter if you want to start making your guitar sound like a bass or using the alternate tunings. At around $270 new for the GK-5, that’s a significant extra outlay on top of an already pretty pricey pedal.

You’ll also need the Boss GK Serial cable to go from your pickup to the pedal itself, which adds $65-ish, so all in, you’re looking at over a grand to get a complete system. If you’re committed to dramatically changing the sound of your guitar, then you’re probably the sort that won’t be too worried about this - or the process of installing an additional pickup on your guitar. It’s not for everyone, though.

Specs

• Price: $714.99/£599/€685 (GK-5 pickup $274.99/£199)
• Type: Guitar/bass processor/synthesizer pedal
• Controls: 5x encoders, select encoder, output level, 3x footswitches, inst, effects, menu, left, right, exit
• Features: 150 memories, Modes: electric guitar, acoustic, dual guitar, electric bass, acoustic bass, dual bass, vio guitar, vio bass, synth,
• Connectivity: 1 x 1/4" (Guitar input), 2 x 1/4" (GK in, GK out), 2 x 1/4" TRS (Stereo FX loop), 2 x 1/8" TRS Type A (In, Out), 2 x 1/4" (R/Mono, L/Phones), 1 x 1/4" (CTL 2, 3/EXP 1), 1 x 1/4" (CTL 4, 5/EXP 2), 1 x USB-C (audio interface, midi)
• Bypass: Buffered
• Power: 9V DC power Supply, 690mA (included)
• Dimensions: 63 x 173 x 135mm
• Weight: 920
• Options: N/A
• Contact: Boss

Build quality

Build quality rating: ★★★★★

Like any Boss pedal I’ve encountered, the VG-800 is a robustly built bit of kit designed to be used on the road. The metal chassis is colored an attractive Azure blue, with the majority of the fascia being taken up by a screen. The screen is a monochrome graphic LCD at 256 x 80 resolution, which, while not as fancy as those on Neural DSP and Line 6 units, is nice and clear thanks to the backlight.

Beneath the screen, five endless encoders double as buttons for tweaking your settings, and just to the right of those, a ‘select’ encoder for navigating the menus. The output level is set by a master volume at the top right of the pedal, and beneath that, there are some additional buttons for changing effects, diving into menus, and some extra navigation functions.

The pedal is wedge-shaped on the bottom half to allow for easier pressing of the switches and hopefully keep wayward stomps away from the screen and controls. The two leftmost switches move up and down the preset list, while the right footswitch offers additional control, working as a latching or momentary switch depending on the preset.

It’s got a decent weight to it overall, and I find no weaknesses in the quality of the build as I inspect every inch of it. The knobs are all attached firmly, offering a notched turn for finely tweaking settings with excellent tactile control. It's that expected Boss-level build quality through and through.

Usability

Usability rating: ★★★★☆

To use the Boss VG-800, I start by installing the Boss GK-5 Divided Pickup onto the bridge plate of my trusty Telecaster. I approach it with some apprehension, but it turns out to be much easier than anticipated, and Boss includes all the tools you need to install on a variety of guitars, bar a cross-head screwdriver.

I start by lining it up with one of the thin spacers underneath to get it the requisite 1mm from the strings. I then have to take the strings off for the final installation, which is nicely timed as I’m due a change anyway. As well as being 1mm from the strings, Boss recommends the pickup be at least 15mm from the bridge, which is pretty much exactly the clearance I have between mine and the screw that attaches the bridge pickup to the bridge plate.

Using one of the thin strips of double-sided tape, I stick it down to my bridge plate, and the adhesive takes almost immediately. I go for fitting it the opposite way to the Boss instruction video, as I don’t want the cable running where my picking hand goes. I’m able to fit the output section of the pickup to my guitar strap end pin using the bracket that comes as part of the package.

All in with the string change and watching the instructional videos to ensure I’m doing it right, it takes me about an hour to get everything installed, the guitar tuned up, and ready to go. It's a relatively seamless process to get it attached, although there is the option to permanently drill it into your guitar, for which you’ll need a lot more experience in guitar modification.

One thing I wasn’t a fan of is the length of the cable from the pickup to the output section, if it was a little longer you’d be able to fit the output section to the back of your guitar rather than having it on the front, which could be appealing for those who don’t want a big black box sitting on their instrument. I do appreciate that making the cable longer than necessary could result in it getting in the way of installing at the front, though.

With that done, I use the GK Serial cable to connect it to the VG-800, and in turn, I run that into my UA audio interface in order to set up and test the initial sounds. The first thing I notice is that the tracking of the bass strings results in some crazy sounding ‘wobble’, and that some of the sounds that should have a bass guitar on the low strings are upside down, as I’ve installed the pickup opposite to how the videos show.

Downloading the manual, I’m guided through the process of setting up the pickup in the VG-800 settings menu to ensure the best performance. First, I change the sensitivity of the string detection, which I quickly realise is what’s causing that horrible wobble on the low strings; it's set way too high by default, so I reduce it dramatically. I then set the distance between the bridge and the pickup, and switch the orientation so those patches with bass guitar on the low strings are the right way up.

With this done, the performance of the pedal is much better, and I can start diving into the sounds properly. For a pedal that’s so complex technologically, it’s surprisingly easy to get started with. Banking up and down with the footswitches is intuitive enough, and you can double-press the left and middle switches together to access the onboard tuner. The encoders below the screen are labeled to show their actions, which include completely changing the sound of your instrument, alternate tunings, BPM, and level.

It’s pretty easy to make quick adjustments, and the additional CTL 1 footswitch allows you to adjust certain parameters, whether that’s adding effects into the mix or doing sound changes like bending notes. Actually creating patches, though? That’s something that’s much more easily done in the Boss Tone Studio App. It’s doable with the pedal, but there’s much turning and clicking of encoders to get there.

Sounds

Sounds rating: ★★★★☆

I initially set up the VG-800 going into my audio interface, sending the left and right outs to inputs 1 and 2. The GK pickup goes via the GK Serial Cable into the requisite input of the pedal, while my usual guitar jack output goes into the guitar input alongside. This means I get my dry guitar tone and the effected sound simultaneously. Scrolling through the presets, I quickly realise that this is quite undesirable for some of the tones that feature alternate tuning, but knocking the volume back on my guitar is a simple fix.

The preset sounds are varied, from subtle changes like making my Tele’s single coils sound like a humbucker, or entirely changing my guitar to a 12-string acoustic or sitar. It’s super fun just scrolling through the patches to see what’s available, and with each patch, a push of the CTL 1 button can add additional voices, distortion, modulation, or time-based effects into the mix.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the majority of these sounds already feature amp modelling, so if you’re running them into an actual guitar amp or an amp modeler, you’re going to need to switch them off; otherwise, you’ll get a very harsh, digital sound. While I think Boss’s effects modelling is second to none, I’ve generally found I prefer the amp tones of other companies better, and I especially like to use 3rd party IRs to get those proper, mix-ready tones.

There’s a massive variety of sounds available, and for each patch, you can change the input instrument, giving you oodles of sounds to choose from. The synth patches and classic GR-300 Lead setting are super fun, but the ones that blow me away are those acoustic guitar patches, especially the 12-string simulations. In an instant, I’m transported into the Mosquito Song by QOTSA, and yes, I’m even tempted to have a go at Hotel California; they sound that good.

I come across a distorted bass sound that’s unbelievably fat, Leslie organ tones, as well as some spacy, synthesizer-based tones, but I do find that I run out of sounds to try quite quickly. There are 60 built-in patches in total, but with a lot of these covering more typical guitar tones like stereo cleans, overdrive tones, and lead sounds, there’s not so much of the weird and wonderful stuff I was expecting when I unboxed it.

This is where the Tone Studio app comes into its own, allowing you to quickly and easily start creating tones, as well as downloading other user-created sounds from the Tone Exchange. The UI of the app will be familiar to anyone who has used amp modelling software, and here you can bypass the amp sims in favor of your own, tweak your input instrument, play with effects parameters, and set about creating some very bespoke sounds.

I find the tracking is fantastic overall, and during my time with it, it’s a very rare moment when anything goes wrong with the pickup detecting my strings. I can smash open chords, bend up two steps, hit pinch harmonics, and everything stays incredibly well behaved in the pitch tracking. It takes some tweaking to get it there, but once the pickup is set up right, it’s scary how well it adapts to being a bass guitar or acoustic.

Verdict

The most impressive part of using the Boss VG-800 is the functionality of the additional GK-5 pickup. It tracks the guitar strings so much better than I could’ve imagined, making it an easy job for the VG-800 to transform your guitar into a completely different instrument. It’s surprisingly easy to use, delivers excellent quality tones, and has more bells and whistles than you’ll know what to do with.

The other side of the coin is that it’s a hell of an investment once you total up the additional pickup and cable into the cost, and it requires a lot of setting up to get there. The pickup installation isn’t too bad if you’re going for the non-permanent option, but you will spend hours tweaking the settings of the pedal to get it perfect for your guitar and playing style. Considering the overall nerdiness of this guitar processing system, I guess that comes with the territory.

MusicRadar verdict: While there’s no doubting that the Boss VG-800 fills a very niche part of the guitar spectrum, it does so extremely well. It’s not cheap, especially when you factor in the cost of the pickup and specific cable required to make it work, but boy does it track the sound incredibly accurately once set up. If you’re looking to turn your guitar or bass into a completely different instrument, there’s no better way to do it than this.

Also try

Hands-on videos

Guitar World

Brett Kingman

Guitar Bonedo

Boss has just unveiled a guitar effects pedal that assumes the familiar form of its compact series units, and yet can do the job of any one of 16 of the pedal giant’s most popular effects.

The PX-1 Plugout FX is in a sense a multi-effects pedal, only – like the Line 6 HX One – it allows you to use one effect at a time. Here, Boss presents us with 16 models in total, and eight effects always-installed, plus a further eight user-definable presets.

Boss promises that more of its back catalogue will be digitalised and made available to the PX-1 via a low-cost Model Pass.

With 16 classic Boss effects to choose from now, more to come, the PX-1 is a creature of electric guitar’s digital transformation, presenting us with an abundance of choice. And yet the effects on offer will all be familiar to long-time fans of Boss.

We’re going all the way back to 1977 with the OD-1 Overdrive, one of the most iconic overdrive pedals of all time, its asymmetric clipping designed to emulate the breakup of a tube amp. That is present and correct. There is also the DS-1 Distortion, and yes, right now you are picturing an orange box with black text because this distortion pedal is almost ubiquitous in guitar culture – it is Boss’ top-selling pedal of all time for a reason.

There are some other evergreen choices, like the PH-1 Phaser and the CE-2 Chorus – one of the quintessential chorus pedals – plus the DD-2 Digital Delay pedal and OC-2 Octave.

But Boss has taken this opportunity to roll out some deep cuts, too, like the SG-1 Slow Gear, a cult favourite for its dynamic violining effects, the DF-2 Super Feedbacker and Distortion, a mid ‘80s curio that paired distortion with an onboard feedbacker, and the SP-1 Spectrum, which could be your secret EQ weapon for making your guitar solos pop.

The eight effects in the PX-1’s permanent library include the aforementioned OD-1, SP-1, PH-1, SG-1, DS-1, plus the TW-1 Wah, SD-1 Super Overdrive and the CS-1 Compression Sustainer.

Once you sign up for your free Roland Cloud Ultimate Membership, you can add the other eight to the presets. These include the previously mentioned CE-2, DS-1, DF-2, and DD-2, plus the PN-2 Tremolo/Pan, BF-2 Flanger, VB-2 Vibrato, and PS-2 Digital Pitch Shifter/Delay.

One thing we particularly like about the PX-1 is that, while it might be powered by all-new state-of-the-art modelling algorithms, delivering the “genuine sound and response of the pedal it’s based on”, the control interface is much like your garden variety Boss pedal.

The white enclosure has just three blue dials with metal inserts, each adjusting various parameters depending on the pedal. This looks like user-friendly way to give your pedalboard the ultimate wildcard. There’s also a swap function that lets you toggle between effects, and we have expression pedal inputs, tap tempo and MIDI clock support for the time-based effects, plus full stereo connections.

Priced £229/$249, the PX-1 Plugout FX is available now. See Boss for more details.

The rotating speaker sound is one of the coolest sounds in electric guitar. Jimi Hendrix has used it. David Gilmour has used it. Stevie Ray Vaughan, likewise, was a fan. The problem is that the vintage hardware is large and impractical, and expensive.

Luckily, players looking for that psychedelic mojo and spatial movement have options – the Uni-Vibe for instance – but Boss might just have dropped the best of the lot, the RT-2 Rotary Ensemble, which is a feature-packed rotary speaker simulator with three modes, various speed controls, mono or stereo operation – and it even has a Drive knob to emulate the saturation you get from the original unit’s tube-driven preamp section.

There is a lot going on. Boss is maximising the Compact Series’ small pedalboard footprint here. In a traditional rotating speaker setup, you have a treble horn and a bass woofer, each of them physically spinning within the cabinet, sending the sound out across the room.

Originally, the rotating speaker was designed for the organ, so while we are talking about the RT-2 here in the context of electric guitar, hooking it up to an electronic keyboard will yield a similar effect. Boss has voiced this to work well with digital pianos and synthesizers, too.

One drawback from stompbox emulations of mechanical units is that you lose that sense of physical movement.

Boss might not have been able to make this spin on your ‘board, and that, most would agree, is a good thing, but it has made room for a super-cool visual display that lights up to indicate the speed of the virtual treble and bass rotors.

Seeing this helps you visualise the real thing. And it’s also useful on a darkened stage to see how you have the pedal set up.

The RT-2 offers you three distinct flavours of rotary speaker emulation. There is a classic vintage voicing, and two modified voicings with “enhanced spatial effects”. Mode II, for instance, widens the range of tones. Boss suggests adding an overdrive pedal to proceedings to enhance the vibe. Mode III gives you “enhanced definition with intense modulation and drive settings, adding power and presence to arpeggio playing and solos”.

This a hugely configurable pedal. The Drive knob can add a little sparkle or some gritty heat. But if you don’t need it, there is a Drive/Balance switch at the top of the pedal that allows you to set it to Balance and use the Drive knob to adjust the balance between the treble and bass rotors, shaping the tone of the effect accordingly.

There is also a two-way Rise/Fall switch that gives you fast and slow settings for the transition time between rotor speeds, while the two-way Fast/Slow Speed knob lets you adjust the rate of the effect.

But you can control all of these with an external expression pedal. The RT-2 can take up to two external switches, giving you independent speed control and a Brake setting that stops the rotors in their tracks, holding that tone in perpetuity.

You can run the pedal in mono, stereo, or configure it for a wet/dry stereo rig. As Boss says, it welcomes other effects, which is of course in the same spirit of sonic adventurism that the original hardware rotating speakers were used in when Hendrix, Gilmour and SRV fired them up.

The RT-2 Rotary Ensemble is available now, priced £229/$239. For more details, head over to Boss.

• Roland puts 8 classic Boss effects pedals in a new plugin, and there are more to come... but they're only available with a Roland Cloud subscription

Boss has unveiled a newly refreshed version of its MusicRadar approved Katana:Go, redesigning the exterior of the headphone amp while offering all the same sounds and features.

It seemed only yesterday that we had the Katana:Go in for review. It was “a triumph” that injected classic Boss tones right into your ears, with the guitar effects pedal giant’s spatial audio tech making the Stage Feel feature a real game-changer for electric guitar tone as experienced through a set of headphones, making it sound three-dimensional, immersive and, for the want of a better word, real.

Indeed, we had no gripes with the unit’s design expect for the lack of tap tempo. Alas, Boss retired the old design and set the R&D department loose on a new one, moving the big (well, relatively speaking “big” as everything on this unit is small) level control to the side besides all the other controls.

The original Katana:Go’s display remains in place, showing you which of your 30 user-defined memory banks is active or the guitar tuner. That tuner, by the way, is exceptional.

The sounds are, too, and there are lots to choose from. In guitar mode, you'll find 10 amp models and 60 effects. Bass mode has three amps and 60 effects.

Boss uses the word “infinite” when it comes to tones, which seems hyperbolic but when you connect to the Boss Tone Exchange, sharing Livesets and sounds with other users, then factor in all that tone design allied to the sounds you can cook up with the Boss Tone Studio app (iOS/Android) then, perhaps, infinite is the operative word.

Compatible with bass guitars, too, the Katana:Go ships pre-loaded with 30 different presets. Connect via Bluetooth to the device of your choice and then edit the sounds – or create all-new ones – with the Boss Tone Studio app.

This is all part of the Katana guitar amps eco-system, which means you can import your tone settings from other Katana amps and run them here.

The obvious benefit of the headphone amp is how it transforms practice. Especially for anybody in a flat share, or with small children at home, being able to woodshed silently at all hours is a godsend.

There are all sorts of ways you can use the Katana:Go as a practice amp, particularly when you run Tone Studio in Session mode, in which you can loop challenging parts, play allowing with timestamped YouTube tracks, and set the amp up to change settings automatically as you play along to a song.

You can also use it as a guitar audio interface, which in old money is a great tool for recording your ideas before you forget them, and in new money – the age of the social media – it makes content creation a little easier.

“Users can simply plug it into their instrument, connect earbuds or headphones, call up a memory, and go,” says Boss. But you can also expand the experience and pair it with Boss’ FS-1-WL wireless footswitch and/or EV-1-WL wireless MIDI expression pedal, both sold separately.

That’s a lot of amp for £109/$129 – a lot from an amp that you can stick into your pocket. You will get up to five ours of playing time from the rechargeable battery. Head over to Boss for more pics and details.

NAMM 2025: Boss has launched the Waza Tube Amp Expander Core, a “streamlined” and more compact version of its feature-packed reactive load box that promises “world-class recorded tones with no engineering experience required” – just what the home recording musician wants to hear.

This is a serious piece of kit for any guitarist who owns a tube amp. As much as we love our tube amps, it remains an iron law of electric guitar tone that they only really start to sound great once you’ve got them turned up, making those power tubes work for their money, but in doing so you have got to deal with all that volume.

Great for the stage. Not great for flatmates, neighbours, the Noise Abatement Society. AC/DC posited that rock ’n’ roll was not noise pollution but in the real world it has consequences. Well, the Waza Tube Amp Expander Core allows you to run your tube amp hot and access those sweet spots while playing at practice-friendly (and neighbour-friendly) volumes.

Furthermore, it has a suite of features that could make it an essential part of your home recording setup. This is an increasingly competitive market, the Waza Tube Amp Expander Core, $699 RRP, is priced somewhere between the Two Notes Engineering Torpedo series and more expensive units such as the original Waza Tube Amp Expander and the Universal Audio Ox Amp Top Box.

Boss says the unit takes the heavy lifting out of creating “mix-ready” guitar tracks. “The advanced Boss Tube Logic design approach harnesses the complete output of a connected tube amplifier, supported by premium cab emulation and studio processing to craft impactful, mix-ready guitar tracks,” says Boss.

Players tracking at home can use the Mix Assist feature to apply one of sound contour curves to their parts, with a variable transient control to make sure these parts sit well within the mix.

Direct recording needs a sense of space to make it sound real, and that’s where the Air Feel control comes in, applying spatial technology to make it sound like it is being recorded in a physical space.

There is a parallel/series effects loop for pedalboard integration, and this being Boss there are some onboard effects, too, with compression, EQ, delay, and reverb.

The editor software really expands the functionality. There are 22 Boss cabinet emulations and five recording microphone types to choose from. You can use two mics simultaneously.

The editor is your friend when it comes to designing and arranging these sounds, and you can save 10 of your favourite settings to the unit, selecting them via the Rig rotary dial. There is a headphones out with level control, plus controls for speaker out and line out volume. You can switch between combo and stack reactive load modes.

Around the back you’ll find a pair of XLR outputs (left and right), a connection for the Bluetooth adaptor (sold separately), a MIDI input, 1/4” tube amp input with selectable input level switch, a USB connection and the effects loop send and return.

The Waza Tube Amp Expander Core is available now. See Boss for more details.

Boss has been busy today. Earlier we saw the release of Boss' V-800 V-Guitar Processor, a virtual instrument unit that allows players to make their electric or bass guitar sound like another model, and acoustic guitar, a sitar, banjo, synth and a whole lot more besides.

NAMM 2025: Boss has launched a new virtual guitar processor that can take the signal from your electric guitar – or indeed bass guitar – and turn its sound into something totally new. The V-800 V-Guitar Processor draws upon Boss’s formidable modelling tech to present players with a bewildering array of possibilities.

Say you have a Les Paul; the V-800 can make it sound like a Stratocaster. Or a Telecaster, perhaps any model of guitar you can think of. You can also go unplugged while remaining, err, plugged, taking your electric signal and turning it into an acoustic guitar of your choice.

And why stop at guitar? The V-800 also allows you to turn your sound into a sitar, a banjo, a ukulele, a synthesizer… The list goes on. Bored of standard tunings? You can also use it as base camp for exploring open tunings without the need to reach for the guitar tuner.

“Driven by the latest generation of BOSS V-Guitar technology and the Serial GK divided pickup, this extraordinary creative tool allows players to completely transform their sound at the push of a button,” says Boss. “Advanced modelling provides the ability to play different stringed instruments together or on isolated strings, explore alternate and down tunings, and go even further with all-new sounds not possible with traditional instruments.”

Longtime fans of the Boss/Roland lineage of products – and let’s face it, who among us isn’t? – will be cheered to know that the V-800 does a “spot-on” impression of a vintage Roland GR-300 guitar synth, so those super-cool ‘80s sounds are go with this.

The question is where to start with all this? Firstly, you will need one of Boss’ Serial GK MIDI electric guitar pickup systems (sold separately) to access this wealth of modelling functionality.

These, however, are user-installable. You don’t need to have done an internship at Bare Knuckle to get them on your instrument. Expect to pay £179/$249 street for the GK-5 divided pickup for electric guitar. There is also a permanent installation option for those who wish to invest more and go down that route.

Once you have installed the MIDI, well, the factory presets would be a good place to start. That will give you a taste of what the V-800 can do. You can then start designing your own sounds and saving them down, with 150 user-assignable memory slots available.

The V-800 is designed to invite experimentation. Players can pan sounds from different strings to different sides of the stereo spread. As mentioned above, you can approach this virtual instrument sound design on a string-by-string basis. There are VIO Guitar and Vio Bass modes that mimic a bowed response.

There are Dual Guitar and Dual Bass modes, which, if we are reading Boss correctly, mean you can have two different guitar or bass sounds running independently and simultaneously, which sounds like it could be very interesting, perhaps doubling your electric sound with an acoustic for extra texture. You can give your Telecaster – heck, your Les Paul – a B-bender without taking it into the shop, adding an expression pedal to control string pitches on the fly.

Furthermore, the routing options make it a powerful recording tool. Use it as a USB/MIDI guitar audio interface, sending your signal to the DAW via the multi-channel routing.

“It’s even possible to separately record the unprocessed string sounds from the GK divided pickup, then pipe them back into the VG-800 for ‘re-guitar’ or ‘re-bass’ processing,” says Boss. “Speedy pitch-to-MIDI conversion is also supported to trigger software-based instruments with a guitar or bass.”

Deeper edits can be made via the Boss Tone Studio software. The V-800 is priced $649 and will be available via dealers in February. For more details, visit Boss.

My wallet hates it when it happens but sometimes I review a piece of guitar gear that I can't say goodbye to – it's just that good. And in the case of the Boss DM-101 Delay Machine, it was the most I'd ever spent on a pedal. But I've never regretted it… until Thomann dropped this huge discount on it in its Black Friday music deals.

The good news is that this deal is still live. The bad news, unless you pull the trigger, is that the offer ends on Monday.

While I wouldn't be without this pedal now – it's still an analogue delay lover's wonderland that I am still finding new inspiration in it – I paid significantly more than this.

You see, when it launched, the Delay Machine was an eyebrow-raising $499/£449, and though I paid less than that when I bought it – it wasn't near what Thomann is selling it for now: just $245/£235.

Nobody else is getting close to this price right now in the Black Friday sales – some retailers are charging £399 for it still! And for £235 you're getting a lot of delay pedal here. If you're into analogue delay pedals, this is where it's at.

A whopping eight Bucket Brigade Device chips help to fuel this beast's 12 delay modes. It sounds glorious – lush and organic in ways digital emulations just can't deliver. There's a mode based on Boss's legendary DM-2 (the current reissue of which now costs $169.99 alone) and others like Pan and Wide that really go to town with the pedal's stereo capabilities. The Multi-Head recreation is surprisingly deep too.

The user interface is wonderfully old school – with no screens in site four onboard presets that are easy to edit. The metal build feels premium. It looks retro in all the right ways. The DM-101 will go down in pedal history as a classic.

In fact, I liked it so much I ended up having to buy a bigger pedalboard around it. And now it's never leaving my rig. I'm just glad more players will be able to enjoy it with this huge reduction.

• Check out more great Black Friday music deals

Boss has expanded its Katana series with a take-anywhere 10-watt guitar amp that might be super-portable with a compact 5” speaker, but promises “full-bodied” electric guitar tones.

We say electric but the Katana-Mini X will similarly welcome the signal from an acoustic electric guitar or bass.There are three amp types, or “characters” as Boss refers to them, all powered by Boss’ Tube Logic tech, each with an alternate voicing.

Clean is the archetypical glassy clean and a sound pedalboard platform. Its alternate mode offers the aforementioned flat-response for acoustics and bass guitars.

Crunch is where things head up, “fat and expressive mid-gain” that responds to how hard you are picking. You might even call it the blues guitar channel. Its alternate voicing presents you with more high-end, a little more sizzle on the top when you need to pin the audience to the back of their seats.

Finally, we get to the evocatively titled Brown amp. We can’t help but think Eddie Van Halen. Boss describes this as the Katana’s signature high-gain amp sound, and that it was “inspired by the finest hard rock tones of all time” only deepens out suspicion that EVH’s hotrodded Marshall tone was a lodestar when the Boss R&D department were engineering this.

The Brown amp’s secondary voicing tightens up the low end and offers “crisper highs” which should present metal guitarist’s with the slightly scooped EQ profile and requisite firepower for some serious chug.

There are 10 onboard effects, accessible via two dials. Reverb and delays are controlled via one. Chorus, phaser, tremolo, touch wah, Dreffeter, Synth and octave are all controlled by the other.

Multiple parameters are controlled at once, so as you turn the knob clockwise the effect will get more intense before moving onto the next effect on the dial.

There is an onboard guitar tuner, too, accessed via a button on the front panel. Everything you need is right there. There is a three-band EQ for shaping your sound, plus dials for volume and gain, with a three-way switch to select your amp type, and a push button to access its alternate voicing.

There is a headphones output with cabsim and stereo effects for silent practice, and this output can also send your signal to a DAW for recording.

Push the Bluetooth button and you can pair the Katana-Mini X with a mobile device or laptop and stream audio to it – a 100 per cent useful feature when practising.

Finally, there is a USB port on the front panel so you can easily charge and/or power the amp. You should get up to 10 hours of playing time from a full charge.

Priced £145/$149 the Katana-Mini X is available now. See Boss for more details.

After first exploding onto the London DJ scene in the early 2000s, Hannah Holland has become a mainstay of the queer and alternative club world. Since she founded Batty Bass Records in 2008, her career has spanned the writing of a plethora of soundtracks (including Adult Material and Electrician) as well as a wide array of collaborative material. In 2021, she released her debut studio album - Tectonic - to a flurry of acclaim.

On the heels of her recent pulse-pounding score for the Bruce LaBruce film The Visitor, we caught up with Hannah to learn more about her creative process and to enquire about some of her go-to tools for unlocking her sonic creativity.

MusicRadar: Hi Hannah, first can we ask you about your recent soundtrack to the film The Visitor - it’s an extraordinary listen, full of rippling, kinetic sounds and diverse instrumentation. How did this project first come about?

Hannah Holland: “It came about through a friend, Kurtis Lincoln, who I'd been making some music with. He had just shot some of the film as he was in it, I was in the studio with him and he started telling me about working with Bruce LaBruce (the film’s director) who is an absolute queer icon.

“I knew about Bruce LaBruce from the 90s when I was a teenager watching his famous Hustler White film. He’s this kind of legendary figure. So, it was really amazing that my friend was in his film. Then, soon after he told me the production team were looking for a London-based composer, so I went forward for it.

"I’d previously met Bruce through a theatre project a few years ago, and we were sort of aware of each other. One thing led to another, we had a meeting. I did a demo for him, and it just kind of all sunk up very nicely.”

MR: How long did you spend making the soundtrack. Were you able to compose to picture?

HH: "They sent me a rough cut of the film - It’s essentially a re-make of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Theorem, which - weirdly - I had seen two or three days before we had got in contact. It’s a cult Italian film from the 60s starring Terence Stamp. Ennio Morricone did the soundtrack, quite a discordant, weird, avant garde soundtrack - very edgy and uncomfortable.

"We talked about something riffing on a main theme for The Visitor that [referenced] that original soundtrack. Bruce's work is porn, so the sex scenes were going to be cut to techno. Then, the rest of it was going to be this kind of avant-garde electronica, sort of soundscapes.

"I made a piece of music for them and sent it. And, yeah, they loved it. So that's kind of how it started. We used that piece as a main theme, and then I did different versions of that for different scenes.

"I gave them a lot of my work, so they cut to a lot of my techno and dance-floor tracks which which seemed to work with the the spirit of the film. During that process, we kind of came up with a [sonic] palette,

"I had just bought an ARP Odyssey before I started working on this - that was absolutely perfect for the soundtrack. I put loads of MIDI through that, and it's such an unpredictable machine that it came up with some really sort of gnarly sounds, and then I married that with strings.”

MR: The track The Screamer is such an invigorating listen - and the low end is really deep and kinetic. And how did that one start, and what did you use to give that track that energy?

HH: "That track already existed, actually. I'd given them a lot of my work which had never been released. The Screamer has been something that I made with Jonjo Jury about ten years ago. It never got released. We [both] love it, but it never seemed to sit anywhere. But, when this project came up, it just was the perfect kind of track for what they wanted.

"The driving bass part is my bass guitar - and a lot of cow bell! I had a Roland SH- 101 back when I had a studio in Hackney Wick and we had a really fun time, just like making a lot of mental sounds through that."

MR: Did you have to augment your older tracks to make them fit the film?

HH: "For the actual scenes that they used them in, they wanted the music to be very like upfront. It's almost a music video-type scenario, whereas when the rest of the film is going on, the soundtrack is more melded into the the dialog and the atmosphere of the film.

"Some of it was very new. The track She’s Giving Cray came out this year, and that was sat amongst music that's been around for the last ten years. It’s brilliant to be able to bring them onto a soundtrack, because I think a lot of my stuff has got a kind of cinematic edge to it.”

MR: What pieces on the soundtrack would you say your most proud of?

HH: "I did a cool collaboration with Roy Inc, called Animal. We actually did that one quite recently, and that was another one where we weren't quite sure where it was going to sit. But considering Roy’s history in queer culture, having him involved with Bruce's film worked so well. Everything worked incredibly well with the film. That was a really fun collaboration to do.

“I guess [the soundscapes] are sort of something that's relatively new to me, in a way. I mean, I've done maybe, like four or five big projects using this kind of abstract, kind of soundscape work. I just absolutely love it. I find it really fun to do."

MR: What are some of your primary tools for exploring sounds and is it mainly hardware or software you use these days?

HH: "It’s a mixture. I love the ARP Odyssey, that’s really fun to use. I love putting my bass guitar through effects pedals. I use the Korg Prologue quite a lot as hardware. I always go back to Kaoss pads. There's quite a lot of Kaoss Pad on The Visitor soundtrack.

“I absolutely love playing around in Ableton and just finding obscure effects and sound design plugins. I love Guitar Rig - the effects on that are brilliant, the animated effects [in particular] are so good.

Putting the ARP Odyssey through Guitar Rig just throws up really interesting sounds and very kind of like atmospheric sounds. Cabelguys ShaperBox is really fun.

What was really useful on this soundtrack was this plugin called Swirl by Kentaro. I'm not even sure how I found that, but it was just some guy that sells plugins - it’s not sort of a big brand or whatever.

“I absolutely love rinsing the BBC Sound Effects Archive for things like church bells and choirs and things like that, which was used a lot in the soundtrack. It’s such a brilliant library, and it's all royalty-free stuff that you can use. Anything you can think of has been recorded in that archive. I love taking that and then sampling it and using and putting it through sound design programs and, yeah, pissing about basically.”

MR: Do you use Ableton Live as your main DAW?

HH: "Everything's organised in there. It’s really good for me - for cutting and scoring to picture as well, because it has the it has quite a nice video [integration[ to it as well.

"I just find it very, very creative, like how you can just drag things in from other projects, really easily, and re-sample stuff. It’s good to think of it as like a an instrument in itself. I just love Ableton. I think it's brilliant."

MR: Your career started back in the 2000s, in those days, virtual DAWs weren't really as prominent as they are now. How did you get into software-based music making? Was that a kind of gradual process, or did you kind of leap on it as soon as it arose?

HH: "My friend had the first version of Ableton. That must have been maybe 1999 or something. It was a long, long time ago. I remember my friend (who actually got me into DJing as well) had it.

"I just loved how you could throw things together, it's such a great program to just use when you have no knowledge of anything, it’s very intuitive. I started playing around with it then.

"I was also in a band as a teenager in the '90s, and we were always trying to record stuff at home using Logic. So I had a bit of knowledge of just recording stuff [into] Logic. But, yeah, I had Ableton since the first number of version one.”

MR: How different is creating music for a soundtrack versus making a track for your own artistic projects?

HH: "I feel like when I'm doing soundtrack stuff, and there's a similar kind of feel to when I'm DJing - in a way - because you're very much responding to the atmosphere of the scene. It's very similar to when I'm DJing, and I'm kind of like feeling what the room needs, and which way to go with the DJ set.

"Usually, when I’m making a soundtrack, the director will have a strong reference point of what they want the music to sound like and what direction they want the music to go in. But, they're hiring me for the certain style that I do. Then I'll go away, and I'll kind of come up with lots of references, like lots of different artists.

I'll make a Spotify playlist of around 50 tracks that I feel fits the vibe. Then I'll start creating demos and start riffing - inspired by that playlist. It kind of organically grows from there, because I'll be then sending the director demos, and I'll start feeding them into the edit and seeing what works.”

MR: So how do you know when something is done? Do you sometimes have to just step away from a piece and say ‘that's it’?

HH: "Yeah, obviously we can fiddle around with pieces of music forever, but I think there's an instinctual skill for just being able to just go like ‘that is actually finished’ - I think it's just instinct, basically,

"I'm quite confident when it comes to choosing music, I’m very sure about what sounds right for some reason. It’s sort of like, when you’ve finished painting, and there's something about it that you just know."

MR: A few years back, you released your debut solo album Tectonic. How was the process of making that album, and what did you learn from that experience?

HH: "It felt very expansive being able to make that. It was the first time that I was given room to create an album, because I'd started doing soundtrack stuff, I wanted to really marry my electronic world, with the soundtrack world.

"It was really interesting process, it was interesting to take my arrangements to Big Jelly Studios and put them through loads of amazing vintage machines. That was a real learning process as well. It was also great to bring in musicians, because I've been working with a band called Black Gold Buffalo, so I really love working alongside live musicians.

"That was another opportunity to bring in Raven Bush on on violin, and Francesca Ter-Berg on on cello as well. They improvise their parts with my guidance - I really love that kind of magic of working with other musicians and seeing what is created."

MR: What advice would you give to anyone looking to have a kind of career like yours in this day and age?

HH: "I think you have to be as authentic as possible, really. When I first started DJing, it was a lot of graft - playing a lot of really low-key gigs and house parties anywhere that would have me DJ and just doing a lot. I think really honing your craft, honing your skills, and not expecting things to happen, you know, straight away - but that can happen very quickly these days.

"It takes time to learn how to DJ in a club and how to work - how to read a dance floor, that's a real skill. I think it’s really important to take the time to learn how to do that and just do it as much as possible."

"With production, I think it took so long to make it sound good, you know, and it's always a work in progress. I'm hardly ever satisfied with anything that I do, you're just striving to get better and everything that you make doesn't sound like how you want it, but It's endurance, it's patience.

"You want to be able to explore your sound, and, you know, do something that's authentic and just learn how to to create. You’ve got to really see production like it’s exercise - you’ve got to really exercise the muscle to keep yourself fit. When I'm on Ableton, it's like muscle memory. Even if I just do like, 20 minutes or half an hour a day, it's honing that muscle memory."

To listen and buy Hannah Holland's music and her soundtrack for The Visitor, head over to her Bandcamp page

Boss has unveiled the GX-10, a typically feature-packed amp modeller and guitar multi-effects unit that packs all the processing power and sounds of the GX-100 into a smaller format – and it also has the same LCD colour touchscreen as its larger sibling.

The GX-10 is designed for guitar and bass guitar alike, and presents a bounty of sounds for both. All in, there are some 32 amp models, nine for bass and 23 for electric guitar.

This being a Boss production there is an abundance of effects here, with 170 options including various drives, distortions and boosts, all the modulation family – including those industry-standard Boss chorus pedal sounds that have arguably never been bettered – reverbs, delays and some of the Japanese brand’s more off-road and cult classic sounds.

Dial in some staccato chop with the Slicer. Take your guitar’s signal two octaves down with the Octave.

And while you’re at it, take that vintage SG-1 Slow Gear out of your cart; there’s no need to be spending over 500 bucks on an out-of-production pedal when you can have those violining and volume effect sounds right here – and you can program them into a preset. The looper can record 38 seconds in mono, 19 in stereo.

Boss says the GX-10 is designed for the stage, studio or practice space… In short, you can take it anywhere, and at 2.2kg you can throw it in your backpack and use it as a fly-rig. Dual-function footswitches allied to the touchscreen should mean little is compromised just because the pedal is smaller.

You can assign any of the three footswitches to perform a number of functions, from turning an overdrive on for a solo to for changing numerous parameters with one click. There are 66 preset banks and space onboard the unit for 198 user-programmed presets.

The GX-10 has an integrated expression pedal that can similarly be assigned to any number of effects parameters – and right out of the box it is configured so that you can toggle between using it as a volume or wah pedal, and to turn the onboard guitar tuner on and off.

We were big fans of the GX-100’s amp sounds and these are the same sounds that you will find here, with Boss’ proprietary AIRD technology doing a sterling job of emulating tube amp tone and feel with a digital model.

Those whose chosen medium positions them out there on the outer limits of metal guitar have some options with the high-gain trifecta of Boss’ X-Ultra, X-Optima, and X-Titan models.

Around the back of the GX-10 you will find a send/return for the effects loop, allowing you to use it with your pedalboard. There are outputs for running in mono or stereo, plus inputs for expanding the unit with an external expression pedal or control pedal.

There is a USB-C connection that allows you not only to make deeper edits and organise your sounds via the Boss Tone Studio app but to use the GX-10 as a guitar audio interface. And there is a 1/4” headphones output for monitoring and silent practice. You can also connect to the GX-10 via Bluetooth and edit settings and stream audio through it. But you will need the BT-DUAL Bluetooth Audio MIDI Dual Adaptor for this. Sold separately, the BT-DUAL will cost you £44.

Players also have access to the Boss’s Tone Exchange platform, where you can share Livesets with other GX-10 users and download player presets to your unit, and because the GX-10’s digital brain is the same as the GX-100, all the Livesets that had been created for the latter are compatible on the former.

This is the year 2024 so of course there are numerous options for cab sims and IR uploading. The sound quality is premium. The GX-10 has a 48kHz sampling rate, 32-bit DA conversion, 32-bit floating point processing, and there is a superb signal-to-noise ratio thanks to the 24-bit AD conversion that uses Roland/Boss’ proprietary Adaptive Focus method.

The price is not bad either – expect to pay £349/$399. The Boss GX-10 is available now. See Boss for more details.

Fred Again has opened up about his career and creative process in a new interview with behatted Canadian journalist Nardwuar. 

In the 45-minute conversation, Fred touches on a variety of topics that include his relationship with “friend and mentor” Brian Eno, his love of the Amen break, and experimental compositions written during his studies at Trinity College London.

Speaking about his introduction to electronic music-making, Fred recalled how his guitar teacher introduced him to Logic, his first DAW, at age 12. “I was making songs on a Boss,” he says. 

“I had one of those Boss eight-track things, and because I wanted to do these really grand pieces, I would do that thing of recording eight tracks on to the Boss, and then recording all eight on to one track of the new session, so I could get seven more tracks, and then recording all eight of that on to the next two tracks, so I could get six more tracks, so cumulatively I could get 60, or whatever.” 

It was at this point that Fred’s teacher introduced him to Logic, which he says blew his 12-year-old mind: “He showed me Logic, and I was like, ‘how many tracks can you use?,” he recalls. “He was like: ‘as many as you want’. I was like, ‘oh my gosh’.... And that was the beginning of the greatest love affair of my life”. 

Later in the interview, Fred describes an unconventional piece composed during his time at university, the orchestral performance of which featured a full-length playback of D’Angelo’s Untitled (How Does It Feel). 

“I went to Trinity College to do classical writing”, Fred recalls. “They said we had to write a piece for a 30-piece string orchestra. But they said we could also use a keyboard, like a synthesizer. I asked the person, ‘can the keyboard synthesizer be a sampler?’ And they said yes, it can.

“But we know that a sampler can be anything. You can press the C and it could trigger the noise of Kennington train station, or it could trigger a whole song that you’ve sampled. My idea was to have the orchestra improvise random notes for six minutes, and then at the six-minute mark, the keyboard player holds middle C for six minutes, and it just plays Untitled by D’Angelo in full.”

“That was my favourite song at the time, and still one of the best ever. I was like, this is brilliant, this is an excuse for me to get to listen to my favourite song in a big room on nice speakers. Then I wrote an essay, because I had to intellectually justify it, so I was saying it was a comment on how all music is plagiarized. 

“In the first half, they were improvising in the key of Untitled, and arguably some of them would have accidentally, by sheer probability, played some of the notes and melodies from Untitled… it was totally bullshit, but kind of funny. One of the teachers said it was about as useful as a concerto for sewing machines.”

Fred’s composition might sound a little out-of-the-box, but when we consider his penchant for integrating samples, field recordings and even iPhone Voice Memos into his tracks, this unconventional idea sound a little less preposterous. 

Subscribe to Nardwuar's channel on YouTube.

The ex-Ticketmaster boss who hacked into his previous employees’ systems and brought about their collapse has been sentenced.

Stephen Mead had worked for CrowdSurge as their Senior Vice President for Global Operations and General Manager in North America. He then joined Ticketmaster. Whilst there Mead allegedly accessed CrowdSurge’s system with IP addresses registered to Ticketmaster at least 25 times between August 2013 and December 2015.

This wasn’t just a case of a lone wolf gone rogue. According to the court papers Ticketmaster executives had asked Mead to share “competitive intelligence” about CrowdSurge. 

Mead went on to share confidential CrowdSurge spreadsheets, access to the company’s password-protected information, and discussed how to cut off “CrowdSurge at the knees”. Mead also shared real-time ticket sales data as well as the identities of the artists the company was working with.

His co-conspirator and boss, the former Ticketmaster executive, Zeeshan Zaidi, pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit computer intrusions and wire fraud back in 2019.

Mead pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit computer intrusions in June. He has been ordered to pay $67,970 (£52,000) as a forfeiture and has been sentenced to a year’s supervised release. 

Many would say he has got off lightly, considering the Department of Justice stated during the case that his actions contributed to the downfall of CrowdSurge.

This couldn’t come at a worse time for Ticketmaster, whose practices are currently under scrutiny in the wake of the Oasis tickets debacle. The industry practice of ‘dynamic’ or ‘surge’ pricing whereby ticket prices can suddenly rise for in-demand shows has recently had a light shone upon it. 

The government have confirmed that it will be looking at it in their upcoming review of the secondary ticketing market, and artists are increasingly under pressure to distance themselves from the practice – in the last week both David Gilmour and Robert Smith of the Cure have come out against it.

Meanwhile last week the consumer brand Which? called on Ticketmaster to refund Oasis fans that have been affected by dynamic pricing. Which? said that it believes Ticketmaster’s “lack of transparency” about dynamic pricing “could have breached the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations (CPRs) as many fans were not informed about the increases until after they had already tried to add cheaper tickets to their baskets”.

Boss continues to knock it out the park when it comes to delay pedals; 2023 was a golden year, even by the Japanese effects pioneer's standards. On the analogue side we saw the DM-100 Delay Machine raise the bar on BBD-driven repeats, but the digital fans got a feast too with the acclaimed 1983 SDE-3000 rack unit reborn in pedal form. But it was a sizeable pedal, so just as Boss did with the Space Echo, its now made a more compact version called the SDE-3. 

Alongside its mono and stereo output options, Boss has included a unique Offset function to the compact versions to allow players access to dual-delay "textures".

Familiar delay time, feedback, rate and depth controls for the modulation are combined with level, time and hi-cut via Boss's stacked knobs to make the most of the scaled-down pedal real estate. An Offset control allows you to alter simultaneous delay timings by up to 100ms for the kind of expansive tones Eddie Van Halen loved so much in the Van Hagar era. 

The SDE-3 features two stereo modes include discrete left/right delays and a panning option for "ultra-wide sounds that

move across the stereo field". For those using a two-amp rig with wet-dry setup, dry and effect-only signals can be split, and the direct sound can be muted for studio mixing and parallel effect guitar rigs.

The SDE-3's tap tempo mode is accessed via a press and hold of the pedal switch – but can also be accessed via external footswitch input. This same input can be used for an expression pedal too for altering time, level and feedback parameters with your foot.

Check out the demos above and below to hear what this little pedal can do, and check out Sweetwater and  Andertons and Reverb to order for $219.99£169.

• Boss DM-101 Delay Machine pedal review

Finding a guitar amp that does it all can feel like a tall order. However, since its arrival in 2016, the Boss Katana series has become the world leader in terms of features, versatility, and value. Now, the new Katana Gen 3 amps have elevated that experience for players in a number of key ways. So, even if you're an existing Katana user, there are plenty of reasons to upgrade.

These are the best Katana amps yet, thanks to numerous DSP and hardware upgrades with evolved Tube Logic enhancement. The result? Even greater sound, feel, and response for guitarists. But for existing Katana fans and newcomers alike there's much more to discover with Gen 3…

Authentic tube tones and feel 

The improved Tube Logic design architecture of the Katana Gen 3 series delivers the detail and response of classic tube amplifiers without the downsides of bulky valve-driven heads and combos. Reliable Katana technology that’s road-ready and portable also avoids the cost of needing fragile replacement tubes.

The Katana's Variable Power Control also means players can get the cranked tube amp sound at neighbour-friendly volumes. This authentic feel is further complemented by the Katana's Reactive Class AB analog power section. 

Expanded versatility 

Key to the Katana's global popularity are its incredibly versatile amp characters. From crystalline cleans to earth-shaking high-gain, the meticulously crafted Brown, Lead, Crunch, Clean, and Acoustic amps deliver everything a guitarist could wish for. These can be explored with selectable variations for each model to go even deeper. The Katana Gen 3 line significantly expands its broad sonic palette with a groundbreaking new amp type called Pushed.

The Pushed character showcases Boss Tube Logic technology with its edge-of-breakup sounds that highlight rich harmonies and touch-responsive feel. 

The Boss Katana Head Gen 3, Katana Artist Gen 3, and Katana Artist Head Gen 3 models also introduce the new Bloom switch; a dedicated analog circuit that brings a whole new feel to your sound with a sharper attack in the high-end and rich low-end response. The best of both worlds! 

Experience-enhancing new features 

Boss's dedication to upgrading Katana Gen 3 isn't only focused on the top-line features of sounds, but all the other details that matter to players too. Gen 3 amps from the Katana-50 EX model and upwards feature a handy Solo function that helps you cut through the mix when needed. And all the Gen 3 amps now benefit from USB-C connectivity alongside expression pedal jacks too.

The larger Katana-100 Gen 3 amps and upwards now feature the additions of a Cab Resonance selector switch and Equalizer Contour button to allow deeper onboard tone-shaping. These functions can be accessed on all Katana Gen 3 models via the Boss Tone Studio App too. 

The flagship Katana Artist models in the Gen 3 series feature expanded options for your needs in different playing environments: plug in headphones for quiet practice with expansive stereo sound. Send a feed of your signal to a house PA via the XLR or 1/4-inch Line Out jacks and record to your DAW on computer and mobile devices via USB-C. All audio outputs on the Gen 3 Artist models feature IR-based cab sounds for enhanced direct tone, with the choice of three Air Feel types and two customisable settings in Boss Tone Studio.

User-friendly app improvements  

With so many amp sounds and over 60 of Boss's renowned effects to explore included with Katana amps, it's vital players can quickly feel confident editing and making these tones their own. That's where the Boss Tone Studio for Katana app can take your amp experience to a whole new level. 

Boss has improved the user interface of the app and swapping effects chains is now faster with a drag-and-drop operation that will feel intuitive for newcomers and previous Katana owners alike

While the Boss Tone Studio app allows super detailed editing, you can also download and share sounds with an ever-growing community of dedicated Katana users online via Boss Tone Exchange. This is a great place to find inspiration fast, and you can now access this vast library of sounds directly via Boss Tone Studio. It all further enhances an already value-packed amp series. 

Get connected 

Katana players asked and Boss listened: the new Katana Gen 3 series includes Bluetooth® functionality across all models via the optional Bluetooth Audio MIDI Dual Adaptor (BT-DUAL). Use your smartphone to control a range of your Katana's features with the Boss Tone Studio amp and wirelessly stream audio for backing tracks and your favourite songs from your phone, tablet or laptop too. It's yet another incentive for original Katana adopters to consider updating.

The expanded connectivity of the Katana Gen 3 range opens new possibilities for home practice, recording and live shows. The Katana-50 EX Gen 3 model supports GA-FC Foot Controller connectivity to put more power at your feet for effects and presets changes – allowing you to control four additional memories from the amp. 

The Kata-50 EX Gen 3 amp also includes mic’d line out and stereo expand features and the latter allows you to expand with two Katana amps in the future if you want to create a spectacular stereo rig. The choice is yours and you can find out more about the advanced features offered in the Katana Gen 3 range here.

Level up your guitar amp experience today and explore the new Katana Gen 3 range at Boss, Thomann, Andertons, Gear4Music and check out these killer demos of the Katana Gen 3 amps in action. 

Boss VE-22 Vocal Performer: What is it?

It’s been five years since Boss released the VE-500 vocal effects processor. With the VE-22, they retain the same powerful vocal effects, whilst dispensing with the guitar input which allowed for intuitive harmony processing. Harmonies can be set manually by selecting the appropriate key. 

Boss has reduced the switches and buttons on this unit to make the entire experience very simple. The standard effects such as reverb, delay and chorus have been dialled in beautifully. 

Boss VE-22 Vocal Performer: Performance and verdict

The device comes with a global EQ setting out of the box, which provides a powerful and sensible live vocal sound to suit most occasions. We found ourselves reducing the compression to a level that we found more comfortable. 

For those who like pitch correction, the VE-22 provides an outstanding and accurate representation for slick live pop vocals. We switched off the pitch correction and spent our time dialling in a number of subtle-sounding reverbs and delays; it is these standard effects where the VE-22 really shines. 

A vibrant and clear display screen means changing things on the fly in a live setting is a breeze. The unit can be used both as a footswitch or handheld device.

The addition of a phantom power and battery operation is a smart move, especially for buskers where a power source is not readily available. We do think that for £319, Boss could have thrown in a power supply as standard. 

Given that the VE-500 retails for a mere £50 more and comes with a power supply and additional functionality such as intuitive harmonies, it makes the VE-22’s price point hard to justify.

As with many other vocal effects units, the majority of the onboard effects can range from silly to completely pointless. Presets such as ‘ROBOT’ seem ever present on these devices and strangely low in the options order. The inclusion of a looping function feels like an afterthought, with no real ability to save or layer tracks methodically.

Whilst the VE-22 is a basic item in terms of what it can do, the algorithms employed for the standard effects such as reverb, delay and chorus are remarkably good. Many devices struggle to produce a clean signal with no ground noise or hiss. The VE-22 has no such issues in this department and can be relied upon to produce a slick live vocal sound.

MusicRadar verdict: A compact and stripped-back vocal effects unit which does all the basics very well, providing a beautifully clean signal.

Boss VE-22 Vocal Performer: Hands-on demos

BOSSchannel

Long & McQuade Musical Instruments

JohnPaul Music UK

ZSARIS

Boss VE-22 Vocal Performer: Specifications

• Multi-effects processor with EQ, delay, echo, reverb, doubling, harmonies, automatic pitch correction
• 50 presets and 99 memories
• XLR mic input with phantom power and mic sensitivity control
• 2x XLR outputs, onboard looper
• Power: 4x AA batteries or optional AC adaptor

Boss IR-2 Amp & Cabinet Simulator Pedal: What is it?

Like digital modelling as a whole, the idea that amp pedals are a replacement for tube amps isn’t a zero-sum game anymore. At least, not in my mind. Why limit yourselves? Many guitarists need different gear for different applications – whether it’s a lightweight travel rig for rehearsals, a backline at your feet for gigs, or a desktop amp solution for recording and practice. In this situation, the IR-2 feels very well placed to exist alongside a guitar amp, or even in place of one.

At £179 it’s not as pricey as some, and offers the potential attraction of being compact in a classic Boss chassis, versatile with 11 onboard amp models and well-featured with a dedicated headphone output, FX loop, USB-C recording and customisable with your third-party IRs.

Boss isn’t exactly late to the party either – the IR-2 is a streamlined version of the IR-200 that emerged in 2001. Its combination of features and plentiful amp models in slimmer dimensions even feels distinct from the competition offered by Universal Audio, Walrus, Strymon and TC Electronic, which either focus on 1-3 models or in the case of Victory, BluGuitar or Blackstar and its Department 10 offerings, a larger footprint. All that competition shares the same positive though, to a lesser and greater extent; impressive sounds. Either through solid-state and valve tech or as we have here, digital modelling.

Boss IR-2 Amp & Cabinet Simulator Pedal: Performance and verdict

Boss compact pedals are vast and varied but share the fundamental attributes of being built like tanks and easy to use. The IR-2 is no exception, making the most of a four-knob layout with dual-layer controls. This is mana for those of us who wince at the sight of minuscule menu screens to dial in their parameters. The trade-off is you will need your reading glasses to see the amp model names. 

Familiar three-band EQ, Gain and Level controls are joined by ‘Ambience’ – this is reverb and (after checking the manual) I find I can even change the algorithms between Room, Hall and Plate. The last control chooses between all the amp models; with familiar Katana hi-gain favourite Brown in the mix. 

Each of the 11 amp models here is paired with a ‘curated’ Celestion Digital IR (full list above). But you can also upload third-party options via USB-C and the Boss IR Loader app. This is an important feature; IRs can make or break the modelling amp experience for players, and it’s good to see Boss allow players to experiment and shape the IR-2 more to their liking. In fact, it could argued there’s a market for the IR-2 purely as a compact IR loader with built-in reverb for a pedalboard signal chain – because you can disable the amp modelling. 

The amp models themselves cover a wide gamut of classics like the Fender Twin Reverb, Bassman to Soldano SLO-100 and Boss's own models including Clean, Hi-Gain and Crunch. Unsurprisingly, the lower gain models Clean, Twin and Crunch are more suited to stacking with your overdrive pedal gain stages, but the onboard reverbs mean this can be a standalone pedal if required. I did feel I had to be very generous with the Ambiance dial to offer enough rever for my tastes though. And I’d recommend switching from the preset Room algorithm to Plate too as I think it’s superior. 

With the stock IRs some of the gainier amp sounds seem more compressed overall to my ears compared with the best examples from the more expensive Neural and specialised Universal Audio hardware. This is highlighted most when recording directly via the USB-C output. 

For the Mac I needed to download the latest driver from the BOSS site for Garageband to detect the IR-2 as a device, and the pedal itself also needs to be optimised for USB recording for MAC/ PC or iOS devices through a combination of hardware commands found in the manual. It doesn’t take long and it’s good to be able to use the IR-2 without an additional USB interface, but I’ve had better results in terms of amp-like response and openness from other pedals. 

None of those pedals offered as many models as the IR-2 though; the range of amps here for a compact pedal here to explore is significant. Experiments with the IR loading software and third-party offerings from the likes of OwnHammer and York Audio could improve things to your own tastes. The Rectifier model especially feels like it needs some additional help – it’s simply too scooped to be usable for me. 

The IR loading will add extra expense if you don’t have existing files or choose free options from manufacturing, and are obviously not part of Boss's package we’re reviewing here. But the ability to explore this avenue is welcome and a plus for the IR-2, and we’ve found elsewhere with other modelling tech that it can be a game-changer for how amp models could sound. 

Out of the box, I think the IR-2 is best as a compact, flexible pedal platform with its lower gain combo models as the core strength and the higher gain options as an added bonus, but not a main draw because. They’re not its strong suite for me. 

The features like the headphone-out and FX loop enhance the versatility the multiple amps models suggest, meaning the IR-2 can be practice pal and backup amp. If you need an amp pedal to be your main source of tones and want to hone in on a platform for your pedals, there are other options that sound and react more like a real tube amp – but the combination of options the IR-2 offers feels like the key point here.

Other amp pedals may offer superior tones when it comes to specific models but cost nearly twice as much, or don’t have IR uploading options, direct recording, an FX loop and a headphone output all in one pedalboard-friendly package. Depending on how and where you see yourself using an amp pedal, these things will matter more or less to you. But the IR-2 is very well-featured for its price if you want to keep your options as open as possible.

. 

MusicRadar verdict: A compact, versatile and well-featured amp pedal with IR-loading capability that could potentially enhance some of its models further.

Boss IR-2 Amp & Cabinet Simulator Pedal: Hands-on videos

Leon Gibson 

Corey Congilio

Andertons

Nathan John Cordy

Boss IR-2 Amp & Cabinet Simulator Pedal: Specifications

• Controls: Ambience, Level, Gain, Bass, Middle, Treble, rotary amp selector
• Features: 11 amp models each with Celestion Digital IRs, ability to upload IRs to pedal via USB-C, onboard mono/stereo FX loop, dual channel operation via pedal or an external footswitch (sold separately), three onboard reverb types (selectable through pedal startup command), mono and stereo outputs, ability to turn off amp or IR models for isolation, dedicated headphone-out, USB-C direct recording
• Bypass: Buffered
• Power: 9V adaptor or 9V alkaline battery (approx 3.5 hours battery life)
• Current Draw: 160mA
• Dimensions: (W x D x H): 73 x 129 x 59 mm
• CONTACT: Boss

Boss Katana 50 & 100 Gen 3 review: What is it?

We don’t think anyone would argue that Boss is the reigning king of practice amps, with the Katana the jewel in their crown. From the day it launched in 2016, the Katana showed what was possible with digital technology, ushering in a new era of affordable, feature-laden combos that transformed how many of us rehearse at home. New for 2024, the Katana story continues with the 3rd generation of amplifiers. Now, this is clearly not a complete reforging of the Katana but rather a sharpening of the blade – and an evolution of what has come before. 

Now, as you’d expect, the base of the Katana has stayed the same. Still powered by Boss’s clever Tube Logic technology and a reactive Class AB analogue power section, the new Katana promises to behave just like the previous iteration. However, the overall tone of the unit has been enhanced. It now boasts a more detailed sound with improved clarity in the high frequencies, richer harmonics in the mid-range, and a tighter, more defined low-end. It even features a brand new voicing in the form of a “pushed” clean that expands the tonal versatility of an already adaptable amplifier. 

New to the Katana 100 – and above – is the Contour switch. This innovative feature allows you to alter the frequency response of the amp, providing a wide range of tone-shaping options. Whether you need to tame the highs and tighten the bass for a more focused sound, or cut the mids and boost the low end for a more aggressive tone, the Contour switch has a setting to help you tune your amp to the room you are performing in. This flexibility ensures that you can always achieve the perfect sound, regardless of the acoustics of your performance space. 

Since the amp’s launch, players have been crying out for Bluetooth connectivity and an easier way to edit presets and store their favourite sounds – well, with the Gen 3 Boss has delivered. Each Katana Gen 3 amp features a rear connection specifically for the Boss Bluetooth Audio MIDI Dual Adaptor which enables wireless audio streaming and editing via the new and improved Boss Tone Studio.

Also located on the rear of each amplifier is a clever line out, which is augmented with a collection of microphone sims that Boss calls Air Feel. Not only can you adjust the microphone distance and placement, but you can also adjust the overall ambience, granting you control over the spatial depth for recording or live performances. 

Boss Katana 50 & 100 Gen 3 review: Performance & verdict

When you power on the Katana Gen 3 for the first time, you'll be greeted by a control layout that's familiar and easy to navigate. Boss has maintained the intuitive design that we're all used to, making it a breeze to cycle through amp models and select effects. If you've used any of the previous iterations, you'll feel right at home with the Gen 3. 

Turning our attention to the amp voices, and again we are immediately greeted with tones that we are well and truly acquainted with. From the sparkling chime of the Clean channel to the articulate and responsive Crunch channel and the intense gain of the Brown channel, these amps feel like an old familiar friend – albeit one that's had a little work done! 

Overall, the tone of both the 50 and 100 models has a glossy shine to it. These amps are brighter, yes, but there seems to be more there than just enhanced top-end. There's better clarity in the notes, for sure. The amp feels more responsive under your fingers with both units feeling more alive. We'd say the Gen 3 feels like you are viewing the older iteration in 4K – you can definitely notice greater detail and nuance in the tone. 

Among our favourite amp models on the new units, there's a new setting that's worth exploring – 'Pushed '. This voice, sitting between Clean and Crunch both physically and stylistically, delivers the sound of a driven valve amp that’s being pushed to the point of very mild breakup. It's a unique addition that can add a new dimension to your playing, and it quickly became our favourite setting on the amp.

The Katana 100 has an Amp Resonance switch located near the power switch to further shape the amp's tone. Though there is no switch on the Katana 50, these settings are accessible via the Boss Tone Studio. There are three modes to choose from: Vintage, Modern, and Deep. Cycling through the settings offers distinct cab responses that will better suit the environment you are in. For our situation, we preferred the vintage setting, as it sounded the most natural to our ears. 

When it comes to the effects, nothing has really changed – if it ain't broke, why fix it? All the standard stomps you know and love are represented and are allocated to the same dials as before. Of course, if you want to get creative with your effects, you can fine-tune your settings in the Tone Studio app – something that's just got a little easier with the most hotly anticipated new feature on the Gen 3, Bluetooth. 

As we previously mentioned every new Katana is equipped with a designated connection specifically for the Boss BT Dual adaptor which allows you to wirelessly pair to a mobile device to use with the Boss Tone Studio, as well as stream audio for playing along with backing tracks. It's worth noting that this is an optional extra, and the device retails for around £45. 

Now, for the purposes of this review, Boss sent us the Bluetooth dongle, and while it worked exactly as advertised, we couldn't help but wonder why this feature couldn't be built directly into the amp. The practice amp space is a rather crowded one, and Boss is competing with a lot of different amps, a lot of which have this feature built-in. Models such as the Positive Grid Spark, Fender Mustang and Yamaha THR all offer Bluetooth streaming. This isn't a new technology, and when your amplifier utilizes an app for deeper editing, the majority of consumers will expect this as standard. Maybe we'll see it on the Gen 4. 

Final verdict

It's no secret that we loved the previous iteration of the Boss Katana, and our admiration of this humble digital modelling amp hasn't changed with the latest release. Players looking for a complete redesign will be left disappointed, as this is more of an evolution rather than a revolution. 

That said, there's still a lot to like with the Gen 3. The tones have an extra layer of polish, with an added depth and sheen. The addition of the Pushed channel is a welcome one, as in a very short period of time, it has become one of our favourite channels on the amp. We also love that the Tone Studio has received a much-needed facelift, and you can access it via Bluetooth – although we'd rather not have to pay for an additional piece of tech for the pleasure. 

At the end of the day, the Katana Gen 3 is a great-sounding, feature-laden amplifier that is perfect for home practice, taking to the stage or recording, and this new version proves why Boss is still the king of the space. 

Boss Katana 50 & 100 Gen 3 review: Hands-on video

MusicRadar

Boss Katana 50 & 100 Gen 3 review: Specifications

Boss Katana 50

• Rated Power Output: 50W 
• Speaker: 30 cm (12 inches) x 1
• Amp types: ACOUSTIC, CLEAN, PUSHED, CRUNCH, LEAD, BROWN
• Dimensions: 470 (W) x 238 (D) x 398 (H) mm
• Weight: 11.6 kg
• Contact: Boss

Boss Katana 100

• Rated Power Output: 100W 
• Speaker: 30 cm (12 inches) x 1
• Amp types: ACOUSTIC, CLEAN, PUSHED, CRUNCH, LEAD, BROWN
• Dimensions: 530 (W) x 248(D) x 484(H) mm
• Weight: 14.8 kg
• Contact: Boss

How do you improve one of the most popular amp series in the world? Boss has the answer for its Katana and it's called Gen 3. 

The modelling amps' third full iteration aims to make the response more… tube-like. Its sounds… superior. Its new amp models… well there's one new model, and a new Bloom mode for the Head, Artist and Artist Head models. These changes and claims might not seem dramatic on paper but combined in practice, and knowing that Boss has proven itself with Katana as value-packed giggable amps already… well it adds up to a lot, as our review has found.

"New Tube Logic enhancements enrich the core platform with even greater sound, feel, and response," claims Boss. The new Pushed amp character aims to take this tube amp-feel to those desirable edge-of-breakup places guitar players love to visit. 

"The new Pushed character spotlights internal dynamic enhancements with the pleasing touch-responsive gain of a clean combo driven into harmonic saturation," says Boss. Sounds inviting! 

Instead of adding multiple new amps models to dazzle us with spec, I feel there's a message of reassurance and confidence from Boss here in focussing on one addition and investing in the Tube Logic development to enhance the tried and true existing 11. Because providing six carefully-considered amp voices (each with two variations) isn't exactly stingy anyway, and this selection covers a lot of ground – from Acoustic and Clean to Brown's high-gain thrills.

The Bloom voicing switch on the highest-priced trio of Gen 3 100-watt Katana amps seems to be aimed at stage dwellers. It's an enhancement of the Class A/B power amps stage (many modelling amps are Class D). Activating Bloom engages a dedicated circuit that Boss claims "gives the feel of a totally different amp". 

That certainly sounds significant, with the promise of sharper attack and dynamic low-end richness that could be the best of both worlds and a useful voice to call upon live. 

Boss also wants to make it easier for us to explore and utilise Katana Gen 3's processing power as an amp and effects modelling station. The company has updated its Boss Tone Studio app for easier editing from your smartphone. Though the rub is Boss still wants to charge you extra for its Bluetooth Audio MIDI Dual Adaptor to enable this remote connection, as well as audio streaming. We're assuming the base price of the amp is cheaper as a result, but this area still feels a little out of step with some of the competition. 

The Tone Studio software for macOS and Windows will be the way to go for others; with deeper parameter options not available on the amp hardware. 

As before, these Katana combos and heads include five onboard effect categories that have a major advantage over much of the competition; Boss is drawing on its own classic effects history with a host of recognisable and loved tones. Booster, Mod, FX, Delay, and Reverb categories contain three types each for a total of 15. Again, not an overwhelming number but proven sounds that feel wisely curated, and the desktop software allows you to run wilder with a wider selection of 60 types to draw from and customise.  

The updated BOSS Tone Studio software for macOS and Windows allows users to customize the onboard effects from 60 different types and tweak deep options not available from the amp’s panel. When the optional Bluetooth® Audio MIDI Dual Adaptor is installed, it’s possible to stream audio from a mobile device and wirelessly edit sounds using the BTS editor app for iOS and Android.

The core connectivity we encountered in our Katana 50 MKII EX review applies here to: the rear-panel jacks support remote control with footswitches and an expression pedal. All Gen 3 models except the Katana-50 Gen 3 also support the GA-FC and GA-FC EX Foot Controllers for enhanced control over preset amp and effects switching. 

Here's how the Boss Katana Gen 3 range breaks down: 

• Katana-50 Gen 3: 50-watt 1x12 combo ($299/£289)
• Katana-50 EX Gen 3 : 50-watt 1x12 combo including an upgraded speaker and GA-FC/GA-FC EX support ($349/£359)
• Katana-100 Gen 3: 100-watt 1x12 combo ($399/£429)
• Katana-100/212 Gen 3: 100-watt 2x12 combo ($499£529)
• Katana Head Gen 3: 100-watt head, includes Bloom voicing switch, and an onboard 5-inch speaker ($369/£429)
• Katana Artist Gen 3: 100-watt flagship combo with a custom 12-inch Waza speaker, Bloom voicing (£599/£689)
• Katana Artist Head Gen 3: Flagship 100-watt amp head ($559/£599)

Check out the range at Sweetwater, Andertons and Thomann. 

Check out our review of the Boss Katana 50 & 100 Gen 3. 

For more info about the Katana Gen 3 amps, visit www.boss.info.   

Boss has unveiled a huge drop for bass players, expanding its bass amp and multi-effects lineup with the new Katana-500 head and matching 1X12 cabinet – and launching an ME-90B multi-effects pedal that’s packed with sounds and designed specifically for bass guitar.

It’s a full-on digital rig. The matching Katana 112 is a small-footprint speaker cabinet specifically tuned to complement the head. But there’s a case to be made that with the Katana-500 in your backline you would want for nothing else. 

Certainly, you would not lack for muscle; as the name implies, the Katana-500 has 500-watts of Class D power under the hood. Nor does it lack features. 

As you’d expect from Boss’s Katana series there is a lot going on here, from the onboard effects – of which you can choose from 60 Boss effects to swap in and out of the Compression, Drive and FX sections, with deep edits performed via the free Tone Studio app – to the Cab Resonance feature, which allows players to fine-tune the output of the amp at the touch of a button so it pairs perfectly with any speaker cabinet. 

Boss Katana-500 and 112 cabinet

Also, the Katana-500 offers prophylactic tone measures for difficult stages, with a Bottom control to finesse the low-end and a trio of Hi Cut settings to do similarly for the treble side. The Shape button lets you apply mid-scoop, bright, and wide-range EQ curves to your sound.

The front panel is where you will find most of these controls. There is a four-band EQ, a Feel switch that offers Vintage or Modern settings. Alternatively you can just leave this off. The Blend dial is nested with the effects and allows you to dial in more or less of your dry bass signal.

There is also a chicken-head dial on the front for shaping your sound when going direct to the desk or DAW, with three mic’d speaker emulations to choose from, and three custom settings. 

Around the back, there are two speaker outputs, a USB connection, individual inputs for an expression pedal and footswitch, a 1/4” output for headphones or direct recording, and an XLR out with groundlift. Lastly, there is an optional MIDI dual adaptor for Bluetooth connectivity, which allows you to stream audio to the unit, or perform wireless edits via the Boss Tone Studio app.

As for the cabinet, it’s loaded with an Eminence Neodymium Series woofer and a high-frequency tweeter. The tweeter has two switchable settings, and can be turned off entirely. The Katana-500 Head is priced £734/$799, the Katana Cabinet 112 Bass is £717 / $699.

Boss ME-90B 

The ME-90B multi-effects might be more familiar. Like the ME-90 for electric guitar, this is an all-in-one amp modelling and effects workstation, featuring 61 effects, 10 bass preamp models engineered using Boss’s AIRD tech, and all of this is presented for manual editing, with a small display.

There are eight multi-function footswitches plus an expression pedal, and the whole thing is arranged a little like a pedalboard, with effects categories grouped and selected via dial, with dials to control the parameters. The Blend control lets you adjust the wet/dry mix. 

Bassists can run the ME-90B in Manual mode, where what you see is what you get, or in Memory mode, where you are working off the presets. The unit ships with 36 factory presets and has 36 user memory slots for saving down your sounds. You can also run it in mono or stereo. 

There are a lot of tones to be found here, but because more is always more, Boss has fitted this with an effects loop for integrating your stompbox collection. This could also be your rig for playing live, with an XLR output for sending your signal direct to the PA. Similarly, the USB connection allows you to use it for home recording.

There is a headphones output for silent practice, and if you are hooked up with USB you can add a backing or jam track. The ME-90B can also be edited via the Boss Tone Studio, making it easier to manage your sounds and IRs, with the space for three user-defined IRs.

The ME-90B is available now, priced £345 / $399. For more details, head over to Boss.

Boss Katana:Go review: What is it?

It can't be understated just how big an impact the Boss Katana had on the world of practice amps when it launched back in 2016. The Katana ushered in a new age of digital amps that promised players an affordable way to achieve authentic tones and better effects at home, all while keeping the cost down – and with the launch of the competitively priced Katana:Go, it looks like Boss has set their sights on disrupting the headphone amp space as well.

This miniature Katana aims to distil the essence of its big brother's world-renowned tones into a smaller format that can literally be taken anywhere. Boasting 10 amp types and over 60 effects, as well as a trio of bass models and 30 user memory banks, there are plenty of tones to get stuck into – and as they are brought to you by the fine folks at Boss, you know they will be of a certain quality. 

The OLED display makes choosing your preferred setting a breeze, while the handy onboard guitar tuner is so clear that it may just be the best on the market for this style of device. As you'd expect, the unit comes with Bluetooth capabilities, allowing you to wirelessly edit sounds via the accompanying Tone Studio app, as well as play along with your favourite tracks. 

Setting the Katana:Go apart from others on the market is the innovative Stage Feel feature, which is designed to provide an immersive audio experience that allows you to control where certain areas of the mix are placed. For example, you can decide whether you want your amplifier in front or behind you, as well as the positioning of your backing tracks – mimicking the feeling of playing with a band on stage. 

There's also a wealth of connectivity options on the Katana:Go. Yes, you get the standard USB-C connection, which not only charges the device but also turns this humble headphone amp into a portable audio interface for recording on the move – but that's not all. The Katana:Go has the unique ability to link to an external footswitch and expression pedal, which is sure to transform your practice routine.  

Boss Katana:Go review: Performance & verdict

Sounds and usability

Okay, let's start with the most important element of a headphone amp – the sound. Turning on the Katana:Go for the first time, we were greeted with a wealth of tonal options. On the side of the device, there are three banks to choose from – A, B and C – and each contains ten different voices ranging from sweet chorus-drenched cleans to in-your-face high-gain monsters. 

To scroll through the presets, you simply select one of the banks and use the "multi-function button" to choose which sound you want to load. Unlike many of the other headphone amps available, the Katana:Go has a small screen which displays exactly which sound you have loaded, making it a joy to use.

If you are familiar with the tones stored inside the main Katana line, you'll have a pretty good understanding of what to expect with this miniature version. For us, the Katana really shines with its breadth of amp models and of course, the Boss effects. Within two minutes of turning the device on, we had access to a stellar Roland Jazz Chorus-inspired clean tone, punk-themed saturation and even a harmony mode. 

If you want to explore the tones more deeply, you need to pair your new practice device with the Boss Tone Studio app via Bluetooth. The app has a specific version for the Katana:Go so you'll want to make sure you download the correct iteration. 

The app itself is very intuitive to use. While it may look a little basic compared to Positive Grid's Spark app, we found the uncluttered layout to be a refreshing change of pace for these companion applications. Tone Studio grants you the ability to save presets, adjust effects levels, and even completely overhaul your signal chain – there's even a "session" section that offers the ability to slow down YouTube videos for more structured practice. 

Now, while we totally understand the decision to house the deep editing capabilities in a mobile app, we would love the ability to adjust the effects from the device itself, even if it was just a control for the overall effects level. As it stands just now, if you want to tweak the reverb level on a patch, you need to reach for your phone and make the adjustment in Tone Studio – which isn't ideal. 

Admittedly, this is a minor gripe and we suspect that once you've had the unit for a decent amount of time, you'll most likely have designed a whole bank of your own tones that won't require as much tweaking while you are playing.  

 Stage Feel and extra functionality 

If that were all the features the Boss Katana:Go had to offer, we would have been pretty happy – but there's more. Stage Feel is a unique feature that truly sets the Katana apart from the rest of the headphone amp offerings. 

Allowing you to place your amp or backing track anywhere within the sound field, this feature aims to replicate the sound of performing with an actual band – but does it work?  

Yes, we'd say it does. Pushing the Stage Feel button on the side of the unit will greet you with a wider-feeling mix that sounds more open and natural – ideal if you like to practice for very long periods of time. There are three distinct settings to choose from. Mode 1 will position the amp in front, with backing tracks placed behind you while Mode 2 places all audio to the rear and Custom Mode is left for you to design your own configuration. 

Now, we have to give a special mention to the built-in tuner on the Katana:Go. While tuners are nothing new on headphone amps, the fact that the Boss unit utilises its OLED screen to display the tuner means it feels so much more accurate when compared to the simple coloured light system found on the likes of the Fender Mustang Micro. 

Rounding out the extra features is the ability to pair the Katana:Go with the Boss FS-1-WL wireless footswitch and EV-1-WL wireless expression pedal. Unfortunately, we weren't sent these alongside our review sample of the Katana:Go so couldn't test out this functionality. If it works as advertised – and we see no reason it shouldn't – this could be a game changer for many players who love the convenience of a headphone amp but want the functionality of a full-sized practice amp. 

Boss Katana:Go review: Hands-on demos

BOSSchannel

Sweetwater

Boss Katana:Go review: Specifications

• Sample Rate: 48 kHz
• Memories: 30
• Guitar sounds: 10 amp types and over 60 effects
• Bass Sounds: 3 amp types and over 60 effects
• Display: Graphic OLED display (128 x 32 dots)
• Controls: Master volume knob, Power, A button, B button, C button, Bluetooth(R) button, Stage Feel, Multi-function button
• Connectors: Input plug: 1/4-inch phone type, Phones jack: Stereo miniature phone type, USB port: USB Type-C(R)
• Bluetooth: Yes
• Power Supply: Rechargeable lithium-ion battery
• Weight: 70g/3oz
• Contact: Boss 

Want a guitar amp you can take anywhere? You're in luck! Blackstar, Positive Grid and Fender all have you covered for starters. Boss even went as far as to integrate the amp into headphones with the Waza-Air. And that was great, but $400. The market has moved firmly into affordable, and Boss now has a potential ace up its sleeve; a mini Katana headphone practice amp called the Katana:Go.

To say the Katana series has been successful is an understatement; multiple millions sold worldwide with amp and effects modelling that has delivered for players on and off-stage. The Katana:Go (yep Positive Grid called its smallest Spark amp the Go too) aims to be your go-anywhere amp. Plug your headphones into it and you're away. But there's more to it than that. A lot more. 

The Katana:Go certainly looks similar to the Fender Micro Mustang, which has had a headstart in stores of a couple of years already. An internal rechargeable battery (offering up to five hours of play), side controls and integrated jack underline that. So why should we be excited about the Go?

Well it's a Katana amp. And that means 10 amp models and a ton of Boss effects, which we know are very good indeed. But Boss has gone further to explore the headphone experience side of things that could really make this one dazzle.

"Advanced spatial technology provides a rich 3D audio experience", says Boss. It's something it's calling Stage Feel and might just win over those of us who aren't very keen on playing guitar through headphones (I'm one).

"The innovative Stage Feel feature in Katana:Go provides an immersive audio experience with advanced Boss spatial technology," says Boss. "Presets allow the user to position the amp sound and backing music in different places in the sound field, giving the impression of playing with a backline on stage or jamming in a room with friends."

Now doesn't that sound interesting? It could make those amp models really shine in your cans. On that side, there are clean, crunch, high-gain Brown type models, two acoustic/electric guitar options and – drum roll please – a bass mode with Vintage, Modern, and Flat models ported from Boss's Katana Bass amplifiers. 

Ok, it seems like Boss has really thought this through and is keen on continuing the great run it had with its 2023 product launches. But we're not done with the Katana:Go yet. There's much more here! 

When you want to go deeper into the editing side – and explore the wide range of modelled Boss effects – there's the Boss Tone Studio app for iOS and Android, and the Tone Exchange to grab inspiration from others' presets, orhsare your own with them. 

It's certainly a compelling package on paper for the $119.99/£120 asking price, founded on proven software and sounds. Another huge selling point for me is that the guitar and bass modes of the Katana:Go offer 30 memories with presets out of the box. Tweak them or leave them as they are of build new presets from scratch. That's a lot of in-built inspiration to get stuck into wherever you find yourself with a guitar.

After Positive Grid's Spark app explored the idea of a learning tool, I'm also pleased to see Boss using its app to allow Katana:Go users to not only build set lists with song tones, but loop sections for learning and even set timestamps and trigger different presets from the Katana:Go, all while playing along with YouTube backing tracks. Who needs pedals? 

Well if you do, there's options too. External control of wah, volume, memory selection, and more is available via the optional Boss EV-1-WL Wireless MIDI Expression Pedal and FS-1-WL Wireless Footswitch.

For a little plugin-in headphone amp there's a lot going on here, so bravo to Boss for pushing this format further. Oh, and in case that wasn't enough, the Katana:Go is also happy to be your USB audio interface for recording. 

Look out for our review soon, or just go ahead and order the Katana:Go at Gear4music, Sweetwater, Andertons and Thomann.

Do you know what Boss's 100th compact pedal release was? The TE-2 Tera Echo, that's what. But being a numerical milestone is certainly not its only notable feature. The 'Adaptive Delay' pedal was ahead of the game to some extent when it emerged in 2013. 

The Tera Echo boldly blurred the lines between delay and reverb pedal in ways other brands would follow, but it also did it in quite an innovative way that proved Boss's reputation isn't because it's a 'safe' choice for buyers; the Japanese company continues to innovate. And in the Tera Echo some of that feels underrated and it demands another look… and listen.

It should be noted the Tera Echo's algorithm was certainly not hidden in a cupboard at Boss HQ as the company moved on to new projects; they're available on the flagship DD-500 and DD-200, while the Tera Echo itself is still available to buy as a standalone pedal. And we're glad to see it, because the standalone TE-2 unit allows us to appreciate its strengths isolated away from some of the option paralysis – though value-packed features – associated with company's later multi-mode digital delay pedal offerings.

The Tera Echo is unusual; Boss fully embraced ambience here, not something it went into the pedal market openly touting before, even though its designs like the Space Echo were certainly used that way by many players. And it was right to – because of the way it blends delay and reverb it's great for using to create expansive, trippy pad textures.

To deliver it, Boss designed Multi-Dimensional Processing. It sounds like something from Star Trek but it actually seems more akin to AI in function: the idea is that it analyses your guitar signals and applies what it decides are optimum effect settings in real-time. And that includes being 'ultra-responsive' to playing and volume changes with touch sensitivity activating heavier filtering the harder you play. Boss was all-in on this technology, using it in its MO-2 Multi Overtone and DA-2 Adaptive Distortion too. We might have to come back to those dark horses in another installment of unsung effects! 

For those who like to 'play the effect' rather than colouring their existing guitar parts, the Tera Echo is a very appealing proposition in the way it swirls around your notes with added layers.

The delay sounds encompass slapback to medium-length times and the control can adjust the warmth of repeats / pad sounds, or cool things down with sharper filtering. The pedal also includes a freeze hold switch function to play over infinitely sustained parts, or simply emphasise parts as required.

The S-Time is the most intriguing-sounding control name on the TE-2; it stands for Spread Time.  The more you add the slower the delay time becomes. Combine that with the feedback and things get pretty damn… spacey. 

Add in stereo input and output and you have something post-rockers and sonic adventurers can really have fun with. Plus the rest of us who want something inspiring for playing at home. And the sounds of the TE-2 can be found on the aforementioned DD-200 and DD-500 Boss Digital Delay pedals under the Tera Echo mode, so more players can enjoy this fascinating and hugely underrated blend of reverb and delay. 

Find out more about the Boss TE-2 at Boss, Andertons, Thomann and Sweetwater. 

Crazy Tube Circuits' 2019 Sidekick pedal was a great idea; eighties aesthetics and tones to take you back to that decade and much more with chorus/flanger, delay and reverb all in one pedal. But in a world where combo to us means compact, it wasn't quite small enough to win our ongoing battle with pedalboard real estate. So imagine our joy at seeing the Greek company's new pedal… 

It's a compact version called the Sidekick Jr! And it's got even more algorithms and DSP power than big bro! 

For guitar, bass and synth, the Sidekick Jr has two footswitches and offers the option to use each of its effects independently, or simultaneously with its combo of analogue mixing, buffering and filtering with digital effects. 

It also offers the choice of true or buffered bypass with reverb tails via an internal switch.  

The modulation algorithms move from the original Sidekick's two to three here are inspired by Boss's '80s benchmark effects – there's an Ensemble one to capture to warm chorus tones and a Dimension algorithm that strongly suggests the influence, alongside a flanger mode too. The delay section is increased from one algorithm to two and combines tape echo options with digital delay inspired by '80s digital rack units. 

The reverb section here is comprehensive – it's doubled from the original Sidekick and provides plate, spring and hall in the pedal's Bank A, and overtly '80s-inspired gated, exciter (a huge hall algorithm with 'almost infinite' reflections and decay, plus an octave up shimmer.  

Scaling down all this into the Sidekick Jr's compact enclosure called for some smart switching design, and jettisoning of the speaker sim DI and headphone output from the larger Sidekick. The delay and reverb sections of Sidekick JR operate independently from each other and the modulation is then assignable to either of these sections. 

Players can also choose to invest in the additional XT footswitch to allow the modulation section to be activated independently and can be switched on/off on its own. 

 The Sidekick Jr is  £249 / €289 GBP and the optional Sidekick JR XT Switch is £42 / €49. More info at Crazy Tube Circuits. 

Boss is back in the noise suppressor game for the first time since 1987's NS-2 with its new NS-1X, promising to offer appeal to, and well beyond, the kind of unwanted background high-gain metal guitar and bass players often have to battle.

Its Reduction, Gate and Mute modes should be able to cover a wide range of needs. The Reduction mode offers natural noise reduction for general needs; it retains your original response and sustain even when you're using it with low output pickups.

The Gate mode will be the first stop for the higher gain users; 'ultra-fast noise elimination for tapping, sweep picking, and heavy rhythm styles'. Mute mode is exactly what it sounds like; it mutes your signal when required. Beyond that, there's plenty of editing control…

While this X series pedal uses Multi-Dimensional Processing (MDP) technology to 'intelligently silence noise without affecting the natural tone and playing feel of a guitar or bass', players can dial in their own specific settings for optimum efficiency. 

Threshold, Decay, and Damp controls will allow fine-tuning and there’s also a Reduction indicator on the pedal to display the current noise suppression status.  The NS-1X also features an effects loop for focussing on your noisy distortion pedals. 

The new NS-1X Noise Suppresor is available now for $199.99. 

More info at Boss. 

Pedal-based amps have been around for a while but the last couple of years have seen them take off with companies including Universal Audio, Blackstar, TC Electronic, Walrus, Strymon and Victory all getting in on the action. And that's great news for us players because every company is offering something distinct, and with that comes options on how to use and take advantage of their potential on your pedalboard.

Pedal amps are distinct from multi-effects pedals and combined modellers in that they're primarily preamps or preamps combined with a power amp stage with cab simulation. The idea is you use them alongside the effects pedals on your pedalboard. But the lines can blur; some amp pedals now offer a few effects alongside their core proposition, and there are valve-driven amp pedals as well as those using solid-state modelling technology. The market has now become rich with choices in a relatively short time.

None of these choices have to be approached as a permanent replacement for traditional guitar amps; they can be, but they can be used as an alternative in scenarios where an amp isn't practical or possible; recording, headphone-based practice and jamming… and jumping on the train to a gig or band practice with a very light rig. Overall, amp pedals give us options but getting the best out of them or choosing the right amp pedal for you needs some consideration. 

1. IRs are important 

These can make the difference between the great and the good. While some preamp pedals are fine to plug into your existing guitar amp, if you want to go fully mobile you'll need to consider an amp pedal with its own speaker Impulse Responses (IRs). These are digital sonic snapshots of a specific mic'd amp and cab setup and are vital to recreating some the feel of a real amp's sound in modelled form. Having an onboard IR on your pedal amp will enable you to plug into a PA (no more carrying heavy cabs!) or your own FRFR (full range, flat response) active cab. 

Giving players a choice out of the box is always a positive. Victory's V4 range are tube amp heads (the preamp stage anyway) in pedal form with six onboard IRs supplied by French company Two Notes. Universal Audio's UAFX amp emulator pedals feature up to six speaker simulations that were captured by the company in-house. 

Other options like Strymon's Iridium enable you to upload third-party IRs – this offers players the chance to audition different options to suit their tastes. In the case of Walrus, it's taking IRs and ongoing support very seriously indeed; it's just offered a free firmware update for owners of its ACS1 amp pedal to use new custom IRs created by Tone Factor – and it's also redesigned the three amp models on the pedal "from the ground up." Impressive stuff.

Having more than one virtual cab option on the amp pedal is preferable because options are always welcome. But it's not the only way to get options; TC Electronic offers one with its Ampworx models but as some of the most reasonably priced amp pedals around, the money you save could go towards a separate IR loader, such as the excellent Boss IR-200 and Two Notes Torpedo CAB M / M+ models. The latter even offers four tube amp models too! 

2. One amp… or three? 

The phrase 'pedal platform amp' may seem a bit silly to some of you; because surely all amps are? But what it really means is how good an amp performs as a foundation; the option of high clean headroom for your overdrive pedals to thrive on without being overly coloured by the amp's own gain stages.  But do you want that? 

If you do, you'll want to gravitate to specific pedals; the Fender Deluxe Reverb apeing UAFX Dream '65 and TC Electronic Combo Deluxe 65 focus on a legendary studio amp with a wonderful clean tone and spring reverb. But both offer drive options too. The TC Ampworx JIMS 45 (seeking to emulate the legendary Marshall Bluesbreaker) also surprised us with its impressive clean capabilities and the Blackstar Dept 10 Amped 1 is a powerful lower gain platform that can also power your drive pedals too with 500mA of power draw capability to play with. 

But why narrow your options? The Strymon Iridium and Walrus's ACS1 both offer three different models each, based on classic amps with specific tonal flavours including the Vox AC30, Fender Deluxe Reverb and iconic Marshalls.  

3. Pedal placement 

Some amp pedals (including Blackstar's Amped Series and Victories pedal amps) feature effects loops to enable players to place their time-based effects after the preamp circuit and this can allow time-based effects like delay and reverb to sound clearer. It's a matter of taste and some players may prefer not to use it. But what if your amp pedal doesn't have an effects loop?

You could experiment with placing your delay and reverb before and after your pedal amp in the signal chain. But there's a snag – if you're using an onboard IR cab simulation in the pedal itself you'd be placing those effects after it, which is not the same thing as an effects loop. But it's absolutely not necessarily a bad thing. Try it either way and judge for yourself with your effects – it's as easy as moving a couple of pedals and plugging them in again.  

4. Extra features can change the way you use them 

The usability of an amp pedal can hinge on the additional features it offers beyond the essentials. For example, the TC Ampworx, Strymon Iridium and Walrus ACS1 all offer dedicated 3.5mm headphone outs that makes them great for silent practice with your pedalboard (although you'll need to have your delay and reverb placed before them to get the full pedalboard experience).

Elsewhere, Universal Audio's Dream '65 incorporates three different boost modes, alongside its inspiration's vibrato and spring reverb; potentially saving you a couple of extra pedals on the board. Some amp pedals, including the UA pedals and TC Electronic Ampworx, offer the ability to save the settings for one switchable channel; and then switch to a 'live' mode. This is great for a setup for second guitar – such as one channel for humbuckers and another for your single-coil guitar – but also an alternative tone within a song. 

On the IR side, Blackstar's Dept 10 Amped and preamp pedal series has taken the concept even further with its CabRig software; enabling you to go in-depth editing everything from mic type to room size and storing three of your own CabRig presets to switch between on the pedal. Or you can switch it off if you want to use an external IR or go into an amp.  

Four recommended amp pedals to try 

Universal Audio UAFX Dream '65 

We keep coming back to this because it's not just the most authentic modelling of a Fender Deluxe Reverb amp that we've tried, but UA's treatment makes it work so well as a pedal alongside our other effects.

Alongside a benchmark rendering of Fender's spring reverb, you have a lush vibrato but it's the three distinct boosts and six speaker options that make this such a great stage and recording tool. We especially like the option to have switchable vibrato or reverb, but we prefer to use the preset switch for a whole second channel and different boost. 

Universal Audio UAFX Dream '65 review

Blackstar Amped 3 

All Blackstar's Amped series are recommended but the sheer amount of gain options here, alongside genuinely useful extras make the Amped 3 an easy win for those who want to go all-in on this format.

We've already mentioned CabRig, and the ability to power other pedals but the solid state Amped 3 also boasts the choice of different emulations of power amp valves, onboard reverb and three channels with two voices each. There's a lot of gain capability here with Clean, Crunch, Overdrive channels and a switchable boost. 

Blackstar Amped 3 review

Walrus Audio Mako Series ACS1 Amp + Cab Simulator

Walrus's ACS1 is three amp models (AC30, Deluxe Reverb and Marshall JTM50) in one pedal, along with cab IRs but the company has decided to completely overhaul the amp models, while adding Tone Factor IRs on its Update 2.0. Walrus's willingness to support its products with firmware has always impressed us, but this takes it to a new level. 

The result isn't just an improved all-round experience with the amp models but the consensus suggests the ACS1 stacks with drive pedals better now. Plus, this pedal has one significant ace up its sleeve for us: you can use two different amp and cab models in stereo if you want! 

Walrus Audio Mako Series ACS1 Amp + Cab Simulator review

TC Electronic Ampworx JIMS 45

The reasonable price here and simplicity make this JTM45-inspired model a great entry-point in the world of amp pedals, but this is a serious contender too. Its clean tones impressed us as a platform but the overdrive capabilities did not disappoint. 

The onboard boost can be set pre- or post-preamp and there's a presence dial too for added tweaking. Players can set one channel as a preset as well, with a headphone output rounding out a value-packed pedal.  

• Always-on compression: is a compressor pedal the missing link in your guitar tone?

Today in guitar amplifier worship we are going to look at something that seems just too rare to label a “holy grail”, simply too bespoke – the Dumble Manzamp preamp and 200-watt Odyssey power amp that once served in the master of the Stratocaster and tone connoisseur Eric Johnson’s backline in the mid ‘90s.

The setup, which also includes a pair of Dumble 2x12 speaker cabinets loaded with vintage Vox Alnico Blues and Hiwatt Heavy Duty drivers – both added to the rig by the subsequent owner – is up for sale via Techno Empire for a cool $399,999.99 – and Vertex Effects has just shot a demo video for its YouTube channel to show us what something like this sounds like. 

Just what do you play when have a rig like this to demo? Well, first off, you get yourself a Strat. Cliffs Of Dover is a choice that is no less correct for it being obvious. But, quite honestly, this is the sort of amp rig that that would get you a standing ovation for simply playing an open A chord. 

As Vertex’s Mason Marangella says, this Manzamp/Odyssey combo has all the Eric Johnson tones you need; they’re all right there. Gabriel Bergman is playing a Strat, and there is a greatest hits of Johnson-style pedals. 

• Eric Johnson: the 10 greatest guitar tones of all time

There’s a TC Electronic chorus pedal and a Boss delay pedal, and it’s blowing Marangella’s mind with a sound that already “has a mastered quality” coming out of the speaker. There is a Fuzz Face, ideal for comparing the clean tone and Fuzz Face into clean tones of Desert Rose.

Bergman and Marangella take us through the different tones, how it sounds with delay, with chorus, and most intriguingly, how it articulates the complex chord voicings of the classic Eric Johnson tune Friends. 

There are still some mysteries surrounding the rig. How exactly did Johnson set it up? Well, the best clue comes from the May 1996 issue of Guitar Player, which published a diagram of Johnson’s triple guitar amp setup, and explained the this custom setup replaced Johnson’s Dumble Steel Stringer. Johnson favoured a Marshall 4x12. 

Now, there is backline, and then there is an Eric Johnson three-amp backline. The three amp setup allowed Johnson to run a separate amp for rhythm, ‘distorted rhythm’ and lead guitar tones.

Johnson’s main rhythm tone was handled by a pair of Fender Vibroverbs. The lead was handled by either a Marshall or a Dumble Overdrive Special, with ’Distorted rhythm’ incorporating this Manzamp/Odyssey rig. 

This is not the sort of amp you see every day, and it might be some time before we see it again. “If you are a fan of arguably the best clean tone ever, arguably the best lead tone and dirty rhythm ever, Eric Johnson, this is the amp,” says Marangella.

It could, of course, be yours if this year's amp budget is comfortably six sigures. Eric Johnson's Dumble Manzam/Odyssey rig is listed on Techno Empire and Techno Empire Reverb’s store for £331,333 / $399,999. All the components are original besides the custom footswitch.

• Up close with the ultimate Dumble Overdrive Special Jason Isbell calls “possibly the greatest amplifier ever made"

Boss has added to its massively-popular Katana modelling amp range with an expanded version of the entry-level Katana-50 MkII, 100-watt Katana-Artist MkII Head and the Katana Cabinet 212 Waza. Are these the models that will get you onboard with Katana, or are they even worth upgrading to for existing users? Let's take a closer look.

The Katana-50 MkII EX could be an ideal hook for newcomers as it's now added some features from the higher-end Katana amps. Players can expand the capabilities with support for the BOSS GA-FC and new GA-FC EX foot controllers for fast foot access to tones and presets, as well as simply turning effects on and off from your virtual chain. Great for ease of use at home or practice room. Gigs too, of course! 

Players can output to a PA but there's also the option to utilise the Stereo Expand feature and link to a second Katana-50 MkII EX or 100-watt Katana MkII model. The GA-FC EX can even control both amps! 

But surprisingly there's still no effects loop on this model update which is slightly disappointing if you want to integrate your own reverb, delay and looper pedals in that way. 

The 100-watt Katana-Artist MkII Head is simply the head version of the existing Katana-Artist MkII combo and a great gigging option for its headroom. It offers five amp 'characters with five different variations in total for 10 combos. There's 60 effects with plenty of classic boss pedals modelled to explore too. 

With live performance in mind there's a foot controllable post-amp solo boost for rising above your bandmates in the mix. Players can also shape the cab emulation 'Air Feel' settings on the amp's rear panel with three onboard presets and two customisable settings. You can also use the BOSS Tone Studio editing software to adjust the amp's Power Control for home playing or home studio recording.

The Katana Cabinet 212 Waza is designed as the perfect partner for the head. This 2 x 12 cab has Waza speakers inspired by Marshall stack speakers from 1960s. If you're feeling flush you can also stack cabs to go 4 x 12 and you can even remove the panel for open- or closed-back operation.

 Boss Katana-50 MkII EX $339.99 / £329 Buy from Andertons / Sweetwater
Katana-Artist MkII Head $569.99 / £579 Buy from Andertons / Sweetwater
Katana Cabinet 212 Waza $599.99 / £579 Buy from Andertons / Sweetwater

Hands-on demos 

If you’re a guitar player then no doubt you’ve come across Boss products before. From professional touring players to those just making their first foray into the wide world of electric guitar, Boss’ stompboxes, practice amps, and accessories are synonymous with six strings - and now you can get some seriously good discounts with the huge Boss sale on Amazon throughout November.

You’re probably sick of hearing about the Boss Katana now, but it really is that good! It's currently available with a nice 15% discount in the Amazon Boss sale, which means you can get your hands on it for just $229.99. For those in the market for an amp that can do everything from quiet home practice to home recording, all the way to full-on live shows, the Katana has got you covered.

If you’re in the market for yet another addition to a busy pedalboard, the warm, mid-range heavy fatness of the Boss FZ-1W Wazacraft fuzz pedal will add some serious character to your sound. Use it almost like an overdrive, or crank things fully for some properly raunchy and raspy fuzz tones, this brilliant pedal is available with a 20% discount at just $160.

The Boss SY-1 Guitar Synthesizer Pedal aso caught our eye in the sale. This versatile stompbox lets you add some insane sounds to your pedalboard and is currently available at just $190, down from $229.99. If you need a quiet practice option when inspiration strikes late at night, the Boss Pocket GT is now available with a hefty 23% discount, putting it below the $100 mark. Previously listed at $129.99, you can get it for just $99.99 for a limited time. 

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• Waves: Shop the early bird Black Friday sale - 90 plugins discounted

Having recently dipped into its back catalogue to offer its ubiquitous orange-boxed distortion pedal, the DS-1, as a deluxe Waza Craft edition, Boss has returned to the archives, this time presenting us with something a little different – the SL-2 Slicer.

The SL-2 has evolved out of the SL-20 Slicer and can accommodate signals from electric guitar, bass guitar, electronic keyboards, loops, DJs, and all kinds of electric instruments, taking them and chopping them up into grooves and percussive, rhythmic and immersive effects, the likes of which most likely haven’t been explored before.

The Slicer has always been something of a niche effect, turning up on multi-effects processors such as the GT series, and for guitarists – particularly fans of tremolo – it offered the tantalising prospect of more aggressive staccato chop, an effect that could introduce no shortage of drama to your sound. This does all that and more.

With the SL-2, a Compact Series version that won’t take much pedalboard real estate – nor room on your desktop – Boss is hoping that now is the time this niche effect goes mainstream. 

It might be compact but there are a lot of controls to harness its various functions, and a lot of different ways you can use this.

The SL-2 has 88 onboard memory slots and comes preloaded with eight different rhythm pattern types and 11 variations on each. Hook the SL-2 up to the Tone Studio app via USB and you can edit these and swap them out.

The eight rhythm patterns and their variations are also selectable via rotary dials, with a dual-function Attack/Duty concentric dials controlling the wave shape (Attack) and length of the sliced audio (Duty).

Set the Duty or length of the sliced audio short and you have a range of staccato effects, where the signal is effectively sampled and chopped up into percussive transients. Set it long and you can have what Boss describes as “longer, fuller audio blocks”.

The sounds can be hard and aggressive, or soft and textured, and the output level of the effect as a range of +/-12dB. The tempo of the sliced effects is adjusted via the dial or via tap-tempo from holding the pedal footswitch or using the CTL/EXP connection for attaching an external tap switch or expression pedal.

There is a TRS MIDI input for clock sync and CC control, and you can run the SL-2 in mono or stereo. It’s in the latter mode where things get really interesting, and Boss presents users with an abundance of output options, with seven stereo output modes to choose from: Fixed, EFX/Direct, Random, Ping-Pong, Auto, 3D Cross, and 3D Rotation.

The SL-2 Slicer processors your signal with a 48 kHz sample rate and has a buffered bypass. 

Sometimes it is easy to say what a stompbox does; either it is referencing another classic effect, or it exists within a spectrum – a transparent overdrive pedal, a germanium fuzz. 

But other times, such as this, you need to try it, or to watch the demo video for an idea of what it could do for you, whether your specialty lies in guitar, keyboards, beatmaking or elsewhere.

The SL-2 Slicer is priced £149 / $169. See Boss for more details.

Boss's DS-1 distortion pedal is one of its absolute classics; over 1.5 million units sold and famously used by Kurt Cobain and John Frusciante, but its also one of its most modded pedals with players seeking tease out extra depths from their orange faithfuls. Well Boss has recognised that with its new Waza Craft model, just like it did with the Heavy Metal HM-2W. 

The new version offers two modes and a revised 'discrete' analog circuit said to offer more range and versatility. 

All good news but what's this new mode? While Standard mode delivers the traditional DS-1 experience, the Custom mode brings a 'thick, mid-focused tone' for fatter cut. The pedal's available level has also been increased by 6 dB, providing more juicy boost when driving amps and other pedals. 

The DS-1W will be priced at $149.99 / £150 and available in October. Check out the demos that have surfaced so far below. 

Boss has some big news for owners of its Katana MkII series of guitar amps, with the release of its GA-FC EX Foot Controller offering players a host of new features and enhancing the functionality of the super-versatile modelling amps.

The GA-FC EX really goes to town. Those who own two Katanas can now control both simultaneously or independently via the floor unit. But, even if you restrict yourself to one Katana at a time, there’s a lot to like here, with dual-colour LEDs making channel-switching easier – particularly in low-light situations – and the capacity to combine footswitches for simultaneous channel switching and accessing effects.

In that sense, the GA-FC EX does not make its predecessor, the GA-FC, obsolete. It’s more an expansion on the theme, performing all the same functions but making it more customisable. 

It is designed to be integrated with other peripherals, adding another expression pedal input for a total of three. If you run an FS-5U through one of these, you can use it as a tap-tempo, boost, or A/B switch if you connect an FS-5U.

All this makes the Katana more stage-ready, but given the amount of sounds on offer, and how it arranges the amp models and effects, a foot controller is essential to get the most out of the amp. 

The Effects switch allows players to toggle between Effects and Function mode. In Effects mode, the LEDs illuminate green and you can use the unit as a de facto pedalboard, using the footswitches to turn your booster, mod, FX, delay and reverb effects on and off. 

Press and hold the Effects switch for Function mode, in which the LEDs light red, and you can control a variety of functions. By default, Booster Solo, switching the wah/whammy on or off, looper and tap tempo 1 and 2 are selectable, but hooking the unit up to the Boss Tone Studio computer editor allows you to assign functions.

The GA-FC EX offers all this new functionality on Boss’s Katana-Artist MkIl, Katana-Head MkII, Katana-100 MkII, and Katana-100/212 MkII amplifiers, and is available now, priced £129 / $149.

See Boss for more information.

Boss Katana-110 Bass Combo: What is it?

For a while there it looked like Boss had left the bass players hanging. Envious glances have been cast in the direction of the guitar effects pedals titan’s digitally advanced Katana series of guitar amps.

Effects, amp modelling, up-to-the-minute features all in one place: the Katana series has been transformative for guitar players looking for an all-in-one solution for practice, recording and performance. The options they gave players were staggering. Now with the Katana-110 and Katana-210 bass amp combos, those options have arrived for bassists. Will they be similarly revolutionary for the bass guitar?

Let’s take a closer look at the Katana-110. As the name suggests, this is a 1x10 combo, with 60-watts from a Class A/B power amp under the hood giving it adequate juice for small gigs, but especially marking it out as a compact bells-and-whistles solution for playing at home or in the studio. 

Features are the order of the day. The control panel is packed, as is the rear, where you’ll find a plethora of connections. There’s a balanced XLR output with ground lift, USB, an 1/8” aux input, footswitch and expression pedal inputs, a 1/4” headphones/record output, a power amp input and the send/return for the Katana-110’s effects loop. Bluetooth connectivity is available as an optional extra, with the port for a Boss BT-Dual adaptor also mounted on the back of the amp.

As for the front panel, there is a lot going on but the good news is that it is orderly, and the essentials are not hidden from view. Fundamentally, the Katana-110 offers three different amp types: Vintage, Flat and Modern, selectable via a three-way rotary dial. This ‘Amplifier’ section of the front panel has dials for Gain and Volume, with Pad and Shape switches. It is flanked on either side by an Input EFX section with switchable compression and drive and a wet/dry blend control. 

The Katana-110 has a 4-band EQ – again, dials, easy to use and reassuringly amp-like – before we get to an effects section that welcomes all the fun stuff to the party. And there are lots of sounds here; delay, reverb, echo, T-wah, octaver, chorus, phaser and of course a bass synth. 

There are different coloured LEDs (green, orange, red) to aid navigation, a tap tempo button, and a dial for Once you find a sound you like, save it down in the Tone Setting section and recall it later. The Katana-110 allows you to store six sounds you’ve dialled in on the panel; with two banks each with three channels, you could think of this as a six-channel amplifier.

Rounding out the controls we have a Master Volume dial with a switchable tweeter button, and a chickenhead power control dial that allows you to select between standby, full power and single-watt modes.

Boss Katana-110 Bass Combo: Perfomance and verdict

For any bass amplifier to credibly claim to be the bass amp of the future it first has to deal with the past and present player; it has to make sure that technological advancement doesn’t leave anyone behind. On that score, the Katana-110 does a good job. We might still recommend a quick run-through of the manual, and maybe keep it close at hand for those first few sessions. But if you have used an amplifier before – and surely you have – this offers many familiar touchpoints.

It’s easy to get a sound out if it. The stripped-back bass tones with no effects in the mix are exceptions. This, again, is essential to the futurist’s strategy; you have to nail the fundamentals before layering more sounds on top.

In many respects, the Katana-110 is a blank slate for bass guitar. With so many tones on offer, players operating within any genre have options when it comes to dialling in a tone. A hardware pedalboard is always going to offer more controls and a more tactile experience when adjusting parameters but with the Boss Tone Studio connectivity via USB you can make deep edits and then save them. That’s ideal for mapping out a set. The effects loop will be a lifesaver for pedal enthusiasts.

For the rest of us, the blend control that allows you to take charge of the wet/dry mix is similarly invaluable, allowing players to retain that core bass tone and apply more subtle colouration by way of the extensive Boss effects suite. This being Boss, the effects sounds are superlative. 

There’s an impressive amount of air that gets pushed through the 10” speaker, more than enough thunder for the front room, for laying down a track, but that XLR output is going to be needed when playing live – at least when in the company of a drummer. There is also the 160-watt Katana-210 if more power is required.

While the Katana-110 might well be the sort of amp that gets hauled out nightly from behind the sofa to make for an immersive and inspiring practice session but its size and weight make it a portable option. Certainly more portable than taking an amplifier and a pedalboard; after all the Katana-110 does both. That’s what it’s designed to do. 

With that USB connection, it’s also designed to make for a no-fuss recording option, and when putting together songs and demos there’s nothing better than being able to just plug into your computer and being able to chronicle these ideas on the fly. And if your bassline needs the warm pulse of some modulation to make it really pop, well, you’ve got that on tap here, and a lot more besides.

MusicRadar verdict: At long last, a dedicated Katana combo for bass players, and it is just as you might imagine, packing credible amp sound, with a host of industry-standard effects to customise your tone.

Boss Katana-110 Bass Combo: The web says

“I’m impressed by the combo’s ease of use and the quick response of the controls, which allow many different sounds to be created quickly and effectively.

“The quality of the unit is impressive for the price: I can see many bass players looking at this combo, and its 160-watt sibling, as a very useful means to an end.”
Bass Player Magazine

Boss Katana-110 Bass Combo: Hands-on demos

Boss

Boss Katana-110 Bass Combo: Specifications

• ORIGIN: Malaysia
• POWER: 60 watts @ 8 ohms
• SPEAKERS: 1x10” driver , tweeter
• FEATURES: Input EFX (comp/drive controls and switches), amp type (vintage/flat/modern), pad switch, gain, shape switch, volume, dry level, blend switch, bass, low mid + frequency switch, high mid + frequency switch, treble, FX1/FX2 controls and switches, tap switch, master volume, tweeter on/off switch, CH1/CH2/CH3/Panel switches, power control (standby/1W/max), power switch
• CONNECTIONS: 1/4” input, balanced DI XLR out with ground lift switch and post/pre/direct switch, FX loop, power amp input, headphone/record out, footswitch/expression pedal inputs, 3.5mm auxiliary in socket, USB port, Bluetooth Audio MIDI Dual adaptor socket
• DIMENSIONS: 495mm (H) x 470mm (W) x 300mm (D) / 19.48” (H) x 18.50” (W) x 11.81” (D)
• WEIGHT: 21.8 kg / 48 lbs
• CONTACT: Boss 

Boss GX-100: What is it?

Sadly there is no hard data available on the proportion of global pedalboard real estate accommodated by any one brand’s stompboxes, but as a market leader in guitar effects pedals we might imagine that Boss has the lion’s share.

But that doesn’t mean to say Boss has had it its own way. Innovation breeds innovation, and in recent years, the gauntlet has been thrown down, particularly when it comes to multi-effects pedals for guitar. 

Digital signal processing has transformed these all-in-one effects and amp modelling solutions. So, too, consumer technology; it is now not enough simply to present these tones are the guitar player’s feet, they’ve got to be easily accessible. 

In the 21st century, user experience is key to successful design, and this is where the state-of-the-art GX-100 looks to give Boss an advantage. For a start, it takes a leaf out of our smartphone’s book and comes equipped with a touchscreen. 

The 23 amp models here are joined by over 150 effects types, and you can work with up to 15 assignable blocks to create your own sounds, saving them down to any of the 200 preset slots available. There is also a looper offering 38 seconds in mono, 19 in stereo. 

Around the back of the unit you have more options to run the unit in mono or stereo, hook up an external expression pedal or two external footswitches, integrate a pedalboard via a pair of send/return jacks, connect headphones, for remote channel switching on a guitar amp, MIDI, and Bluetooth integration.

You will need an adaptor for the latter but it will allow you to edit sounds and stream audio. Last but not least, there is a USB connection for home recording to your computer or editing via the Boss Tone Studio app.

Boss GX-100: Performance and verdict

The GX-100 is one good-looking floor unit, all sleek lines with a pop of colour. You will of course want to take good care of it. But it is built tough. Its metal enclosure looks like it can handle a fair bit of punishment. It is portable, too, weighing just under 8lbs. 

Like the fiscal calculation of adding up all the amps and effects and comparing the street price of its hardware equivalent, it’s also fun to think about how much stuff you’d have to carry around with you to have the same amount of sounds available. There’d be no stage big enough.

So there’s a practical case for multi-effects units such as this on grounds of money and logistics. But guitar players are not fundamentalists when it comes to pragmatism; there has to be something that stirs the soul, and on the GX-100 that is the sounds. 

It comes loaded with 100 factory presets, and those allergic to manual consultation will find these a superb entry point to GX-100’s range of sounds, with the presets also offering an excellent base camp for exploring new tones.

The AIRD technology is exceptional at rendering amp emulations with a sense of life and three-dimensionality. The response is bang on. There is no shortage of dynamics. There is also no need to replace a tube, or re-bias a tube amp after a week on the road. To some ears, they might be a little too pristine, but others will value that consistency.

Boss has made its name on effects and so it’s no surprise to find that the GX-100’s sound incredible. It’ll take a little discipline on behalf of the player to only use what is needed. Stacking those modulation and delays together can sound incredibly lush, and it’s easy to overdo it. Overcoming option paralysis is also another rite of passage with units such as this. One way is just to keep saving those sounds down as you create them, collecting variations on a theme. Soon you’ll have a set or some reference tones that might pair a little better with different guitars. 

The touchscreen functionality adds a level of control that we haven’t seen from Boss. Sure, might find the competition a little easier to use, but A/B the GX-100 with a similarly priced rival and it will hold up. These are industry standard sounds.

The digital processing muscle makes that overdrive and distortion sound so natural, so convincing, and when presenting in a signal chain they perform as expected, with boosts and drives stacking nicely, giving the amp a good old kick up the backside when needed. In doing so, Boss has once more stamped its authority on the market for amp modellers and multi-effects with super-powered processing power and unimpeachable tones.

MusicRadar verdict: A top-shelf multi-effects unit that combines superb effects and super-realistic amp models with a more user-friendly format.

Boss GX-100: The web says

“While it might take a bit of learning, it’s easy to reconfigure the GX-100 to match your preferences. The chain building is still a bit behind some of the competition, but the sounds are next-level. Even if you don’t need all the amp modelling features, its extra DSP horsepower shows when using the overdrive and distortion models.

“Elsewhere, the delay, reverb and modulation effects are as outstanding as you’d expect from the most prolific guitar effects maker in the world. All in all, it’s BOSS’s best multi-effects and amp processor yet.”
Total Guitar

“Everything from high-gain metal heads to crunchy Brit combos is represented, and the touchscreen makes it easy to carry out tonal adjustments or, say, flip from a booming 4×12 cab to a tight 1×10. Setting up two channels with totally different amp types is effortless, meaning that C1 footswitch becomes a shortcut to the kind of channel-switching that a single real amp could never manage.”
Guitar

Boss GX-100: Hands-on demos

MusicRadar

Leon Todd

Jay Leonard

Andertons

Sweetwater

Boss GX-100: Specifications

• Effects: 154
• Amp models: 23
• Processing/Sampling rate: 24-bit AD/DA, 32-bit floating-point processing, 48 kHz 
• Connections: INPUT jack, OUTPUT (L/MONO, R) jacks, SEND jack, RETURN jack: 1/4-inch phone type, PHONES jack: Stereo 1/4-inch phone type, CTL3, 4/EXP2 jack, AMP CTL1, 2 jack: 1/4-inch TRS phone type, MIDI (IN, OUT) connectors
• USB COMPUTER port: USB B type
• Bluetooth Adaptor port: BT-DUAL ADAPTOR
• Power: AC Adaptor (supplied)
• Contact: BOSS

High-quality guitar effects are more affordable, more portable, and better sounding than ever before. Many professional and amateur guitarists alike are ditching the enormous over-the-top rigs in favour of highly programmable multi-effects units - and when they sound this good, we can't say we blame them. Luckily for you, we’ve rounded up the best Boss GT-1000 deals on the internet, so you can bag yourself one of the most popular multi-effects units for a bargain price.

The Boss GT-1000 follows in the footsteps of the much-loved GT-100, a firm favorite of indie legend Johnny Marr. This new pedal takes everything we loved about the previous iteration and brings it into the modern age, with the new groundbreaking AIRD tone engine and even built-in Bluetooth for adjusting effects from your mobile device. So let's take a deep dive into what makes this pedal so great and where you can get the best price.

Best Boss GT-1000 deals

Boss has always been an industry leader in guitar effects. Not only did Boss help shape how we see pedals today - literally - they also continue to innovate and push the boundaries of what is possible with multi-effects. 

The GT-1000 is the new flagship multi-effects processor from the pedal giant, and it may be the best one yet - it's undoubtedly the most powerful. This state-of-the-art unit features a 32-bit analog-to-digital converter as well as 32-bit floating-point processing and a 96 kHz sample rate. When we say this unit is studio quality, we mean it. 

The first thing you'll probably notice when playing the GT-1000 for the first time is how realistic it sounds, especially when using the amp models. This is due to the AIRD technology housed inside. Boss has used this groundbreaking technology to perfectly recreate how a valve amp and a guitar interact with each other. As Boss puts it, "AIRD reproduces the complex internal component interactions of tube amps in every way, from guitar input to speaker output and everything in-between." Ultimately, this results in a highly expressive multi-effects unit that will make even the most die-hard valve fanatic think twice. 

Every amp sound you have ever wanted is available, from the beautiful cleans of a Jazz Chorus, the fierce mid-range of an AC30, to the face-melting gain of a Plexi, it's all here. 

As you would expect, it's not just amp models inside this sturdy floorboard. It also comes fully stocked with all of your favorite Boss effects, from the lush spacey sounds of the CH-1 to the rich dark delays of the DM-2 and many, many more. If there is an effect you’re longing to try, we’re sure you'll find it here. 

It feels like every guitar product on the market right now comes with the ability to connect to a device via Bluetooth, but trust us, this time it's actually useful. The Boss Tone Studio app is available for iOS and Android mobile devices and allows you to edit patches, tweak effects and even build your own presets wirelessly, saving you a bunch of time. 

So if you’re looking for a great sounding, great looking, and practically indestructible multi-effect unit/ amp modeler, look no further than the Boss GT-1000. 

Best Boss GT-1000 deals: Alternatives

We can't talk about multi-effects and amp modelers and not mention the Line 6 Helix Floor. After all, the Helix may have been the floorboard that reignited the flame for multi-effects pedals in recent years. The dual DSPs deliver a whopping 62 amps models, 37 cabs simulators, and 104 high-quality effects. If you’re looking for a highly customizable option, then the Line 6 Helix Floor is the unit for you. 

For those looking to dip their toe into the world of multi-effects, or for the guitarist looking for a simple plug-and-go option, the Boss GT-1 may be what you are looking for. This small, lightweight unit may not have all the bells and whistles of the other two, but that's precisely the point. The GT-1 still manages to deliver 108 effects over its three footswitches and one expression pedal but is simple, easy to use, and perfect for beginners.

A compact, pedalboard-friendly version of Boss’s classic RE-20 Space Echo reverb and delay pedal is coming soon. The official announcement arrives hot on the heels of mounting speculation about a product leak, with some units reportedly being sold on eBay.

For many players, a compact Space Echo is a dream come true, making Boss’s take on its parent company Roland’s legendary tape echo unit even more accessible. Although full details have yet to be revealed, with players asked to register for updates at the Boss website, it looks like the RE-2 will retain much of the functionality and sounds of its larger sibling.

Housed in a regular Boss compact pedal format, the RE-2 can be run in mono or stereo, and has a similar control set-up, with what looks like an 11-position Mode Selector knob joined by stacked controls for Echo/Reverb, Intensity/Tone, and Repeat Rate/Wow & Flutter.

It looks like the RE-2 will come equipped with tap and hold features, and has an additional 1/4” input jack for hooking up an external expression or control pedal.

Mock-ups of an RE-2 style pedal are nothing new. In 2019, images surfaced online of a Waza Craft Space Echo. It similarly had dual inputs and outputs, with another for expression pedals, though the official RE-2 Space Echo’s control setup looks a lot more intuitive, and manages to cramp a lot of functions into the smaller format.

The Roland Space Echo is for many the ultimate tape echo. Since its launch in 1974, players such as Jonny Greenwood, Alex Lifeson, Brian Setzer and many more have used the RE-201, particularly in the studio where the reliability of using an old mechanical tape echo is less of a concern.

The demand for vintage RE-201 units was such that Boss launched the RE-20 pedal replica in 2007, which captured much of the analogue magic of the originals but without those pesky tape issues.

You can sign up for alerts for the coming RE-2 Space Echo release at Boss, and read our review of the Boss RE-20 to find out what all the fuss is about.

It's turning into a big year for Boss, not only is it celebrating its history with anniversary pedal editions and enhanced reissues, but it's entering bold new territory with the Eurus GS-1 guitar and EV-1-WL wireless expression pedal, its now making another debut with an amp and cab simulator effects pedal, the IR-200.

Like the Walrus Audio ACS1 and Strymon Iridium, the IR-200 offers players the flexibility for recording and can transform your pedalboard into a mobile rig for stage and rehearsal. But Boss has also taken the step of partnering with speaker icon Celestion here. 

The IR-200 boasts 144 BOSS and 10 Celestion Digital IR cab and mic combinations, and users can import up to 128 of their own WAV IRs via the IR-200 IR Loader software for macOS and Windows. 

In addition, there are eight guitar amps to choose from to offer go-to platforms from "classic clean, tweed, and class A to vintage and modern high-gain". There's three bass amps too. Players can then choose to use the IRs only or go fully mobile with the amps sims too. 

Two custom DSPs provide class-leading IR performance with support for mono and stereo files, up to 32-bit floating point/96 kHz resolution, and up to 500 ms length for natural bass response. Players are also able to use two IRs at once and feed signals to different destinations. 

We think the development of pedals to allow self-contained rigs for players is one of the most exciting developments for guitar in recent years; providing a whole new way to develop your rig and tone. And the connectivity here could enhance that further. In addition to a mono input, there's mono or stereo outputs, and an effects loop, allowing the IR-200 to integrate with your mono or stereo pedal setup.

Players Two IRs can be used at once, and it’s possible to feed independent signals to different destinations, such as a stage FRFR cab or a venue PA. While two onboard footswitches are available for memory selection while performing, players control various functions with external footswitches, an expression pedal, or MIDI.

There's more! The IR-200 functions can perform double duty as a USB audio desktop interface for music recording and streaming software on macOS and Windows computers and iOS devices. 

SY-200 Synthesiser 

The IR-200 is a signifiant release in itself, but Boss are clearly on a roll this year and have added a whole other new pedal to the 200 series. The SY-200 makes a lot of sense to us, bringing Boss's acclaimed synth technology to the 200 series, a line up of pedals that we think hits the sweet spot for form factor and features.

Boss are leaders in synth guitar and bass processing and this addition to the SY line sits between the classic stompbox SY-1 and SY-300 for a manageable size with plenty of feature scope.

There's 171 sounds in the SY-200's 12 categories for running wild with your creativity and 128 memories onboard to save your tones. Two footswitches are available for real-time performance control with the ability to connect external footswitches, an expression pedal, and MIDI.

The IR-200 and SY-200 will be available in January 2022 for $399.99 / £351 / €399 and $299.99 / £307 / €349  respectively. We can't wait to try them out! 

Boss is bringing its headphone amp system to bass players with the Waza-Air Bass. Using its spatial technology to give bassists an amp-in-a-room feel wherever they go, with onboard effects, amp models and rhythms to play along to.

The Waza-Air Bass features an integrated gyro sensor to track your head movements as you play, driving  3D algorithms that produce the feel of playing with a traditional amp in a space.  

Waza-Air Bass even provides three virtual environments to play in; Surround mode places the amp in a virtual room for a recording studio experience, Static mode provides natural spatial localisation, where the gyro sensor is integrated to combine amp and room sound that continually changes depending on where the player moves their head. 

Stage mode delivers a "full-on performance experience", according to Boss. Your amp sound comes from a virtual backline behind you, that combine with along with the onboard drum patterns or your choice of music streamed from a smartphone to play along to.

The Waza-Air Bass's capabilities are realised with the free Boss Tone Studio app with inspiring presets, five different bass amp types and over 30 effects from the Boss library. When you dial in your own favourite tones you can save them to the six onboard memory slots to call them up quickly as needed. Then you can start jamming along with your own virtual drummer.

Ten acoustic drum patterns are available with the Waza-Air Bass. You can control BPM and reverb control  for them in the app and there’s also a metronome with 32 rhythm variations, including time meters such as 5/4 and 7/4.

The wireless Waza-Air Bass includes a transmitter with built-in rechargeable batteries plus auto standby and wake functions to get you playing fast without wearing down battery life needlessly.

The Waza-Air Bass Wireless Personal Amplification System will be available in the  in November for $449.99. The CB-WZ-AIR carrying case will also be available. More info at Boss. 

• Explore our pick of the best guitar amp headphones

Boss WL-50 review: What Is It?

The Boss WL-50 is a wireless guitar system comprising a transmitter and receiver that’s roughly the same size as a regular Boss compact pedal. It’s been designed to fit on your pedalboard so that you can get rid of the cable that would normally run between your guitar/bass and your pedals.

The Boss WL-50 gives you freedom to walk around the stage or rehearsal room, without worrying about getting your cables tangled up. Weave in between band members, or even wander out into the crowd without the restrictions you’d normally face with a traditional guitar cable.

It’s a neat design, and when placed on a pedalboard, doesn’t look at all out of place. It runs off a regular 9V power supply (Boss recommends you use their PSA-S plug, but any decent unit will do the job), so you don’t need to start running different plugs into your board, though you can also run it using a pair of AA batteries. The transmitter jack slots nicely into the receiver and, when using mains power, the receiver acts as a charging port for it. You’ve also got the option of charging the transmitter via USB too.

It manages to pack quite a few handy features into such a small footprint. There’s a power output on the back so when powering it via mains, you can run a daisy chain out of it to power other pedals. As well as an output jack to run to your pedals, or guitar amp, there’s an input jack so you can just run a cable into it should you experience any wireless problems during a show. You’ve also got a switch that lets you simulate the tonal characteristics of running different length cables. 

Boss WL-50 review: Performance & verdict

One of the first things to note about the Boss WL-50 is how easy it is to use. Once the transmitter is charged up, simply dock it with the receiver for around 10 seconds and they’ll automatically pair. It’s got 14 channels available which accounts for playing in rooms with WiFi, or other wireless systems, plus it will automatically sense the best channel to use so you don’t get interference. With the Boss WL-50, you don’t need to tune into the right frequency - it does it all for you.

Boss states that the WL-50 has a 20 metre range, with line-of-sight propagation. We didn’t quite get the measuring tape out, but it covers a fair distance without dropping out. We even left the room and continued to play without the signal faltering. Only when we went down the hall and into another room (probably 15+ metres away) did the signal drop out. When playing gigs, you can roam around the stage, or even around the room, and you’ll be covered within a good distance. This also really comes in handy at soundcheck - you can leave the stage and continue to play, so you can hear the front of house sound.

The signal coming from the amp is absolutely fine - nothing noteworthy, which is a good thing. There’s no lag when playing, even when you’re a distance away from the receiver. The cable tone switch on the back lets you replicate the loss in treble frequencies that you normally get with a longer cable, if that’s what you’re used to hearing. You can also use a ‘short cable’, or have it switched off (ideal for active pickups and acoustics) - you can hear it, but the difference in sound isn’t massive.

Another handy little feature on the transmitter of the WL-50 is that there’s a tiny on/off button that’s depressed when plugged into a guitar input. This means that it’s only active when plugged into a guitar, so you don’t get that nasty pop when you take the transmitter out, as you would do with most traditional cables.

However, this feature also means that when it’s plugged into the receiver and the receiver isn’t powered on (and therefore isn’t charging it), they’re put into standby mode which does very slowly drain the battery. An easy solution to this is to simply pull the transmitter out of the receiver a touch, so it still sits neatly in place, but doesn’t depress the button.

The WL-50 looks great, and it’s unintrusive. It’s about the same size as a regular stompbox, so it’s easy to fit in alongside all your other pedals. The fact that it’s powered in the same way as the rest of your pedals also makes life easier. If you forget to charge your transmitter at home, you can turn up to a show and get an hour or so charging time between soundcheck and show time, and you’ll be good to go. The handy LED light on the transmitter lets you know how your battery is faring - when it goes to an amber light, you’ve got less than two hours left - if it goes to red, then you’ll probably want to finish the song and use a cable for the rest of your set.  

Boss says that you’ll get 10 hours playtime out of it, and whilst we’ve not tested the full 10 hours out, we gave it a good play through for a few hours and it remained green the whole time. 

A couple of minor concerns with the WL-50 is that some guitars with certain active pickups might need a stereo to mono jack converter; otherwise there may be some interference or it might not work at all. 

Another thing is that there’s no option to angle the jack plug at all - the transmitter is a rigid unit. Most of the time, this won’t be an issue - it fit perfectly in all the guitars we tried it with - Strat, Tele, Les Paul, P-Bass and more. However, in a Jazzmaster, and no doubt some other guitars, you do notice it a little more than if you were using a regular cable. If you’re an enthusiastic strummer, you might accidentally knock it. That said, you’d probably get used to it after time.

Boss WL-50 review: Hands-on Demos

PMTV UK 

Alberto Martinez Del Rio 

Boss 

Boss WL-50 review: Specifications

• Compatible Channels: 14
• Range: Up to 65 feet line-of-sight (May vary due to local conditions) 
• Latency: 2.3 ms
• Connectors: Input Jack, Output Jack, Transmitter Jack, DC In Jack, DC Out Jack
• Power Supply: Alkaline battery (AA, LR6) x 2 or AC adaptor
• Current Draw: During wireless operation, 60 mA; while charging transmitter, 320 mA
• Expected battery life under continuous use: Alkaline battery (AA, LR6), approximately 10 hours
• Contact: Boss 

As it reaches its 30th anniversary, the Boss MT-2 Metal Zone has already passed the incredible landmark of selling over a million pedals. A mind-bogglingly high number for any guitar effects unit, especially a high-gain distortion pedal that remains one of the company's most misunderstood. 

The pedal's huge potential lies goes beyond the obvious strength of its huge gain range, with Low, Middle, and High controls offering +15 dB cut or boost to carefully tweak your tone for amp and guitar.  

As the Metal Zone receives a special none-more-black 30th Anniversary Limited Edition MT-2-3A version for 2021, it's a great opportunity to take stock and celebrate the diverse range of musicians who have taken advantage of the MT-2's tonal strengths and what we can learn from its greatest moments on record and stage.

And it's not always used for the guitar…

Biffy Clyro - 57 

From small clubs as a power trio in Biffy Clyro's early days to stadium headliners, Simon Neil's drive sound has always been huge, and hugely reliant on the Boss MT-2 Metal Zone. "The level… you can take it wherever you want it to be but I find if it's not at three quarters it doesn't have that step up that I require," Neil explained to That Pedal Show last year. Neil also stressed the sensitivity of the MT-2's EQ adjustment on the pedal in the video below, a key factor in the pedal's strengths. 

He's always used stock Metal Zones and the basic settings remain no matter what amp the singer/guitarist uses. “Simon’s got the Level up to 3 o’clock and the Distortion set to just over halfway,” his tech Richard Pratt revealed to Boss. “We’re pushing the Low to 3 o’clock; High is at 12 o’clock, and we pull both the midrange knobs back to around 10 o’clock. The Low boost gives the sound girth. It’s a big, serious, scooped distortion."

Neil's choice of a main mid-focussed guitar with overwound single-coils is also a factor in how effective the MT-2 has become for Biffy Clyro's sound; "The saturation of everything, as well as the clarity of that [Fender] Supersonic and the punch of the Stratocaster, that's quite an important part," he explains. "I'm not sure  a Les Paul would react in quite the same way.

Another key component is Neil is using the the Supersonic clean for a fuller and defined chord experience to capture the highs while being combined by the Metal Zone is going into his Marshall 1959 SLP reissue head. 

Daft Punk - Rollin' And Scratchin' 

Well here's a curveball  already –  the enigmatic French duo reportedly used a Boss MT-2 with a 1984 Juno 106 synth for this relentless cut from their 1997 debut album Homework . Guy-Manuel de Homem-Christo and Thomas Bangalter were not the most talkative at the best of times but YouTuber Alex Ball makes a strong case in the video tutorial below that the MT-2 was used on the track, using a Juno-06 with it to accurately recreate the harsh, pulverising sound.  

The MT-2 transforms the Juno's soft sound by maxing all settings, and it compresses the sound into the realms of Beelzebub. The power of the Metal Zone's EQ pots are fully on show here. 

Prince - The Undertaker 

The story around The Undertaker is fascinating in its own right; it's the Purple One in his guitar hero element, but it remains officially unreleased. Recorded live in one take at Paisley Park on 14 June, 1993, it was meant to be released as a cover-mount CD with Guitar World magazine but the release was blocked by Prince's then record label, Warner Bros.

The 36-minute album has since surfaced on YouTube and cements Prince's legacy as an incredibly gifted guitarist. And one who long relied on a 'board of Boss pedals – with a Metal Zone on the road for the Diamonds and Pearls tour and up until the late '90s. But it's on this album that it can be heard in high-gain glory. 

At The Gates – Blinded By Fear 

While the HM-2 was the defining element of the Swedish death metal sound of the '90s, for the crowning glory of the comparatively melodic side of the sound that was based around the city of Gothenburg, the MT-2 was paired with it. To devastating effect.

The HM-2 was run into the MT-2 with a solid state Peavey Supreme 160 head for tracking at Fredrik Nordström's Studio Fredman with 10" and 12" speakers. The Metal Zones effectively tightened the high gain sound of the HM-2 for Anders Björler and Martin Larsson's intricate Wagnerian riffs. 

Korn - Did My Time 

Korn's James 'Munky' Shaffer has used Boss pedals for his palette of eery tones for years and proves the Metal Zone is great fo lo-fi intros when dialled back. "It's something I picked for a song a long time ago, Did My Time, and it turns it into an AM radio sound, a lo-fi sound is what we use that for,"  his tech Jim Otell told Premier Guitar. 

For that the distortion is set to around 9 o'clock 

The Vines – Metal Zone 

How is this for pledging your allegiance; Craig Nicholls is such a huge fan of the MT-2, he named a song after it! And what a showcase for its namesake it is - bringing huge girth to the chorus on the song's grungey quiet / loud dynamics.

Nicholls rarely gives interviews but has traditionally used his amps as a clean platform for his pedal distortion. And Vines bandmate Lachlan West explained why Nicholls' pedal of choice inspired the song. "Well the lyrics definitely aren't about the pedal but that little black stomp box is most likely what gave Craig the Idea to call the song Metal Zone," the drummer told aaabackstage.com. 

"I remember one of our first rehearsals together, our manager came to the studio with a plastic bag actually filled with Boss Metal Zone pedals (as Craig is not known for having great respect for his equipment). The next week he had a new song to show us, called Metal Zone."

Crowbar – Planets Collide 

Kirk Windstein has one of the heaviest riff tones in all of heavy metal. His secret weapon? He uses his Metal Zone as a clean boost in Crowbar with the distortion dialled off, level at max and EQ set at noon. "It tightens it up," says Kirk. These days he's moves between using Randalls to another solid state amp, the Orange Crush Pro – no valves required here. 

"I have my bass on about 8, my treble on about 4.5/5 and my mids on about 4," Kirk says of his amp settings with the Crush Pro". 

Dinosaur Pile-up - Pouring Gasoline

Matt Bigland is definitely a child of the '90s when it comes to his guitar influences, and this is firm testament to it. “We were thinking of songs like Territorial Pissings and Smashing Pumpkins vibes a lot with this track," he told Guitar.com. "So we DI’d a bunch of horrible overdrive and fuzz pedals to get some of the sounds on this. I can’t remember what we used in the end. But I know we tried a RAT and a Boss Metal Zone, maybe this banged-out old pedal from the 60s called Fuzztone or something."

Horrible?! Sounds pretty wonderful to us, Matt! 

Live and studio – Converge 

Kurt Ballou is a producer at GodCity studios in Salem, Massachusetts as well as a guitarist with Converge, and he's a master architect of heavy tones who knows gear better than most. He even makes his own pedals and guitars under God City Instruments name. While he's an aficionado of the Boss HM-2, for a while he used the MT-2 and like other heavyweight players on our list, he utilised it as a boost. 

He rolled off the gain and maxed the volume to push the front of his amp. “There’s some pre-emphasis EQ that’s always present which adds clarity and harmonics even at low gain,” he says. However he now uses it differently.

“These days, I mostly use it patched straight into a tube mic preamp to get those blackened 4-track tones, Ballou told Boss” At GodCity Studio, the uses of the MT-2 are specific and intentional. “It doesn’t get used often, but when it does, nothing else will do."

It's Not So Hard – Sparklehorse

Late Sparklehorse mainman and multi-instrumentalist Mark Linkous didn't use his MT-2 for guitar, instead he tried an unusual mic technique for drums. "Strip a cheap microphone down to its diaphragm, and literally tape it to the kick drum [the bass drum] or the kick shell," he explained to PC Mag. He then ran that through the MT-2 and a noise-gate. The end result is the slightly 'trashy' drum sound you can hear on this track. 

To find out more about the limited edition Metal Zone MT-2-3A 30th Anniversary  pedal visit Boss. 

Boss has expanded its range of accessories with two very smart looking gig-bags that offer considerable but portable protection for your electric guitar, and an all-important array of pockets for leads, strings, picks and whatever else you need with you when on the move.

With its semi-rigid construction, the Boss CB-EG20 offers an exceptional level of protection for your guitar. It has a water-resistant nylon exterior and zippers, and inside an ultra-soft lining with padded neck supports and strap, plus a removable cushioned end block should you have a larger guitar to carry. 

A deluxe handle and two padded hideaway straps helps make light work of carrying your guitar, while two pockets should hold your accessories.

The CB-EG20, meanwhile, is a little more lightweight. It has a weather-resistant polyester exterior and heavy-duty zippers, and a velvet-lined interior with a pair of detachable padded neck supports and securing straps. 

As with the CB-EG20, you can carry it like a backpack, and there is a loop handle for easily hoisting it into small spaces.

The CB-EG10 and CB-EG20 are priced £69 / $79.99 and £129 / $149.99 respectively. See Boss for more details

What is it?

Boss has long been the reigning king of looper pedals - and with good reason. The ever-popular Loop Station range has seen the likes of the RC-30 and RC-300 become industry-standard pedals on stages around the world. Beloved by artists such as Ed Sheeran and Kurt Vile for their robust build and high-quality components, it's no surprise that they have become a must-have pedal for many players. 

The RC-1 is the entry-level point into the Loop Station series and the most basic looper on offer from the historic pedal company. Boss has stripped back this looper to its bare essentials meaning there's nothing to get in the way of your creativity. At its heart is the innovative LED display, which gives a visual indicator of where you are in your loop, as well as which of the three modes you are in - record, overdub, or playback.  

With 12 minutes of recording time, you won't have to worry about capturing full songs or your extended experimental jam sessions - the only limitation is your imagination. The Boss RC-1 isn't just for the guitar players, as the stereo inputs are ideal for stereo instruments such as synthesizers or keyboards. The stereo outputs also give you the option of running two amplifiers. 

Performance & verdict

If you are at all familiar with Boss pedals, then you know exactly what to expect with the RC-1. Housed in the iconic compact enclosure, this pedal feels practically bomb-proof. Boss is so confident in its near indestructibility that they even offer an impressive five-year warranty - not bad for something you energetically stomp on. Just remember to register the pedal on the Boss website. 

Although it may not be as small as its contemporaries, the larger footprint allows for a more significant surface area for your foot to hit - meaning it's one less thing to worry about when you're playing. 

In terms of using the pedal, it really couldn't be simpler. Press the pedal once to engage recording mode and press again to simultaneously playback and overdub. To stop the loop, simply double press. If you make a mistake - and let's face it, it's going to happen a lot at the start - then press and hold, and you'll undo the last overdub you recorded. If you need to clear the entire loop, double press and hold. This series of taps is very intuitive and doesn’t take long to get used to. 

Out of the box, the RC-1 comes preset in "record mode". This means after you record your initial loop and press the pedal to playback, it will automatically start the overdub mode at the same time. Now, this can be very handy for building tracks from the ground up - laying down a muted rhythm, then a bass line, and finally a melody - but it isn't ideal if you simply want to loop some chords and solo over the top.

Fortunately, you can change this by accessing the mode menu. To do this, press and hold down the pedal switch while turning on the unit. Tap the pedal twice to switch the LED lights to the bottom half of the screen. This will initiate "stop mode". This will allow you to play back without needing to overdub straight away. We must admit, we love this feature. Depending on the situation, you may want your pedal to behave differently, and switching between modes is relatively straightforward. 

Easily the best feature has to be the LED display. Not only does this do a pretty good job of showing you what mode you are in, but it's also a fantastic way of knowing exactly where you are in the loop - giving you the ability to never miss a beat. 

As this is the most basic version of the loop station Boss offers, it is missing a few key features present on the more expensive models. The main one being storage. Although it will save the last thing you recorded - if you turn the pedal off - you can't save multiple loops to go back to. This can make the RC-1 a little limiting in a live situation. There is also no USB present for downloading your loops to a computer and even uploading pre-recorded loops to the pedal itself. To be honest, considering the price point, this isn't really a concern. However, if you do find yourself longing for these features, then it's worth looking at the RC-5 or RC-500. 

It’s also worth mentioning that this pedal doesn’t come with a power supply. Like most loopers, it’s relatively power-hungry and therefore won’t last long with a battery, so we highly recommend investing in a quality pedalboard power supply.  

Lastly, the RC-1 has both stereo inputs and outputs. This might not seem like a big deal, but it can come in very handy. This feature allows you to run two guitar amps for stereo effects, such as delay and reverb or even gives you the ability to run stereo instruments such as synths, keyboards, or drum machines. 

Overall this is a fantastic pedal, and for the price, it has to be one of the top loopers on the market. Boss really has knocked it out of the park with this ultra-reliable and insanely easy-to-use unit. So whether you're looking for your first looper, or just need a simple, no-nonsense pedal, then you should definitely pick this one up.  

Hands-on demos

Boss 

PMT

Dawsons Music 

Specifications

• Nominal Input Level: -20 dBu
• Input Impedance: 1 M ohm
• Nominal Output Level: -20 dBu 
• Output Impedance: 1 k ohm
• Recommended Load Impedance: 10 k ohms or greater
• Maximum Recording Time: Approximately 12 minutes 
• Controls: Pedal switch, LEVEL knob, Indicators, CHECK indicator, LOOP indicator
• Connectors: INPUT A (MONO) jack: 1/4-inch phone type, INPUT B jack: 1/4-inch phone type, OUTPUT A (MONO) jack: 1/4-inch phone type, OUTPUT B Jack: 1/4-inch phone type, STOP/UNDO jack: 1/4-inch TRS phone type, DC IN jack
• Power Supply: Alkaline battery (9 V, 6LR61), AC adaptor (sold separately) * Rechargeable Ni-MH batteries cannot be used
• Current Draw: 95 mA
• Contact: Boss 

What is it?

Launched in 2018, the Boss GT-1000 represented the pinnacle of the Japanese effects titan's multi-effects and amp modelling technology. This was a do-it-all unit, an all-singing, all-dancing solution to compete with the likes of Fractal and Line 6. 

It was, or rather, it is a very cool, high-end piece of tech. But not every player wants a floorboard unit, and with that in mind, Boss has taken the DSP brains of the GT-1000 – all its immense 32-bit/96kHz processing power, amp models and patches – and placed them in a compact stompbox-sized unit, the GT-1000 Core.

Sharing the same roadworthy build as its larger sibling, the GT-1000 Core has three main footswitches, a set of five soft knobs for instant editing, a nice and clear display, plus a set of six buttons, output and select controls. You can easily toggle between Memory mode and Manual by pressing down on the middle and CTL 1 (right) footswitch simultaneously. 

Of course, this being a smaller unit, you don't have the built-in expression pedal treadle, but you'll find an expression pedal input on the rear of the GT-1000 Core, alongside two effects loops and stereo inputs and outputs. There is an additional expression pedal input on the side of the unit, plus MIDI inputs and outputs and a USB powered. All this is powered by the bundled Boss PSB-1U 9V DC supply.

The amps and effects models are arranged similarly to the GT-1000. You've got 250 presets and 250 user patches, and these are constructed from 24 effects blocks. Boss gives you plenty of options here. You can combine two amp models in one patch, plus a complex chain of effects. 

There are over 100 effects to choose from so filling those 24 effects blocks should not be a problem. As you might expect, all the classics from the Boss canon are included, and there is no shortage of modelled stompbox emulations should you need a Fuzz Face or Tube Screamer tone. 

Alternatively, you can add your own real-life pedals via the aforementioned effects loops, building an entire rig around the unit. For convenience, these can then be controlled via the GT-1000 Core's footswitches.

Deep editing is intuitive enough once you get your head around the patches setup, but the free Boss Tone Studio will really turn you loose on those edits. You'll soon get the hang of it and start compiling sounds that can be easily recalled.

As with the effects, you've got a veritable bounty of Boss and Roland amps plus a wide array of popular amp models. Convenience allied to the quality of tones is what Boss is going for here. If you want to A/B between a clean Fender-esque combo tone and the midrange punch of an overdriven Marshall, it's all here at the touch of a footswitch.

While you would be forgiven for having option paralysis already, there is more. You can complement the onboard cab sims by uploading your own impulse responses to 16 storage slots. And there you have it: nose-to-tail signal processing. But how does this all stack up in practice?

Performance and verdict

What Boss has done here is not too dissimilar to what Line 6 did to its Helix units with the Helix Stomp, or indeed the HeadRush Gigboard. The essence of the unit remains the same. There's no truck with the quality of the amp models here. How it functions as a performance tool is crucial as to whether the scaled-down format works.

With seven fewer footswitches to choose from, you need to do a little thinking as to how you want them to work. Boss helpfully allows you to assign functions for them, and as mentioned above, toggling between Manual and Memory modes is quick and easy. You can set the GT-1000 Core up so that the footswitches have momentary or latching modes – the former handy for holding sustain down on a reverb for creating a wash of ambience as the song requires it.

In Memory mode, the first two footswitches are browsing and selecting the stored patches, while the CTL 1 knob can be given a specific purpose in the patch, such as a boost, overdrive or perhaps a tap-tempo for a time-sensitive effect.

Manual mode operates a little differently. Here you can set up different patches and assign functions to footswitches that pertinent to that patch. Effectively, you could program a patch, assign the footswitch effects that it could turn on and off again, and build your sound that way.

For example, you could set the patch so you have your core sound, assign a boost to one switch, a delay to another, and maybe some fuzz for when a solo comes around. That mode might be better for you if you save the patches as songs in your setlist. Simply load up a patch for the song – effectively a whole new programmed pedalboard – and use those footswitches if you need to change effects mid-song.

In Memory mode, simply switch from patch to patch. The transition is seamless. You can also carry over the delay and reverb effects as you go.

With all fully functioned amp modellers and multi-effects, it takes a little getting used to. Not so much in terms of operating the unit, which is intuitive enough, but working out how to configure it best to your needs – and of course setting aside some hours so that you can fall happily down that rabbit hole chasing tones.

With the GT-1000 Core, the sky's the limit. We mentioned A/Bing between distinct amp voices, but this is really about having the capability to dial in almost any sound you can imagine. The sonically adventurous will be rewarded for their experimentation.

You could get more than your money's worth even if you just wished to the GT-1000 Core as simply a multi-effects unit with some bells and whistles, but it also functions as a 6-in/6-out USB audio interface, making it a very useful piece of kit to have around the house, not just for tracking but for re-amping too.

 Just think what you can do with all those amp models, effects and cab sims. It then becomes a very powerful home production tool when used in that context. The GT-1000 Core's domestication is further enhanced by a headphone out, with the cab sims making silent practice a musically rewarding experience rather than the dry affair you'd get from a non-emulated headphones output.

Other useful little tools include a 38-second mono looper, tuner, and metronome. All this, and you can throw it in a backpack and use it as a fly rig to go straight into a PA system. We guitarists should never take it for granted that we can have such tone-shaping power and functionality from such a small unit. The price is not bad either.

MusicRadar verdict: All the tone-shaping magic of the GT-1000 but smaller and for two-thirds of the price, this super-flexible amp modelling unit is a very convincing option for an all-in-one digital rig or for dramatically expanding what you have. 

The web says

“Using the GT-1000CORE is enjoyable. We love the display, even if we still favour the USB cable and desktop software for those long editing sessions. But if you’re worried about connectivity and the organisation of switches, you might want to look at the full-scale GT-1000 instead.“
MusicTech

“The Boss GT‑1000 is an impressive, well‑priced combination of guitar amplifier/effect modelling floorboard, audio interface and MIDI controller that is capable of delivering an impressive level of performance. Its amplifier models are effective and sound good and its effects capabilities are huge. In terms of the playing experience, the GT‑1000 feels every bit as good as its direct competitors and, overall, it offers impressive value for money.“
Sound On Sound

“The GT-1000CORE is effectively the stompbox collection of a Boss fanatic's dream – all packed into one very compact, practical, and user-friendly box, with a ton of bonus features for flexible connectivity, editing, studio-quality processing, recording, and performance. It's quite an achievement for the price and size.“
Premier Guitar

Hands-on demos

Nita Strauss

Rabea Massaad

Andertons

Premier Guitar

Specifications

• ORIGIN: Malaysia
• TYPE: Amp and Effects modelling floor/ desktop unit
• FEATURES: 250 user and 250 preset patches, 38 second phrase looper (19 in stereo), 6 in / 6 out USB audio interface, software editor with USB connection, mono or polyphonic tuner, metronome, IR loading capability
• CONTROLS: Output Level, Select, footswitches x 3, soft knobs x 5 (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), Select knob, buttons x 6
• CONNECTIONS: Standard inputs (R/Mono, L), Standard outputs (R/Mono, L/Phones), Standard Sends 1 and 2, Standard Returns 1 and 2, CTL 2, 3/EXP1, CTL 4, 5/EXP2, MIDI In, MIDI Out, USB 
• POWER: Supplied PSB-1U power adapter (9V 2A)
• DIMENSIONS: 173 (w) x 135 (d) x 65 mm (h)
• CONTACT: Boss

So how many effects pedals do you really need? We believe the answer is simple - the current number of pedals you own, plus one. Well, luckily for you, it just got a whole lot more affordable to sustain your pedal habit, with Musician's Friend offering up to 50% off a wide range of pedals. 

We joke, but that new stompbox may be the spark you need to get the creative juices flowing, and not to mention a relatively cheap way of changing up your sound. Whether you purchase a new overdrive, compressor, or chorus, it can have a dramatic effect on your overall guitar tone. It's worth experimenting with as many different pedals as you can, so you can find your own voice on the instrument. 

Below we’ve selected a few of our favourites from this fantastic sales event.  

It is an age old problem with the guitar amplifier – particularly the combo. You turn it on, turn it up, and it blows all that air and sound at your ankles. Well, the Boss BAS-1 can help with all that.

A heavy-duty tilt-back stand, it allows you to place your beloved amp at the optimum angle, so that its sweet, sweet tones are directed towards your ears – just as a wedge monitor might – or to an audience, and the happy occasion when such things become things again.

It's a common complaint, curiously, less so in acoustic amplifier design, where the likes of Boss's own Acoustic Singer Live LT and Blackstar Sonnet come with built-in tilt on their cabinets.

Simply heave your amp onto the BAS-1, adjust, and off you go. It really is simple, but a little help with projection can make a huge difference in an acoustically challenging room.

The BAS-1 is made from steel, folds down, and has a locking mechanism and quick-release lever, and it can take up to 21kg / 46lb. No prices just yet, but pop over to Boss for more info or check out the video below.

After teasing a new addition to its premium, Japanese-made Waza Craft series for some weaks, Boss has unveiled the TB-2W Tone Bender, a collaboration with Sola Sounds that brings back an "authentic sonic recreation of the Tone Bender MK II."

For many, the Tone Bender MKII is the finest iteration of a classic fuzz that lit up the 60s when players first started looking to outboard devices to get more dirt from their amplifier.

One thing about Tone Benders, however, is that they were are not the smallest of pedals. This repro comes in a typically compact Boss chassis, which is more pedalboard-friendly by far. 

The pedal's controls are straightforward, with knobs for Level and Attack, plus a three-way voltage selector for adding headroom or choking the fuzz for more extreme tone. 

Under the hood, you've got rare stock germanium transistors – though there is no official confirmation, circuit geeks can presume that these will be a trio of Mullard 0C81D germanium transistors as per the reference pedal. 

Boss worked with closely with Sola Sound on the pedal, plundering the archives to build the TB-2W around a “masterpiece” Tone Bender MK II (serial number 500), even going as far as to label the enclosure using Sola Sound's original font.

The original circuit was designed by Gary Hurst, aka “Gary the Fuzzman,” and was soon adopted in the mid-60s by Jeff Beck and Jimmy Page (who helpfully demos one below in the company of the Edge and Jack White, having liberally deployed one across the Led Zeppelin canon). Page took receipt of a MKII just before the recording of Led Zeppelin I.

As mentioned in the teasers, the Boss Waza Craft TB-2W Tone Bender will be a limited edition model, with pedals arriving at retailers in spring 2021.

There are no prices just yet, but if you like the idea of having a MKII circuit in a Boss chassis, act fast as these will surely become collectible.

Boss, meanwhile, have another Waza Craft pedal in the works. As revealed by Boss CEO Yoshi Ikegami last week, the cult classic HM-2 Heavy Metal distortion is being reissued, with Boss starting a Facebook group to pool ideas from players. 

The HM-2 was integral to the development of the Swedish Sunlight Studios death metal tone, as debuted on Entombed's Left Hand Path.

A cult classic and one of the most important distortion pedals in the history of metal, the Boss HM-2 Heavy Metal is to be reissued as part of the Japanese effects titan's deluxe Waza Craft series.

The HM-2 has long been out of commission but it has never been out of style. Take a look at the picture above – that configuration, all knobs jacked to the max, might not have been in the original users manual but that is how the HM-2 helped create the sound of Swedish death metal on seminal albums such as Entombed's Left Hand Path.

There is scarcely a more important pedal in underground metal. Bands such as Nails and Rotten Sound have taken that Stockholm savagery and applied it in different contexts, proving that a production line distortion, used in the most unorthodox fashion, can yield spectacular results.

Its rerelease was confirmed by Boss president Yoshi Ikegami on a Talk With Boss Facebook livestream. He was shooting down rumours that the company's recently teased and soon to be unveiled Waza Craft release was an HM-2.

Alas, not. But the HM-2 is slated for release next year, with an HM-2W Facebook group set up to for players to offer their suggestions. So far, some 1,300 users have joined.

As to the teased pedal? Well, given that the Waza Craft series sees Boss redesign the circuit of the pedals, typically adding a secondary function, but otherwise hews close to the originals cosmetically (the only difference being the classic silver screw, Waza Craft logo on the footswitch), we'd guess it might be a fuzz in the vein of the FZ-2 Hyper Fuzz. 

With another Talk With Boss event scheduled for 2 December, we might not have to wait long for a reveal. But then Boss has said that this will unlike anything we have seen before, so who can tell?

As to the HM-2, it's a strange fish. You don't get that much play out of the Distortion control. All the magic is in that Color Mix EQ controls, which offer 20dB of boost and cut.

Although David Gilmour had one in his pedalboard for a while in the mid-80s, the HM-2 never went mainstream. Perhaps if he had covered Entombed's Revel In Flesh in later years, he would truly have consecrated his HM-2 experience. An opportunity missed.

When the HM-2 was retired in 1991, its mantle was assumed by the MT-2 Metal Zone. That, too, had a similar configuration, with two EQ controls to set the character of its gain. It went on to become a best-seller, used by the likes of Biffy Clyro's Simon Neil.

A Waza Craft MT-2W version was released, with a second more djent-friendly chug mode, but when it comes to the fuzzed-out, necro chainsaw tone, nothing compares to the HM-2. Pedal manufacturers have been chasing that level of morbid filth ever since. Earlier today, KMA Machines revealed a limited edition tribute, the WURHM HM-2.

What would you like to see in this HM-2W Heavy Metal? Well, don't tell us, head on over to the HM-2 Facebook group and tell the Boss.