General Interest

The bass guitar played by Horace Panter on the Specials’ 1981 hit Ghost Town is headed to the auction block, and is expected to fetch up to £20,000.

As auctioneer Gardiner Houlgate explains in a press release, Panter paid £200 for the 1971 blue Fender Precision bass in 1981, and admits he’s “not overly attached” to the instrument, and would rather it go to someone who will play it.

• READ MORE: Trump tariffs rejected by US Supreme Court – what could this mean for the guitar industry?

“It would be nice if it went to someone who’ll play it rather than shut it in a vault. It plays really well,” he says.

The Special’s Ghost Town spent three weeks at Number One in the UK, and 11 weeks in the top 40, and “summed up the depressed mood of Britain at the time”.

After the Specials disbanded in 1981, Horace Pantr used the bass with new wave supergroup General Public, which also featured former members of The Beat, Dexy’s Midnight Runners, and the Clash.

Panter sold the bass in 1988, before re-acquiring it in 2010 to use when the Specials reunited.

“This is a bass guitar that’s going to stir up quite a lot of interest among fans and collectors,” says Gardiner Houlgate auctioneer Luke Hobbs. “Ghost Town is such an evocative track reflecting the social and political unrest of Britain at that time – and Horace Panter’s bass is a big part of it.”

Horace Panter’s 1971 Fender Precision bass will be available for public viewing on Friday 6 March and Monday 9 March from 09:00 – 17:30, and on 10 March, the day of the sale itself.

The auction will take place at Gardiner Houlgate, 9 Leafield Way, Corsham, Wiltshire, SN13 9SW.

Learn more at Gardiner Houlgate.

The post Bass used on The Specials Ghost Town expected to fetch £20k at auction appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Held in July 2025, Back to the Beginning marked Black Sabbath’s last-ever show, with a who’s who of metal’s elite – including, to name a few, Metallica, Slayer, Pantera, Gojira and Lamb of God – gathering at Birmingham’s Villa Park for the heavy metal founders’ swansong.

The event culminated in a short but showstopping set from Black Sabbath, with a frail,  throne-bound Ozzy Osbourne performing War Pigs, N.I.B., Iron Man and Paranoid alongside guitarist Tony Iommi, bassist Geezer Butler and drummer Bill Ward one last time to a crowd of tens of thousands of heavy metal disciples.

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

Ozzy – then 76 – had been battling a number of health conditions for years, including Parkinson’s, which caused worsening mobility in the later years of his life. 

And as his widow and longtime manager Sharon Osbourne explains in a new interview of the Dumb Blonde celebrity podcast, her husband “knew” he didn’t have long to live as preparations reached their peak ahead of Back to the Beginning.

“Two weeks before the show, they said he could probably die, and he did,” Sharon says [via Blabbermouth]. “But he wanted to do it so bad. He needed it. And it’s, like, ‘Whether I die in two weeks or I die in six months, I’m still dying. And I wanna go my way.’ And he did. He went like a rock star.”

Sharon says that the love and tributes to Ozzy Osbourne and his illustrious career at Back to the Beginning were “bittersweet” because they “knew” Ozzy didn’t have much time left.

“Ozzy had sepsis earlier on last year,” she continues. “And very few people ever walk away from that without losing a limb or their life… And as soon as he got sepsis, the kids and I, we knew it was time. And then when we went to England, he went into hospital for a week. And when he came out, they said, ‘You know, Ozzy, this could kill you.’ And he said, ‘I’m doing my show.’ He went out like a king.”

Sharon goes on: “The thing is when you’ve lived your life that way, and it was like, ‘Okay, six months more to go out the way I wanna go out.’ It’s like saying, when you get really old and somebody’s still smoking and they’re, like, 78 years of age, and you’re like, ‘Just let him smoke. Leave him alone. He’s 78. Leave him alone.’

“[Ozzy] went the way he wanted to go. He knew. He knew.”

Sharon also reflects on the moments surrounding Ozzy’s death: “It was so quick. And thank God. I knew when they were trying to revive him, I knew. I’m, like, ‘Don’t. Don’t do it. Leave him.’ “He was done. But again, he went out like a rock star.”

In terms of how she is coping in the wake of Ozzy’s death at the age of 76, Sharon says: “I’m getting there. It’s hard. Jesus, it’s hard, but I’m getting there. I’m gonna keep working and I’m gonna keep doing what I do in my life. And that’s it.”

The post “Two weeks before the show, they said he could die. But he wanted to do it so bad”: Sharon Osbourne on Ozzy’s insistence to perform one last time at Back to the Beginning appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Tensions have very much died down now, but Metallica and Megadeth don’t exactly have a totally amicable history. As the story goes, Megadeth founder and frontman Dave Mustaine was Metallica’s lead guitarist from 1982 to 1983, before being ousted from the band for alcoholism, drug abuse and aggressive behaviour.

But during his time with the group, Mustaine helped write many of the band’s early tracks, including Ride the Lightning, the title track from Metallica’s sophomore album, released a year after his departure.

Mustaine recently revealed how the division of songwriting credits on some of the band’s early tracks became a “bone of contention” between him and Metallica frontman James Hetfield, contributing to their fractured relationship.

• READ MORE: Trump tariffs rejected by US Supreme Court – what could this mean for the guitar industry?

Last month, Megadeth released their last-ever album, and with it came a landmark cover of Ride the Lightning, the track Mustaine helped write decades ago. And in a new interview with Portugal’s Metal Global, bassist James LoMenzo recalls hearing from Mustaine of his plans to record the cover.

“I was delighted. I was surprised,” he says [via Blabbermouth]. “My eyebrows went up, but I was kind of delighted that he was gonna even go there, because there’s always that subliminal undercurrent tension – you know, ‘Oh, Metallica [vs.] Megadeth.’

“And I always thought, like, Megadeth, for God’s sake, I always thought Dave won in a way, because he’s built this giant thing all by himself. And it made a lot of sense to me logically. It seemed like if this is the last thing we’re gonna do, then we should go out, end with a band, but also kind of address the full history of the band. And that’s step one.

“So I thought it was great in the end. But yes, my eyebrow went up when I heard him say that, yeah.”

Elsewhere in the interview, LoMenzo is asked whether he believes Megadeth is better than Metallica “when it comes to riffs and solos”.

“I can’t go on board with you there,” he replies. “I’m a company guy – sure, I think we’re better, but semantically, I don’t really believe that. It’s all about taste and approach, right? And I think if Dave had stayed [in Metallica], it would’ve certainly been a lot more complex, but they would’ve not lost any energy that they had. 

“It comes down to, like, who do you like better – Motörhead or The Ramones? One seems silly, one seems really serious, but I love them both.”

Watch the full interview below:

The post “I always thought Dave won – because he’s built this giant thing all by himself”: James LoMenzo on the ever-present “subliminal undercurrent tension” between Megadeth and Metallica appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$199/£199, tru-fi.com/joespedals.com

There are normal people, and then there are fuzz pedal geeks. Normal people know about Fuzz Faces and Tone Benders, and might be vaguely aware that the British stompbox boom of the late 60s also produced one or two other models; fuzz geeks howl and weep in despair over the thought that those ‘others’ – specifically the Colorsound Power Boost and Overdriver – have been so widely forgotten.

• READ MORE: Manson Supermassive Black Fuzz review: heavy, heady filter fuzz that’s not just for Muse worship

Essentially 18V and 9V versions of the same circuit, the Power Boost (1969) and Overdriver (1971) were arguably not only fuzzes but also the first ever overdrive pedals. No wonder David Gilmour, Jeff Beck and Jan Akkerman loved them so much.

Time for a revival? American boutique maker Tru-Fi certainly thinks so, and has included a combined tribute to both pedals in its Mini series, with a toggle switch letting you flip between the two voltages (and power coming from a standard 9V supply or battery). It’s been brought to the UK by Joe’s Pedals, and it looks very cute indeed.

Image: Richard Purvis

Tru-Fi Mini ’71 Colordriver – what is it?

Tru-Fi specialises in vintage-minded pedals, mostly fuzz, in beautifully made metal enclosures. They’re also somewhat vintage-sized, but the Minis have been shrunk down by 1/3 and have the jack sockets at the top, making them significantly more ’board-friendly.

This is the ’71 Colordriver; there’s also a ’69 version that’s bright orange and has different silicon transistors (BC109 instead of BC184), for a tone that’s described as “a bit smoother”. Both have a volume knob on the side – a feature the originals lacked, leaving them stuck in extra-boosty mode. Maybe that’s why they went out of fashion in the first place?

Image: Richard Purvis

Tru-Fi Mini ’71 Colordriver – what does it sound like?

There’s a theory that this circuit demands a lot of headroom – it was, after all, designed to be plugged into much louder tube amps than what most people use today – but that really depends on what you want from it. I began my testing with a 20W combo attenuated for bedroom levels, so about as much headroom as a catflap… and fell in love with the Colordriver instantly.

With the amp set clean-ish, anything shy of halfway on the pedal’s central dial is definitely more overdrive than fuzz: it’s tonally uncoloured (until you start messing with the highly responsive tone controls), and crunchy in a way that caresses the eardrums. There’s a roughness to decaying chords that some people won’t like, but the full-frequency openness works brilliantly for tight rhythm playing.

The second half of that drive knob is all classic Brit filth, with some colossal Fuzz Face sounds on offer towards the very top, just as it starts to feel splattily overloaded. It also opens up really nicely when you turn the guitar’s volume down, albeit with a slight thinning out of the tone.

Through a bigger amp it’s a dramatically different story: now we feel the real noise-bringing potential of the Colordriver, with a tremendous low-end thump to go along with that sweetly singing midrange. It’s a match for any Fuzz Face, but only if you’re in the mood for high gain: with the guitar volume backed off it now sounds quite clangy, and with the pedal’s gain at halfway it’s just not as likeable as it was through the little amp. At the other end of the scale, though, the combination of treble, bass and master volume knobs does allow for some extremely tweakable boosting with the gain set even lower.

All of the above, by the way, is equally true at both voltage settings, with 18v sounding that little bit bigger and clearer than 9v. It’s great to have the choice, but you might find yourself popping that switch into the up position and leaving it there forever.

Image: Richard Purvis

Tru-Fi Mini ’71 Colordriver – should I buy it?

This pedal sounds great through a small amp and great through a big amp, but in totally different ways. That makes the “should I buy it?” question more complicated than usual, but here are two key facts to bear in mind: one, the ’71 Colordriver is an absolutely top-class stompbox; and two, the geeks are right and this near-forgotten giant of early fuzz needs to be on your radar.

Image: Richard Purvis

Tru-Fi Mini ’71 Colordriver – alternatives

You can still buy a full-size reissue Colorsound Overdriver (£429) or Power Boost (£399), both with master volume, courtesy of legendary London dealer Macari’s. Modern US-built alternatives include the IdiotBox Effects Power Drive ($139/£125) and Basic Audio Futureman ($200/£209.99).

The post Tru-Fi Mini ’71 Colordriver review – an underrated classic of early fuzz is reborn… in miniature appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.



Fretboard Journal contributor Seth Lorinczi joins us this week to talk about the rise and fall of Micro-Frets, the upstart electric guitar brand launched in the late 1960s.

Seth penned a lengthy story on Micro-Frets for our magazine’s 58th issue (available now), and we talk about the brand’s launch in Maryland, its unique offerings, the short-lived attempt to revive the company, and so much more.

We also talk about Seth’s history in the DC punk scene, his writing projects, and the impact psychedelic therapy has had on his life.

Follow Seth here: https://www.sethlorinczi.com/

Get issue 58 of the FJ (with Seth’s Micro-Frets story) here.

Also mentioned: Steve Melkisethian on the Truth About Vintage Amps Podcast: https://www.fretboardjournal.com/podcasts/the-truth-about-vintage-amps-ep-38-with-special-guest-steve-melkisethian/

Our next Fretboard Summit takes place August 20-22, 2026, at the Old Town School of Folk Music in Chicago. Register today: https://fretboardsummit.org

We are brought to you by Peghead Nation: https://www.pegheadnation.com (Get your first month free or $20 off any annual subscription with the promo code FRETBOARD at checkout).

Stringjoy Strings: https://stringjoy.com

Mike & Mike’s Guitar Bar: https://mmguitarbar.com

Mike & Mike’s Substack: https://mmguitarbar.substack.com

Seth Lorinczi photo: Cheryl Juetten

The post Podcast 538: The Story of Micro-Frets Guitars with Seth Lorinczi first appeared on Fretboard Journal.

Calculating the possible tones the Electro-Harmonix Bender Royale can produce—especially in relation to its simpler MkIII Tone Bender forebears—is not work for the casual mathematician. Let’s see, take the original 3-knob MkIII template, multiply those possible sounds by three additional knobs and two switches, multiply that again by the range of the extra knobs, and … well, you can see why I'm a guitar journalist rather than a NASA scientist calculating possible trajectories for Mars probes. But you needn’t be a senior researcher at M.I.T. or the Berkeley physics department to understand that the Bender Royale is a fuzz-tone gold mine.

A vintage-based fuzz with this much additional tone sculpting capability can be anathema to many old-school heads. Ordinarily, I might even count myself among that camp—certainly where a circuit as near perfect as the Tone Bender MkIII is concerned. But time and time again, I found myself in thrall to the Bender Royale’s broader sense of possibilities. It’s equally happy in dunderheaded ’60s garage-psych contexts and modern ambient settings. Best of all, its many controls enable intuitive pathways to these very different destinations.

Palace Expansions

I’d be lying if I said I looked over the Bender Royale for the first time without trepidation. I have a few 3-knob Tone Bender MkIII clones that I love and know intimately. I also know that compound tone possibilities can come at the cost of an otherwise simple pedal’s magical essence. But I also love the grand tradition of Electro-Harmonix as demented maximalists. And in this case, faith in the vision of Mike Matthews and his designers is well placed.

Early versions of the 3-transistor Sola Sound Tone Bender architecture were simple 2-knob pedals—just output volume and gain. The MkIII Tone Bender, on which the Bender Royale is based, added a high-pass filter-based tone control, which made it a much more nuanced pedal than its predecessors. On the Bender Royale, the tone section is comprised of treble and bass knobs, and using the two together yields many sounds that aren’t easily found in vintage style MkIIIs—especially when you set them in opposition to each other. Heavy bass settings and attenuated treble, for instance, can shape wooly, mysterious low-mid focused fuzz that’s uncommon in simple ’60s circuits.

The bias control is a familiar feature in modern fuzz design. And like the EQ, it can serve contemporary or vintage-style tone-shaping aims. In the latter scenario, the bias knob helps the Bender Royale assume personality traits of lower voltage vintage fuzzes like the Maestro FZ-1 or Selmer Buzz Tone. It can also help shape the Bender Royale’s output into glitchy, fractured tone scree peppered with odd overtones—or thuddy but substantial no-sustain fuzz that is perfect for doubling a bass line.

Mixing More Magic Potions

I don’t often see wet/dry blend controls on fuzzes, and I understand why some players would fail to see the point. On the Blender Royale though, it’s a feature with transformative power—particularly if you approach fuzz with a song arranger’s mindset. The most convenient framework for describing the sound of the blended wet/dry tones might be the work of My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields (who, not coincidentally, perhaps, is a fan of the MkIII Tone Bender.) If you’ve dived deep on Shield’s MBV sounds, you’ve probably noticed that many of them are not as filthy as legend would suggest. In fact, many of Shield’s classic MBV tones rely on a certain quantity of “cleanliness” to communicate the nuance of his pitch shifting and reverse reverb moves. The Blender Royale’s wet/dry blend makes it easy to shape these textures. And while this function shines in shoegaze-style applications (which often rely on fuzz as a source of dream haze rather than riff underpinnings) it can be invaluable in any song- or melody-first compositional or performance situation where detailed chords are of foremost importance and fuzz works better as a mood enhancer than sledgehammer.

The two switches—a FAT switch that emphasizes low-mid frequencies and one that switches between germanium and harder-edged LED clipping—are the two features I used least. And in general, I preferred the more vintage-aligned germanium clipping and FAT-less EQ profile for their clarity, which emphasizes detail in other control interactions. But they are far from superfluous. The LED-clipping, for example, will interact with treble-forward and off-biased settings to create extra-splintered, narrow output that stands tall, proud, and strange in a mix.

The Verdict

Electro-Harmonix’s Bender Royale may seem to exist in extra-dimensional space at times. But for all the adventure it enables, it is a pedal of great utility. It shines with humbuckers and single-coils, with American- and British-style amps, and for scorching leads and tuneful indie chording. And none of this very real variety in the Bender Royale comes at the expense of vintage MkIII accuracy when you need it. At $149, it has to be a contender for the best fuzz value in the business.

Calculating the possible tones the Electro-Harmonix Bender Royale can produce—especially in relation to its simpler MkIII Tone Bender forebears—is not work for the casual mathematician. Let’s see, take the original 3-knob MkIII template, multiply those possible sounds by three additional knobs and two switches, multiply that again by the range of the extra knobs, and … well, you can see why I'm a guitar journalist rather than a NASA scientist calculating possible trajectories for Mars probes. But you needn’t be a senior researcher at M.I.T. or the Berkeley physics department to understand that the Bender Royale is a fuzz-tone gold mine.

A vintage-based fuzz with this much additional tone sculpting capability can be anathema to many old-school heads. Ordinarily, I might even count myself among that camp—certainly where a circuit as near perfect as the Tone Bender MkIII is concerned. But time and time again, I found myself in thrall to the Bender Royale’s broader sense of possibilities. It’s equally happy in dunderheaded ’60s garage-psych contexts and modern ambient settings. Best of all, its many controls enable intuitive pathways to these very different destinations.

Palace Expansions

I’d be lying if I said I looked over the Bender Royale for the first time without trepidation. I have a few 3-knob Tone Bender MkIII clones that I love and know intimately. I also know that compound tone possibilities can come at the cost of an otherwise simple pedal’s magical essence. But I also love the grand tradition of Electro-Harmonix as demented maximalists. And in this case, faith in the vision of Mike Matthews and his designers is well placed.

Early versions of the 3-transistor Sola Sound Tone Bender architecture were simple 2-knob pedals—just output volume and gain. The MkIII Tone Bender, on which the Bender Royale is based, added a high-pass filter-based tone control, which made it a much more nuanced pedal than its predecessors. On the Bender Royale, the tone section is comprised of treble and bass knobs, and using the two together yields many sounds that aren’t easily found in vintage style MkIIIs—especially when you set them in opposition to each other. Heavy bass settings and attenuated treble, for instance, can shape wooly, mysterious low-mid focused fuzz that’s uncommon in simple ’60s circuits.

The bias control is a familiar feature in modern fuzz design. And like the EQ, it can serve contemporary or vintage-style tone-shaping aims. In the latter scenario, the bias knob helps the Bender Royale assume personality traits of lower voltage vintage fuzzes like the Maestro FZ-1 or Selmer Buzz Tone. It can also help shape the Bender Royale’s output into glitchy, fractured tone scree peppered with odd overtones—or thuddy but substantial no-sustain fuzz that is perfect for doubling a bass line.

Mixing More Magic Potions

I don’t often see wet/dry blend controls on fuzzes, and I understand why some players would fail to see the point. On the Blender Royale though, it’s a feature with transformative power—particularly if you approach fuzz with a song arranger’s mindset. The most convenient framework for describing the sound of the blended wet/dry tones might be the work of My Bloody Valentine’s Kevin Shields (who, not coincidentally, perhaps, is a fan of the MkIII Tone Bender.) If you’ve dived deep on Shield’s MBV sounds, you’ve probably noticed that many of them are not as filthy as legend would suggest. In fact, many of Shield’s classic MBV tones rely on a certain quantity of “cleanliness” to communicate the nuance of his pitch shifting and reverse reverb moves. The Blender Royale’s wet/dry blend makes it easy to shape these textures. And while this function shines in shoegaze-style applications (which often rely on fuzz as a source of dream haze rather than riff underpinnings) it can be invaluable in any song- or melody-first compositional or performance situation where detailed chords are of foremost importance and fuzz works better as a mood enhancer than sledgehammer.

The two switches—a FAT switch that emphasizes low-mid frequencies and one that switches between germanium and harder-edged LED clipping—are the two features I used least. And in general, I preferred the more vintage-aligned germanium clipping and FAT-less EQ profile for their clarity, which emphasizes detail in other control interactions. But they are far from superfluous. The LED-clipping, for example, will interact with treble-forward and off-biased settings to create extra-splintered, narrow output that stands tall, proud, and strange in a mix.

The Verdict

Electro-Harmonix’s Bender Royale may seem to exist in extra-dimensional space at times. But for all the adventure it enables, it is a pedal of great utility. It shines with humbuckers and single-coils, with American- and British-style amps, and for scorching leads and tuneful indie chording. And none of this very real variety in the Bender Royale comes at the expense of vintage MkIII accuracy when you need it. At $149, it has to be a contender for the best fuzz value in the business.

2025 Wilson Burnham Engelmann Spruce/Wenge double top classical guitar with an elevated fretboard. 

Ebony fretboard, East Indian rosewood bridge with MOP tie block cover, Manuel Ramirez style rosette.

Back and sides are laminated with curly Spanish cedar.

650mm string length

52mm wide at nut, 58mm string spacing at bridge. Please scroll down the page for more photos of this stunning guitar!

Regular price was $8000, price reduced to $4000! I am moving to a new studio and I want to liquidate my current stock of guitars!

For more specifications on this guitar, please click here!

Watch Juri Yun play this guitar! Please visit my YouTube channel, @wilsonburnhamguitars8563

"Wilson's guitars are outstanding! They have incredible voices and are easy to play! They are easy to play because the treble strings are there, they are present and you can hear them above the bass strings! You don't have to work hard to make these guitars sing!"

Nathan Fischer, president of the New York City Classical Guitar Society

The honeycomb Nomex in this double top guitar is cover with a veneer of old growth redwood to enhance the guitar's voice.

The sides are attached to the top with blocks of ebony, these ebony blocks make the guitar louder in sound!

Laminating the wenge back and sides with curly Spanish cedar stiffen the guitar to increase the volume and beauty of the guitar's voice. The sound of this guitar reaches out to the hearts' of your audience to bring them to you and the music you are playing!

BzzzzKill today announced the launch of its long-anticipated hum-reduction solution for Telecaster-style guitars. Available now in Single and Dual configurations, the new Players Series Telecaster models deliver buzz-free single-coil performance for one of the most iconic — and notoriously noisy — guitar designs ever created.

Since their introduction in the early 1950s, Telecasters have been known for clarity, snap, and responsiveness — along with persistent 60-cycle hum (50Hz in UK/EU). Until now, there has never been a viable dummy-coil solution engineered specifically for Telecaster wiring configurations, particularly models equipped with reverse-wound, reverse-polarity (RWRP) neck pickups.

The new Telecaster lineup includes:

• Single model for Telecasters that buzz in all selector positions (non-RWRP wiring)
• Dual model engineered to complete the partial hum-cancelling systems found in RWRP Telecasters

Both versions operate passively, require no batteries or external power, and install invisibly inside the guitar’s control cavity without drilling or permanent modification.

Like the recently launched Players Series for Stratocasters, the Telecaster models feature a modern, precision-formed PETG structure and durable rubber-jacket wiring. Each unit is carefully engineered for a precise fit within the famously restrictive Telecaster control cavity — a design challenge that required extensive development and refinement.

Priced at US $99, the Players Series Telecaster models bring engineered noise reduction to a broader audience while preserving the guitar’s authentic tone, dynamics, and value.

Expanding the BzzzzKill Platform
With Telecaster now added to the lineup, BzzzzKill continues to broaden its engineered hum-reduction architecture across the most popular single-coil formats. Versions for Jazz Bass and Gibson-style P-90 guitars are currently in development and will be announced soon.

BzzzzKill products are available directly at www.bzzzzkill.com.

Who would have predicted that the kid who threatened you on your first day of school would one day become your bandmate? Certainly not Flea.

In a recent interview with MOJO, the Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist revisits the chaotic first encounter with frontman Anthony Kiedis and the unlikely friendship that forged despite Kiedis’s “intimidating presence”.

• READ MORE: “These are recordings that were going to be the next Van Halen record”: Alex Van Halen sheds light on upcoming “Van Halen” album featuring Steve Lukather

Asked about Kiedis’s claim that he once “held a gun” to Flea’s head on their first day at school, the bassist chuckles: “A gun? I think he was being metaphorical, but the first time he met me he did threaten me.”

“There was this other kid who was my friend and I was kind of being an asshole. I had the kid in a headlock and doing what we call in Los Angeles a noogie, which is when you grind your knuckles into someone’s head,” Flea explains. “I was doing it playfully but I don’t think he appreciated it. And Anthony was, (shouts) ‘Lay off him!’ He physically threatened me to let go of that kid. I was like, Who is this guy?”

It wasn’t long after that tense introduction that Flea and Kiedis became fast friends. Flea describes the early connection as immediate and rare: “Very shortly after that Anthony and I had classes together and we became inseparable friends,” he says.

Interestingly enough, music wasn’t what initially brought them together.

“[Anthony] came from a completely different world. He lived with his father who was kind of like a Hollywood playboy-actor-wildman [Blackie Dammett] and Anthony knew about rock music and early punk rock and new wave and shit that was happening through his dad who was in the Hollywood scene,” Flea recalls. “But I didn’t know anything about that, I had my trumpet. So he kind of exposed me to that world, the excitement of it. My mother said I came home from school very serious and said, ‘Mom, I finally found someone I can talk to.’”

Looking back though, Flea admits that time has inevitably reshaped their bond.

“[It’s still like that] on occasion, but not like we were,” he says. “We don’t see each other as much. Time has definitely… We’ve grown in different directions in some ways.”

That said, the Red Hot Chili Peppers show no signs of easing up on the creative front. Flea recently hinted at the prospect of new music on the horizon, saying: “We’ve been writing music together, recording at [guitarist] John Frusciante’s house, and the music feels great.”

The band’s most recent album, Unlimited Love, arrived in 2022.

The post “I had the kid in a headlock, and Anthony physically threatened me to let go”: Flea recounts how he met fellow Red Hot Chili Pepper Anthony Kiedis appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that president Donald Trump exceeded his authority when he invoked a law designed for national emergencies to impose sweeping tariffs on many countries around the world starting in early 2025.

Tariffs have made up a significant bulk of Donald Trump’s economic policy since he took office for his second presidential term in January 2025, and, indeed, during his first term, too. But the Supreme Court’s latest ruling, reached on Friday, 20 February, 2026, marks a major setback to that policy, as some of the tariffs imposed by Trump have been invalidated.

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

It’s important to note, though, that the ruling only applies to select tariffs – those imposed via Trump’s “Liberation Day” tariffs, and not on all tariffs imposed since he took office.

So how might the new ruling affect the current state of play of the guitar industry? Well, it’s hard to say, but potentially not by much.

The ruling centres around tariffs, yes, but more specifically Trump’s February 2025 invocation of the 1977 International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), which states that the sitting president can step in via executive order to regulate trade in response to a national emergency. 

He said drug trafficking from China, Mexico and Canada was an emergency worthy of invoking this law. He used the same law in April 2025 to impose sweeping tariffs between 10 and 50 percent on most countries around the world.

However, it seems there’s not much cause for guitar brands to get excited quite yet, as a number of industry-specific tariffs remain in place on steel, aluminium and, crucially, lumber, under Section 232 of the 1962 Trade Expansion Act, which is unaffected by the Supreme Court’s latest ruling.

So, as it stands, much of the economic hardship faced by guitar brands in the wake of Trump’s sweeping tariffs will remain in place, but could the ruling of the highest court in the country against Trump’s tariff-heavy economic policy set a precedent in which more tariffs could later be overturned?

Credit: Andrew Harnik/Getty Images

In the wake of Trump’s tariffs last year, NAMM President and CEO John Mlynczak spoke of the “deeply interconnected” international supply chain that keeps the guitar industry healthy, and which has been affected by Trump’s tariffs.

“The reason why we have companies that can afford to build their highest-end products in the US is because they have the revenue from the mid-to-entry level products from overseas,” he said. “Our supply chain is deeply interconnected.”

“It’s not like an instrument is solely made in China or Mexico. What happens is you have certain components that are made really well in China that are then imported for final assembly. Or you have a factory in Mexico that has a specialty in making certain components that are imported. Then they are assembled in the US. This happens because this work is highly specialized.”

Mlynczak later teamed up with executives from Fender, Gibson, PRS and other guitar giants to lobby congress over wood tariffs.

“The tariffs are incredibly nuanced and complicated,” he admitted. “But there are various Section 232 investigations [an investigation by the Department of Commerce on the impact of certain imports on national security – Ed] on various industries happening right now.

“One of them is on imports of timber. And so the high level task that we wanted to work on, was making sure that we submitted letters to congress, and we submitted investigation letters through the process.

“But we also met with high-level members of Congress just to follow up and say, ‘Hey, we’ve done this… and by the way, American made brands can’t make these products unless they get wood from overseas. We don’t grow these species of wood in the United States!’”

In the wake of the new ruling, anti-tariff organisation We Pay the Tariffs has called for “swift refunds” for the affected businesses which have paid tariffs.

“The administration’s only responsible course of action now is to establish a fast, efficient and automatic refund process that returns tariff money to the businesses that paid it,” says the organisation’s director Dan Anthony.

Donald Trump has not yet commented on the Supreme Court’s ruling.

Read more about how Trump’s tariffs have affected the guitar industry below:

• Report reveals how Fender is tackling tariffs and a “weaker macroeconomic environment”
• Why boutique pedal makers fear tariffs will destroy the entire US pedal industry
• Are your favourite guitar strings about to get more expensive? D’Addario expects to incur more than $2 million in tariffs this year as a result of US trade policy
• How Trump’s tariffs are stretching US amp and pedal companies to breaking point
• Höfner blames effects of US tariffs for bankruptcy

The post Trump tariffs rejected by US Supreme Court – what could this mean for the guitar industry? appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Last weekend I got together with a bunch of high school friends. I hadn’t seen some of them in over 30 years, but conversation was easy and our shared memories and “exploits” led to some good laughs. We all sat around the fire pit with wild eyes! I suppose from the outside most of us are simple vestiges of what we once were, but on the whole we were all talking about current passions and endeavors. Eventually we got around to music, and then guitars.

When we began playing instruments, particularly guitars, we all started out on cheaper imports. I mean, after all, we were the sons of steel and quarry workers. But it was all good because we were content with any approximation of a “cool” guitar. Case in point: the Emperador!

Of course we all would have been happy with a real Gibson, but to us a guitar like this was almost as cool. Towards the tail end of the 1960s, imported “copy” guitars were becoming more popular and caused quite the stir in guitar-land with the threat of legal action towards spec-by-spec clone guitars. It was difficult to regulate, and many Japanese guitar makers changed minor aspects to keep U.S. guitar manufacturers at bay.

This guitar offers that classic SG shape but with some Japanese flair. The more extreme cutaways and body sculpting combined with a tremolo and different pickups make it a more adventurous example than the typical faded cherry SG. The Emperador finish is bright and in your face.

You might have noticed this guitar has Guyatone components, like that tailpiece/tremolo. That was a Guyatone exclusive, found on the famous Sharp 5 guitars and a few others. And those pickups are also Guyatones. In fact, those were specially designed alnico units (which sound really nice) from around 1967. Even the electronics were Guyatone designs. I’ve seen examples of this same instrument in a vibrant blue color as well. So, is this a Guyatone guitar? Well, yes and no.

The Emperador brand name was apparently used by a Canadian importer, so if you live up north you may have seen this name before. The backstory of Guyatone and these Guyatone-adjacent guitars goes like this: The owner/founder of Guyatone was Mitsuo Matsuki, and believe me when I say this guy was a scrapper. He had been in the musical-instrument game since the late ’40s, primarily making amps and electronics. The company really dove into electric instruments in the late ’50s and Mitsuo was building new factories to keep up with growing demand. Alas, as the 1960s wore on, that demand faded and Guyatone went bankrupt in 1969. Now, just because a Japanese company goes bankrupt does not mean the factory gets shuttered. All those parts and partially made instruments will be resurrected in some way, and that’s what happened all the time in the late ’60s and early ’70s.

For instance, some factories only made the wood portions of guitars. And other factories only made the electronics and/or hardware like tremolo units, tuners, etc. During the ’50s and ’60s in Japan, many guitar factories simply partnered with others to make whole guitars. During Guyatone’s run, there were some years when they made guitar bodies and necks, and other times where the work was farmed out. But Guyatone consistently made electronics like pickups, and they were some of the best to come out of Japan.

Basically, what we have here is like a “combo” guitar that incorporated Guyatone components during a time when Guyatone was struggling. Matsuki came out in the ’70s by rebuilding his company from the ground up, and Guyatone guitars did rather well in the ’70s. But this guitar was made during that strange window of time where Guyatone was at the lowest point in the company’s history.

Sitting around the fire pit with my friends that night was a nice ride around old memories, like wisps of gray hair. We may have achy joints, but we’ve still got eyes as vibrant as this Emperador’s finish, glowing in the fading flame of youth.

Legendary Canadian actor William Shatner – best known for portraying Captain James T. Kirk in the Star Trek franchise – has announced plans to release a heavy metal album this year.

The 94-year-old actor says a star-studded cast of 35 metal legends will appear on the album. At the time of writing, we’re not entirely sure who’ll be lucky enough to be part of that roster, but according to Metal Hammer, Shatner’s longtime friend Zakk Wylde will be heavily involved, as well as Henry Rollins and Ritchie Blackmore.

• READ MORE: Nile Rodgers reveals how a last-minute change to Shrek 2 made him “a fortune”

William Shatner has enjoyed an enduring friendship with Black Label Society frontman and Ozzy Osbourne guitarist Zakk Wylde for many years. The pair teamed up on a collaborative spoken word record, Seeking Major Tom, in 2011, and sat alongside Slipknot’s Corey Taylor and Sharon Osbourne to take part in a televised roast of Wylde.

It’s said that a large source of inspiration for the new metal album was both a guitar Zakk Wylde personally gifted Shatner, and Shatner’s recent collaboration with former Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland, which saw him deliver a spoken word intro to a song on Nuclear Messiah’s new album, Black Flame.

“When Nuclear Messiah came to life, something clicked,” says Shatner in a statement shared with Guitar World. “It wasn’t just a track – it was a doorway. It made me want to go all the way in, bring in the best metal players I could find, and create something fearless.”

In a social media post announcing the project, Shatner says: “I have explored space. I have explored time. Now, I explore distortion. Yes. You read that correctly. I am releasing a heavy metal album. 35 metal virtuosos. Thunderous guitars. Chaos with purpose.”

Shatner explains that the album will comprise both covers of songs by legendary metal heavyweights including Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, as well as a number of originals “forged in the same cosmic fire”.

“This project is, quite literally, a gathering of forces,” Shatner goes on. “Loud imagination. Honest intensity. Unapologetic exploration.

“At 94, one does not slow down. One turns the volume up. So prepare yourselves. We are about to boldly headbang where no one has headbanged before. Stay tuned. The metal voyage begins this year.”

That’s all the info we have on the album at this time, but we’re very excited, so trust us when we say we’ll keep you in the loop as we know more…

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Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood has been reflecting on their recent tour, and says he found it odd that they didn’t play any new material while on the road.

After a seven-year hiatus, Radiohead reunited and embarked on a EU/UK tour last year spanning 20 shows. Prior to this, Greenwood had been working on orchestral and film composition work, and even though the band enjoyed the stint, it seems a new record is unlikely.

• READ MORE: “These are recordings that were going to be the next Van Halen record”: Alex Van Halen sheds light on upcoming “Van Halen” album featuring Steve Lukather

Speaking to The Times, Greenwood shares, “It was great to revisit songs that we always felt were good and to find lots of other people now agree with us. And it was really nice to be playing and listening to Thom [Yorke] again. But I found it strange not to be doing anything new on the tour. I guess we are all doing new music elsewhere now so that’s where our creative energies are going.”

Asked about the possibility of a new album from the band, he replies, “I’ve no idea. I mean, I’m surprised that the tour actually happened and that we all enjoyed it so much. But venues get booked so far in advance. To do another we would have to decide now, and even then it wouldn’t happen for 18 months.”

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Recently, Greenwood spoke out against the use of his music in the Melania Trump documentary. The documentary was released at the end of January this year, and centred around Melania’s life in the days leading up to her husband’s 2025 inauguration.

A section of music from the score that Greenwood wrote for the 2017 film Phantom Thread was used in the doc, and both he and its director released a statement sharing their unhappiness.

“It has come to our attention that a piece of music from Phantom Thread has been used in the Melania documentary. While Jonny Greenwood does not own the copyright in the score, Universal failed to consult Jonny on this third-party use which is a breach of his composer agreement,” they allege. “As a result Jonny and Paul Thomas Anderson have asked for it to be removed from the documentary.”

Guitar.com reached out to Universal for comment.

The post Radiohead’s Johnny Greenwood “found it strange” the band didn’t play any new material on their recent reunion tour appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

Modern rock might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but Wolfgang Van Halen believes it’s exactly where it needs to be right now.

Wolf is driving rock music forwards with his own band, Mammoth, and while some people may believe the genre is oversaturated, he believes there’s room for all kinds of bands and musicians within it. With artists like Yungblud, Sleep Token, and many more taking off, it’s clear rock isn’t going anywhere, but is definitely evolving.

• READ MORE: Wolfgang Van Halen says this aspect of his father’s guitar playing is “incredibly underrated”: “Everybody looks at him as Mr. Tap and Mr. Shred, but that’s just a flavour to what he did”

During an interview with Special K of The Sound 228, Wolfie says (via Blabbermouth), “I think there’s room for everything. I think it’s a knee-jerk reaction for people to be upset about this or that.

“In this day and age, we’re just inundated with a crazy amount of things, but I think there’s room for everything to breathe and to coexist. So I think rock is perfectly great where it is. If it changes, that’s cool. If it doesn’t, I think there’s a space for everybody to enjoy it.”

Asked for his advice for up-and-coming musicians, he replies, “You really gotta love the playing and the writing of the music part, ‘cause the business, like every other business, is a very predatory and tough-to-navigate sort of thing. So I think as long as the writing and the playing of the music is what matters to you more than anything, I don’t think you can lose.”

Last year, WVH spoke of his own place within rock, and said he felt happy that people were beginning to take him seriously as an artist in his own right, rather than Eddie Van Halen’s son.

“It’s pretty great,” he said during an interview with Radio Futuro. “I’m very lucky and happy that people are beginning to take me seriously as my own artist and separate me from my family history.

“At the end of the day, that’s all I would really like to do, is be taken at face value for what I represent and not for what my family represents. And I think that’s why I’m trying to do something different.”

You can catch Mammoth on tour this year, with shows kicking off in March. Find out more via the Mammoth website.

The post Wolfgang Van Halen thinks rock music is “perfectly great where it is”: “There’s room for everything” appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

The pedal market is full of marvellous creations. Whether you’re wanting to add a toot of flatulence to your track with the Fart Pedal, or capture the essence of Japanese Vocaloid Hatsune Miku with Korg’s Miku Guitar Pedal, there’s plenty of options out there. Now, if only you could make your guitar sound like a frog…

Wait – what’s that? You can!? That’s right – FruitFX has hopped to the challenge, collaborating with Jordan.wav to create the Frog Pedal. Boasting croaky riffs and ribbits, this mighty monophonic octaver pedal is sure to tempt the amphibian ladies back to your lily pad.

• READ MORE: How to get better recorded guitar sounds at home with mobile absorbers

Originally crafted from one of Jordan.wav’s own pedal creations from 2010, which he explains “created a bit of online buzz” back in the day. The renewed FruitFX Frog Pedal adds a few extra elements to make it shine.

Users have the option of adjusting two separate dials: both Volume and, unsurprisingly, Frog. Full-Frog will provide a full-bodied froggy experience (“think Bull Frog”), while its lower setting provides a snappier fuzzy sound.  There’s also a switch to adjust your octave drops, with the option of dropping just one octave, or two octaves for a “deep growling effect”.

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With the Frog Pedal, there’s plenty of fun to be had. You can enlist the entire pond by playing chords, allowing you to curate your own frog choir, or you can just twang a single note if you’re just wanting to scatter in a few croaks.

If we were to put this froggish transformation into words, it’s like a fuzzy octave drop. It’s pretty groovy, honestly – we could imagine it being a fun way to quirk up a slap bass performance in particular. As Jordan.wav puts it, it’s “funky, massive, and froggy in the best possible way”.

Alongside its sonic charm, this analogue stompbox also looks pretty dang cute. Who could resist that little cartoon frog? He looks very trustworthy. And the website vows that he is “always ready to ribbit”, so don’t keep him waiting.

The FruitFX x Jordan.wav Frog Pedal is available now for £124. For more information, head to FruitFX.

The post “Always ready to ribbit”: This pedal makes your guitar sound like a frog – because why the hell not appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

You’d think that once you’re Paul Gilbert or Joe Satriani, the need to prove you can shred would quietly disappear. Between platinum records, sold-out tours and decades of jaw-dropping guitar technique, what exactly is left to demonstrate?

Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Speaking to MusicRadar, the Gilbert admits that resisting the urge to tear into full-blown shred mode isn’t always easy – even when the song might benefit from restraint.

• READ MORE: “These are recordings that were going to be the next Van Halen record”: Alex Van Halen sheds light on upcoming “Van Halen” album featuring Steve Lukather

“Well, I try to be aware of my own habits, both good and bad, and so, if I find myself getting too dense, I’ll try to slow down,” he says. “To me, that is actually a courageous thing to do, to not go crazy all the time, and rely on the fact that it works for the song – and not have to prove yourself every single second.”

That need to “prove” yourself isn’t unique to Gilbert. And he realised just how universal it was during a conversation with one of guitar’s biggest names.

“It was funny, I did a [guitar] camp once with Joe Satriani,” he recalls. “I can’t remember exactly how he worded it but he said something like, ‘Every time I do an album, I feel like the first song I have to prove that I can play guitar.’ And he said, ‘I don’t like that. I wish I could let that go. But it’s just really hard!’ I thought, ‘I know exactly what you mean.’”

“There’s like this athletic element where you want to prove that you can still swim – like you’re Michael Phelps, ‘I can still swim just as fast as I did when I was 22!’”

And yet, some of his most effective playing arrives when he does the opposite. On Orderly And Distinctly, from his forthcoming album WROC, Gilbert deliberately reins it in.

“The solo is almost like something the Edge from U2 would do, just basically playing a three-note melody over and over again,” says the musician. “And then there is a little bit in the end where I play the vocal line on guitar. But the majority is almost like it’s just a riff. That one, to me, it was perfect for the song, and it’s not a shred thing, and it’s not a prog thing. It is just, like, this melody fits here.”

WROC is now available for pre-order and arrives on 27 February via Music Theories.

The post “He said, ‘I wish I could let that go, but it’s hard!” Paul Gilbert explains why Joe Satriani feels the need to “prove” he can shred on his records appeared first on Guitar.com | All Things Guitar.

$1,399/£1,129, neuraldsp.com

Finland might have spent the best part of the last decade at the top of the World Happiness Report table, but Helsinki-based Neural DSP seems to have a rare talent for inciting the opposite emotion in large swathes of the guitar internet.

• READ MORE: Sterling By Music Man Rabea Artist Series Sabre – a solid rock and metal workhorse

It’s easy to forget that it’s been less than five years since Guitar.com brought you the world-exclusive review of the Quad Cortex – a truly game-changing hybrid of profiling and modelling that has since replaced traditional amps for arena bands, touring artists and even pub giggers. The fidelity and usability of Neural’s hardware has made Doug Castro’s company one of the biggest new players in the guitar world, but it’s also had a trickier side effect.

When you reshape the entire gear landscape with your first hardware product, expectations are raised to unreasonable levels – and it’s something the company has been battling against for the last few years.

Image: Adam Gasson

The launch of the Nano Cortex in 2024 was the first sign that people on the internet were going to get weird when it came to new Neural products. While a bizarre pre-launch video didn’t do them many favours, the sheer vitriol that greeted what was an unquestionably excellent product was bizarre. It was taking pelters, primarily it seemed, for not being the fantasy product people on forums had dreamed up in their head – a Quad Cortex that was roughly a third of the size, but featured all the same functionality and features for a third of the price.

Neural admitted it was somewhat taken aback by the response in the aftermath, and it’s perhaps not surprising that they’ve simplified the pre-release hype somewhat with recent releases. But with the release of a brand new Cortex product – and one that seemingly gives people the vast majority of things they complained was missing from the Nano – the grumblers are back: certainly they were in full voice in our Instagram comments.

But does any of this actually matter? Well, no… the awkward truth is that as loud as the boo-boys are online, it makes not one jot of difference to whether the Quad Cortex Mini is actually any good in the real world. So let’s ruminate on that, shall we?

Image: Adam Gasson

Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini – what is it?

In the grand old tradition of saying what you see, the Quad Cortex Mini is… well, a Mini Quad Cortex. Unlike the Nano, which stripped down a fair bit of the functionality to turn a $1,500 pedal into a $500 one, the Mini keeps the QC’s mojo intact, but in a form factor that’s roughly a third of the size – just 8 inches long and a hair over 4.5 inches wide.

That ambitious goal is what gives the Mini its rather polarising look – in order to squeeze the QC’s impressive and essential 7” capacitive touchscreen into a box this size, concessions have had to be made. That means we lose seven of the QC’s 11 footswitches, as well as the rotary volume knob (replaced by a subtle up/down switch on the pedal’s top), as well as a few elements of the I/O side of things.

There’s one fewer combi-jack input here – though you do still get a standard jack input for stereo rigs – and the dual effects loops are now condensed into a combined input/output pair that you’ll need a TRS insert cable to utilise both loops. Another sacrifice to space is the second expression pedal output – if you want to run two expression pedals you’ll need to connect one via MIDI.

Far be it for me to dismiss the I/O needs of the wider guitar community, but certainly from my point of view, these feel like the sort of niche-use luxuries that I’d be happy to sacrifice to get a Quad that fits on my Pedaltrain Nano and costs $400 less… your mileage may vary, of course.

Other than that, Neural is at pains to stress that it is 100 per cent a Quad Cortex – with the same underlying hardware, UX and processing power as the big boi, just in a box that looks like someone’s put an iPhone on a punishing protein supplement regimen.

Ah yes, the screen – the thing that has provoked the most chin-stroking amongst guitar people in the weeks since the Mini’s launch. Neural has been at pains to stress that making the top surface of an effects pedal that is designed to be stepped on in a variety of dimly lit environments is fine. They say they’ve tested it to extremes and that you don’t have to worry about that glass cracking under normal use. I would counter that by saying that Apple has been boasting about how hardcore the glass in their iPhone screens is for the last decade and yet every town in the land has at least two shops that do screen repairs…

Image: Adam Gasson

Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini – build quality

Right then, let’s get this out of the way up top: the screen. I’ll admit to firmly being in the eyebrow-raised camp when I saw the QC Mini at NAMM this year, but having spent some time with it at home, I can’t deny that this feels like an incredibly well-made piece of kit.

It’s reassuringly heavy, precision engineered, and that glass feels thick and has coped with plenty of stomping over my few weeks of testing without so much as a scratch.

As I’m a clumsy oaf, I’ve also knocked a few things onto it, dropped it onto my desk (oops), and generally not been particularly careful with it and it still looks as pristine as it did when I pulled it out of the box.

I did contemplate dropping a Les Paul strap button-first onto it from a height, but I was genuinely worried my guitar would come off worse than the pedal. In lieu of that, I’d say don’t drop anything very heavy onto it, or drop it from a great height onto a hard floor. To be fair, this is generally just good (and you would hope unnecessary) advice when talking about any pedal that doesn’t have Boss written on its rubber-capped footswitch.

The pedal’s unconventional design doesn’t exactly help on the reassurance side of things. The proximity of the switches to that screen – and the way you have to step across them due to the way they’re laid out – does invite an accidental step on the screen in a way that it wouldn’t were the switches all situated on one side or in a line across the bottom. It’s for this reason that I can still see DeckSaver doing a fairly good trade if they were to make a perspex cover to slot over the top of this thing – belt and braces and all that.

A big tick however, for the new locking power cable – a great way to ensure that your entire rig won’t be plunged into silence because someone trips or yanks the power cable during set-up or mid-gig – especially given that the QC Mini takes about a minute to reboot after a reset or power loss.

Image: Adam Gasson

Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini – usability

It’s perhaps inevitable that a pedal offering significantly fewer actual physical controls would have a bit more of a learning curve than its bigger brother, and so it is with the Mini.
This is most apparent when you boot the QC Mini up for the first time – unlike the original Quad, it doesn’t have that instant intuitive setup, especially if you’re not overly familiar with the QC’s existing UX. Each of the three modes – preset, stomp and scenes (effectively presets within a preset) – requires you to learn a series of tap-dancing switch shortcuts to switch between sounds and the like.

There’s an element of this with any multi-effects of course, but it’s definitely accentuated here because of how many functions are tied to these four switches. The tuner, for example, is selected by a quick tap on the A and C footswitches together… but closing it requires you to hit the B footswitch instead of simply tapping the same one again. Equally, holding down those two switches simultaneously instead of a taping on them scrolls up between the preset banks in preset mode.

It sounds more confusing than it is in practice, but it does require you to wire your brain to the specific set of button presses to get stuff done in a way that you didn’t necessarily have to with the bigger unit.

One thing that I certainly do appreciate is the clever addition of rotary footswitches. Each of the four switches also doubles as a rotary control that is smart-bound to select and then edit certain parameters. It’s a dramatically more precise and useful way of tweaking your sound both in a live setting or in the studio – and offsets a fair bit of the tedium of endless touchscreen fiddling.

The QC Mini having wifi for wireless updates and downloading new presets and captures is a fantastic holdover from the original QC, but I was disappointed that unlike the Nano, it doesn’t have Bluetooth, thus meaning that you can’t pair it with the Cortex Cloud app.

The Cortex Cloud app is essential for creating presets on your phone that you could then load onto the screen-less Nano wirelessly, but it’s a shame that the Mini doesn’t offer similarly smooth off-pedal editing.

You can connect it to your laptop via USB-C and use the Cortex Control app of course, but given that this pedal is designed more than its bigger brother to live on a pedalboard, it’s a shame you have to either take it off your board or get down on your hands and knees to do the deep stuff. Is it a big hassle? No, but Neural is usually so good at streamlining the creation process, it’s a rare oversight.

Image: Adam Gasson

Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini – sounds

The greatest compliment I can give Neural about the entire Cortex ecosystem is that no matter what piece of hardware I’m talking about, the sounds section could be copy and pasted without much in the way of deviation. There’s a reason that all your favourite bands have pivoted to the Quad Cortex in some way shape or form – the quality and consistency of the sounds on tap is truly remarkable.

While the out of the box presets do tend to skew more towards the heavier side of the market (a perception that Neural has been starting to change recently), the quality and fidelity of these sounds – not to mention the instant usability of them – is quite a thing to behold.

A lot of multi-effects presets are about showing off – showcasing all the myriad different sounds you can get out of a thing without thinking too much about whether these sounds would actually work in a mix, but Neural doesn’t get too caught up in this. The basic presets showcase a Mount Rushmore of iconic amps presented without too much embellishment – meaning you could boot it up and roll right into a Marshall Plexi or a Deluxe Reverb and use it without ever needing to get into the deep editing side of things.

And it bears repeating how impressive not just the sound but the feel of Neural’s captures are – more so than anything else I’ve tried. Is it indiscernible from a real valve amp? Well, yes – but only slightly. It’s also probably not quite as good sonically as Universal Audio’s amp pedals – but they cost $400 each, and feel as good in terms of response.

I always think the high gain and ethereal clean amp models are the easiest things for digital to replicate – it’s the stuff in between where you really earn your coin. And it’s here that I find myself dwelling more often than not. Cranked vintage Marshalls, cooking Tweed combos, these are the things that digital has always struggled with, but the QC Mini makes them compelling and organic.

The built-in suite of effects is impressive too – especially compared to the pared-down offering that the Nano provides – and it’s also very nice to be able to try out a bunch of captured dirt pedals in the chain, too.

While the QC Mini plays nicely with pedals both in and out of the loop, and does so in a way that feels organic and authentic, the quality and variety of the effects on tap will likely cause many players to consider whether they even need them. There’s serious horsepower under the hood here, and it’s being put to very good use.

Image: Adam Gasson

Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini – should I buy one?

It would seem that Castro and his mates can’t win at this stage. They’ve been Mark Hamill-ed; doomed to have their stratospheric early success hung round their necks like a millstone, no matter what they do next.

It felt harsh when Neural started getting so much grief about the Nano Cortex, and the grumbling feels even more out of place here. The Quad Cortex Mini is everything that fans have been asking for in terms of size and functionality – it’s a truly pedalboard-ready QC that makes very few compromises (and those it does are broadly quite acceptable).

I’ve seen a lot of grumbling about the price, but this is still $400 cheaper than the original – what exactly were people expecting here? Players may compare the Quad Cortex Mini to the HX Stomp, conveniently forgetting that they are quite different bits of kit in both form and function. Line 6’s new Helix Stadium is a more fair competitor, and that costs about the same as the original Quad, and hasn’t even launched its Proxy profiling technology yet.

Unquestionably, $1,400 is a hell of a lot of money to spend on any damn thing – but in the context of the high-end, capture-enabled modeller world, it’s about par? It intentionally sits nebulously between the full-fat QC and the Nano, but offers a much more complete package than its screenless stablemate.

There are so many options for so many use cases in the modern world of modellers and multi-effects – but the Mini might be the most universal one of the lot. They know how to make people happy in Finland, and when you plug in the Quad Cortex Mini, it’s impossible not to smile.

[products ids=”19PQzuW8mz3waD0guXZFLS”]

Neural DSP Quad Cortex Mini – alternatives

There are, bluntly, shitloads of options at all manner of price points in the multi-effects and amp modelling game, but not many of them have both the profiling ability of the Quad Cortex, nor its huge library of user captures that is Cortex Cloud. If your budget doesn’t stretch to the QC Mini, then the Nano Cortex ($569 / £449) is an impressive gateway to the ecosystem. The Line 6 Helix Stadium XL ($1,699 / £1,549) is a big, unapologetic high-end modelling station, but with its own Proxy capture technology dropping imminently, it’s got the potential to offer much more than previous Helix units. If you want profiling on an absolute budget, the Tonex Pedal ($329 / £329) is limited in functionality but has some impressive sounds and features. Finally, the OG is of course Kemper, and the brand’s Profiler Stage Mk II ($1,649 / £1,499) can compete with the best of them sonically – in terms of ease of use and modern convenience however, the German brand is lagging far behind.

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Interscope Records today announces the release of U2 - Days Of Ash, a brand new standalone 6-track EP from U2. Out now, listen HERE. Watch lyric videos HERE.

In advance of a new album in late 2026, the U2 - Days Of Ash EP is a self-contained collection of five new songs and a poem - "American Obituary," "The Tears Of Things," "Song Of The Future," "Wildpeace," "One Life At A Time," and "Yours Eternally" (ft. Ed Sheeran & Taras Topolia) - an immediate response to current events and inspired by the many extraordinary and courageous people fighting on the frontlines of freedom. Four of the five tracks are about individuals – a mother, a father, a teenage girl – whose lives were brutally cut short. A soldier who’d rather be singing but is ready to die for the freedom of his country.

“It’s been a thrill having the four of us back together in the studio over the last year… the songs on Days of Ash are very different in mood and theme to the ones we’re going to put on our album later in the year. These EP tracks couldn't wait; these songs were impatient to be out in the world. They are songs of defiance and dismay, of lamentation. Songs of celebration will follow, we’re working on those now… because for all the awfulness we see normalized daily on our small screens, there’s nothing normal about these mad and maddening times and we need to stand up to them before we can go back to having faith in the future. And each other.

“If you have a chance to hope it’s a duty…” is a line we borrowed from Lea Ypi.

A laugh would be nice too. Thank you.”

Bono

“Who needs to hear a new record from us? It just depends on whether we’re making music we feel deserves to be heard. I believe these new songs stand up to our best work. We talk a lot about when to release new tracks. You don’t always know… the way the world is now feels like the right moment. Going way back to our earliest days, working with Amnesty or Greenpeace, we’ve never shied away from taking a position and sometimes that can get a bit messy, there’s always some sort of blowback, but it’s a big side of who we are and why we still exist.”Larry Mullen Jr.

“I’m excited about these new songs, it feels like they’re arriving at the right time.”

Adam Clayton

"American Obituary" speaks to the shocking event the world witnessed in Minneapolis, Minnesota on January 7th, 2026 where Renée Nicole Macklin Good, an idealistic mother of three, was shot at almost point-blank range while exercising her right to peacefully protest, a right that is protected under the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. This unarmed mother was then described as a “domestic terrorist” by a government who will not withdraw the description even though they know it’s not true. Or mount a proper enquiry into what happened for the sake of everyone involved.

"The Tears Of Things" borrows its title from a book by Franciscan friar Richard Rohr, which examines, through the writings of the Jewish prophets, how one can live compassionately in a time of violence and despair. The song imagines a conversation between Michelangelo’s David and his creator… where the young man with the sling and five smooth stones refuses the idea that he has to become Goliath to defeat him... he’s also revealed as having heart shaped pupils half a millennia before the heart shaped emoji, which puzzles visitors at the Galleria dell’Accademia in Florence, Italy, to this day.

The star of the lyric, Sarina, in "Song of the Future" honors the life of 16-year-old Sarina Esmailzadeh, one of thousands of Iranian schoolgirls who took to the streets as part of the Woman, Life, Freedom movement in 2022. These protests were sparked by the death of Jina Mahsa Amini, a young Kurdish-Iranian woman who died in Tehran on September 16th that year from injuries sustained following her arrest by the so-called "morality police" for not wearing a hijab in accordance with government standards. Seven days later, Sarina was beaten by the Iranian security forces and died from her injuries, the regime claiming she killed herself. The song aims to capture Sarina’s free spirit, the promise and hope of her short life.

The Days of Ash EP includes a reading of "Wildpeace" - a poem by Israeli author and poet Yehuda Amichai - by Nigerian artist Adeola of Les Amazones d'Afrique, with music by U2 and Jacknife Lee.

"One Life At A Time" is written for Awdah Hathaleen, a Palestinian father of three. A nonviolent activist and English teacher, Awdah was killed in his village in the West Bank by Israeli settler Yinon Levi on July 28th, 2025. Awdah was a consultant on the Oscar-winning documentary “No Other Land,” made by Palestinians and Israelis. At his funeral, one of the directors, Basel Adra, spoke of the slaughter of his friend and the experience of Palestinians being erased “one life at a time.” U2 took that line and turned it around to suggest that a peaceful resolution will be wrought “one life at a time.”

"Yours Eternally" sees Bono and The Edge joined on vocals by Ukrainian musician-turned-soldier Taras Topolia, as well as Ed Sheeran. In the spring of 2022, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Bono and The Edge traveled to Kyiv to busk in a metro station at the invitation of President Zelensky. A couple of days prior to that, Ed connected Taras Topolia, and by extension his band Antytila, with Bono. Bono, Taras and The Edge met for the first time on that subway platform. They’ve been friends ever since. Taras is the inspiration for "Yours Eternally," a song written in the form of a letter from a soldier on active duty with a bold, mischievous spirit to match Ukraine’s.

"Yours Eternally" will also be proudly accompanied by a short 4½ minute documentary film directed by Ukrainian cinematographer and filmmaker Ilya Mikhaylus, that will be released on Tuesday, February 24th - the 4th anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Shot in December 2025 while Mikhaylus and his crew were embedded alongside the 40,000-strong Khartiya Corps, the film captures the extraordinary daily lives of Alina and her fellow soldiers fighting on the frontlines of the war.

U2 Days of Ash EP is accompanied by the return of Propaganda as a one-off digital zine, with a limited-edition print run. Forty years ago, in February 1986, the first issue of Propaganda dropped through the letterboxes of U2 fans around the world. Aspiring to match other fan magazines at that time, Propaganda was born out of the punk-era D.I.Y. zine culture that embraced attitude, ideas and dialogue. In the spirit of those early issues, this standalone EP will be accompanied by a one-off limited edition print run plus digital e-zine drop of Propaganda titled "U2 - Days Of Ash: Six Postcards From The Present… Wish We Weren’t Here." This 52-page special publication accompanies the release of the Days Of Ash EP and includes exclusive interviews with "Yours Eternally" film director Ilya Mikhaylus and film producer Pyotr Verzilov, as well as musician and soldier Taras Topolia. It also includes song lyrics; notes from the four band members; plus a Q&A interview with Bono. Read Propaganda HERE.