The Cube range of Amps is somewhat unique as it straddles both Boss and Roland brands - which is very unusual. Moreover the selection of amps is variously marked out by a mix of Boss, Cube and Roland decals.

Back in 2022 some of the formerly Roland Cube Amps switched to Boss branding - and I thought all those amp models would eventually transition to Boss - all bar the Jazz Chorus, Blues Cubes, and some of the PA type speakers - but Roland has held onto some of those Cube Models too - which...

So this is essentially a late birthday present - which arrived in the 3rd week of November - so I’ve had it for a few weeks already.

There is still no sign of the Stand!? - which I also ordered in on the Kickstarter Campaign - nor any advice as to when that might land!

For the amp itself I’m hugely impressed with its build and feature set - high quality materials throughout and an incredible amount of features onboard - every other amp manufacturer should sit up and take notice! I was ...

So the Katana-Mini X sits between Boss’s Katana Mini (7W) and Katana-Air (30W) both in girth and output levels. The Mini is 230mm wide, the Mini X is 287mm wide, and the Katana-Air is 350mm wide, while the Mini X is the tallest - at 200mm, compared to the Katana-Air’s and Mini’s Height of 181mm.

There are several points of interest to this new amp. I feel that Boss got the balance here between feature set and simplicity wholly spot-on. And besides having a superb sounding 5 Inch 10 Watt ...

When I first saw a teaser for the Neural DSP Nano Cortex I thought it was an interesting idea - but one that I wouldn’t necessarily get along with. For instance - because the Source Audio compacts offload a lot of the pedal control to the Neuro App - that has entirely managed to put me off those devices - I love the larger One Series pedals - Ventris, Nemesis, Collider and recent Artifakt - which you can entirely run off the surface controls - but I’ve never really gotten on with any of the ...

You can instantly feel that the new amp is more immediate, tighter, and responsive than before - with more snap and punch to its output, and deeper soundstage projection. It benefits from additional expansive controls and output options, and now is much more controllable via direct Bluetooth App control with the Boss Tone Studio App. I would describe it as overall significantly more articulate and dynamic than before.

And I really love the new ’Pushed’ Amp Type - which I’ve switched over to...

I feel I did the definitive write-up of the GT-1000 Core back in January of 2021. The Core stayed on my board from October 2020 through March of 2022 - so I certainly built up a decent knowledge and experience of that pedal. I will never though be one to have the GT-1000 as I prefer individual effects mostly, many of them analogue, with the occasional workstation - while I appreciate the leaps-and-bounds evolution of digital formats.

In the Update release notes much is made of improvements ...

Laney builds on its family recent 8-knob 60W Ironheart Foundry Loudpedal - where it adds the Secretpath Reverb with its own Level Control and Footswitch, alongside a new Master Balancing EQ Tone control, and further Boost option. So taking the guts of the original pedal to higher levels, where the new Ironeheart and Lionheart pedals are collaborations with long term Laney artists - Martin Miller, and Tom Quayle. These are weirdly not billed so much as signature pedals for those artists - but ...

Somewhat serendipitously - Boss’s Katana Series was birthed in the same year that Guitar Pedal X first started - 2016. From that first MKI Series I very early on acquired a Katana 100, which of course was a long term favourite of mine. Then in 2019 Boss introduced the improved MKII Series - with the quite superb Artist MKII arriving a year later - that was to be my second Katana Amp. And now in 2024 Boss has released the Gen III Series, NOT MKIII, as this release is far more significant than a ...

I’m totally in awe of the technical prowess presented on this killer dual analog amps in a pedal format.

It’s actually a very compact device at just 125 x 105 x 65 mms, and carries so many advanced functions here almost entirely in the analog domain. There’s not a single sub-menu here - this is surely WYSIWYG perfection - while it does use every available surface to cram in all the technology that is needed to support all those features.

At first encounter this all seem wholly intuitive...