GrumpyRocker

Harry reviews the new high-gain guitar amplifier from Laney. But is the Ironheart a one-trick metal pony, or much more than that?

Find out after the jump.

Okay here we go with a little rough and ready demo of the Laney Ironheart I9;ve just spent half an hour recording. This 6L6 (changeable to EL34) powered amp head is clearly aimed at the metal crowd but it has a lovely clean channel and the two dirt channels are capable of a bluesy crunch.

The amp features a solid state boost at the front end and a serial FX loops, both of which can be switched out of the signal path. The boost can be engaged on any channel. As far as I can tell so far the rhythm and lead channels are identical, The only difference being that the rhythm channel shares a three band eq (and pull pot controls) with the clean channel.

So then, the City Link has just arrived with my new amp. I've taken a punt on a Laney Ironheart. There was nowhere to try one around here and so I thought I'd take advantage of being able to try one at home for seven days thanks to online sales blah blah.

I've just completed a list of all the guitar gear I've owned over the years. Some of which I still own. What strikes me is the number of cheap and nasty multi-effects units I've wasted my money on.

And how many lovely electro-acoustic guitars I've had to sell because I was so brassic I couldn't afford to eat. This actually happened to me twice - thanks to two separate period of poverty.

Of course among all the junk there's still some very good gear in there. My Vintage VS6 is one of the least expensive guitars I've owned but one of the best. The PRS SE is ridiculously good for the price and my LP Traditional is very special.

And what of the amps? A pretty terrible solid state effort followed by some rubbish modelling amps. However things got tubey later on and I've got a couple of good amps now. No not expensive boutique nonsense but I'm not a great believer in hand-wired snake oil.

Anyway should you be interested in seeing how much junk I've owned over the years check out the list after the jump.

Here's the update POD HD users have been waiting for. This evening Line6 release firmware v1.31 for the POD HD line, which adds new amplifier models and more importantly much more control over the modelled power amps.

Check out the full changelog after the jump:

This is a very quick and rough demo recording made using with some new gear. The recording was made in Reaper and is made up of four tracks. Tracks 2, 3 & 4 were recorded using a Behringer XM8500 mic into a Line6 UX1 audio interface. No modelling was used, nor any post-recording FX.

This new mini-amp head from Orange looks good enough to eat. It's a new version of the popular Tiny Terror amp, but voiced more for the metal crown.

PR after the break.

No surprise here really. I couldn't imagine Line6 abandoning the popular "bean" form factor in the POD HD range.

The floor versions were released last autumn, but today the company announced the desktop version of the POD HD.

Notice the extra button labelled "Tweak" - that's due to a software update later this month that's going to benefit all POD HD owners.

Bean press release after the jump.

Blackstar's HT-5 - a small valve/hybrid guitar amplifier - has been a huge hit. Available in both head and combo form there aren't many of us who haven't tried or owned on in recent years.

Now Blackstar has announced new versions of the HT-5 - the headline news being the introduction of digital reverb and a dedicated tone control for the clean channel.

Full press release after the jump.