GrumpyRocker

British advertising bullshitter and sometime amplification manufacturer Blackstar has unveiled its latest state of the art marketing nonsense. The company describes its latest verbal slight of hand and customer misdirection as revolutionary.

"We were a technological innovator with our introduction of the phrase 'Pure Valve' in our mostly transistor-based technology in recent years," said Blackstar CEO Bob Scraggs. "However our world class engineers have been hard at work delivering more powerful state of the art bullshit that's sure to be a big hit with clueless customers and puny editorial lapdogs such as Guitarist Magazine."

"Today Blackstar is proud to unveil our latest product phrase 'True Valve Power' which we will believe will fool even more customers than ever before. With 'True Valve Power' we're extending our previous abilities of not having many valves in our valve products to now having no valves in them instead. Raising our 'no actual valves' to 'valve based marketing bullshit' ratio to 100 percent. I believe Blackstar is the first amplifier manufacturer to completely remove valves from over-hyped valve related products. This will enable us to continue to charge British-built prices for a range of Korean-made tat."

'True Valve Power' marketing bullshit will be available as an expensive range of literature and badges this summer, and will be bundled with a free modelling amplifier that's almost as good a Line 6 Spider for three times the money.

The presence of any valves has yet to be announced.

Full press release follows.

POD HD users were looking forward to getting hold of firmware 2.0 this week - which includes new bass/mic functionality along with a new guitar amp and plenty of goodies for Variax users. However a more serious problem has recently reared its ugly head - that of ear-damaging sound spikes when using the PC editor.

Line 6 has really been on the ball though and already has a fix out there. You'll need to update HD Edit on your PC and the firmware of your POD HD500.

Details and link below.

POD HD500 Flash Memory v1.43 and POD HD500 Edit v1.08
These updates address a bug which allows invalid data to be introduced to presets. In rare instances recalling presets containing invalid data may cause intermittent high volume events, as reported by a small number of POD HD500 users. We are targeting updates for POD HD Pro, POD HD, and their respective editors in the weeks following. For more information regarding these updates please read the detailed release notes at: http://line6.com/software/.

Line 6 has announced a forthcoming update to the POD HD range of guitar modelling systems. The update adds a new Marshall guitar model and finally adds bass and vocal amp support.

Other features include enhanced functionality for use with Variax modelling guitars.

At this rate Line 6 might actually have a finished product deserving of release a couple of years after the POD HD was actually released.

Click through for the full POD HD firmware 2.0 press release.

Line 6 has announced two new products in the POD range of guitar modellers. The first is a rackmount version of the POD HD system - the POD HD Pro. The Pro seems to be the same spec as the HD500 floor mount version albeit with a few more I/O options.

Alas there don't seem to be any extra amp models of FX announced for the POD HD Pro. I'm sure many existing POD HD owners were hoping to see some new features revealed that would make their way back to current hardware via firmware updates.

Meanwhile the company has also announced the Mobile In interface for iPod/iTouch devices and Mobile POD software to run alongside it.

Check out videos of both in action after the jump.

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.

Line 6 has released version 2.5 of its PodFarm guitar modelling software. This major update removes the requirement to use an iLok dongle or Line 6 interface.

Now users can use the software with any audio interface. Other new features include 64-bit support and a free demo.

Check out the full details after the break.

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:

Line6 has announced an exciting update for existing POD HD users and the for the newly announced POD HD desktop version.

Later this month firmware v1.3 will be released which will feature six new amp models, and new controls. Users will now be able to control power-amp parametres - a particularly good upgrade for metal tones.

Check out the press release 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.