Blackstar Amplification has launched the Beam Mini, a compact desk amp offering component-level digital modelling and powerful DSP, packaged with an immersive sound and intuitive control.
The amp offers an array of cutting-edge features, making it a highly versatile tool – and a great companion for practicing, songwriting and creating. Thanks to native support for TONE3000 NAM captures, Beam Mini can load over 200,000 community-created NAM captures, giving players access an immense tone library.
Beam Mini also integrates Moises AI stem separation, letting you isolate or remove instruments from any song. Want to play along with a classic track? Remove the guitar and step into the player’s shoes, or isolate a part to study every detail of the performance. This works for all instruments, giving musicians a completely new way to practise, learn, and play along with their favourite music. Moises AI is not available on launch, software update coming August 2026.
Beam Mini delivers great tone for both electric and acoustic guitar – as well as bass – along with Bluetooth audio playback, and intelligent app control. Everything you need to play, practice, and create is at your fingertips.
You can use the Beam app to deep edit tones and explore infinite content for jamming and learning. Beam Mini delivers classic and Blackstar amp models, plus over 35 studio-grade effects and thousands of user and artist-generated patches. With more content and AI features being added all the time, Beam Mini will continue to evolve with your musical journey for years to come.
Powered by a USB-rechargeable battery with 18+ hours play time, you can do what you love – wherever you want, for as long as you want.
Blackstar partnered with one of the UK’s leading acoustics experts to design a sealed, acoustically tuned cabinet that delivers powerful and articulate guitar tones and exceptional Bluetooth music playback. Two 60mm full-range drivers plus two passive bass radiators combine with Blackstar’s Super Wide Stereo technology to create a startlingly immersive, room-filling tone.
Beam Mini delivers the dynamic, responsive feel of a tube amp through advanced component-level modelling. It features twelve authentic component-level electric guitar amp models – six Blackstar designs and six Ampton recreations of iconic amps – plus three bass amps, two acoustic voices, an acoustic simulator, and Blackstar’s patented ISF control.
Shape your tone directly on the unit using the tactile SpeedDial and Light Beam Display, which give instant visual feedback with no menus to navigate. Or take full control through the Beam app, where a growing library of professional-grade amp, cab, mic and pedal models is waiting. Combined with ISF, you can access an infinite number of tonal possibilities to explore, enjoy, and create.
XpressFX instantly adjusts the intensity of multiple effects with one movement of the SpeedDial, giving you fast, musical control of your sound. A studio-quality headset mic input with built-in reverb lets you record vocals and guitar together, making Beam Mini ideal for songwriting, streaming, and creating content on the go.
CabRig technology offers IR-based speaker and mic simulation that goes beyond static snapshots, giving your guitar a more lifelike, room-filling presence – the same way a cranked valve amp moves air in front of you.
With its dust-tight and weatherproof design, combined with over 18 hours of playtime, Beam Mini is ready for life on the move – indoors, outdoors, anywhere.
You can explore Official Artist Patches from an ever-growing list of all-stars including Doug Aldrich (The Dead Daisies), Gus G. (Firewind), Will Sergeant (Echo & The Bunnymen), and many more. You can share your own tones on the online community and download other creators’ patches within a vibrant global network. You can even share your favourite patches with friends with just a simple tap.
Within the ‘Music’ section of the app, you’ll find backing tracks and video lessons to keep you inspired and progressing.
Designed for electric, bass, and acoustic guitar, Blackstar’s Beam Mini carries street price of $229.99. For more information visit blackstaramps.com.
Blackstar
Beam MINI
For musicians who want inspiration without barriers – powerful immersive sound, intuitive control and the world’s best tones, all in a compact desktop amp you can take anywhere. Combining decades of amp design expertise with cutting-edge component-level digital modelling and Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) compatibility, Beam Mini redefines what a compact amp can be. Enjoy best-in-class guitar tone and world-class Bluetooth audio playback, without compromise
New Orleans heavyweights Crowbar have been on a relentless tour of sellout shows this spring, with a schedule of dates that would have bands half their age fainting. Ahead of their gig at Eastside Bowl in Madison, Tennessee, PG’s Chris Kies talked with guitarist/vocalist Kirk Windstein, guitarist Matt Brunson, and bassist Pat Bruders to see what gear they’re using to conjure their crushing wall of sludgy hardcore.
This is Windstein’s latest signature model with Solar Guitars, the X1.6KW, in Mardi Gras purple. It’s loaded with a pair of passive pickups at the moment—a Seymour Duncan Invader in the bridge, and a Seymour Duncan ’59 in the neck. It’s currently his go-to instrument for Crowbar dates, and he strings it with DR Strings (.013–.060). Though the band’s down-tuned heft would lend itself well to a 7-string, Windstein grew up on six, and that’s where he’s going to stay.
Not-So-Small Fry
Windstein is running through a Neural Quad Cortex unit, working in tandem with a Fryette Two/Ninety/Two power amp, recommended to him by his sound man.
Dean’s List
Brunson shreds with this 7-string Dean Exile Select, kitted out with a burl poplar top, maple neck, and EMG 57/66 pickups. He digs these pickups for their vintage-voiced, cleaner sound, which pairs well with the band’s high-gain environment.
Kemper and Kab
Brunson is running through this Kemper Profiler MK2, primarily using the stock Diezel VH4 profile. He likes the ease of use and consistency he’s found in the digital platform. The Kemper runs through SonicTone Amplification cabinets loaded with Celestion Vintage 30 speakers.
From the Ashes
Bruders has used this EST LTD Phoenix II since 2005. It features active EMG pickups, and he runs it with DR Strings sets.
Extra-Large Amp
Bruders plays through a Darkglass Microtubes 900v2, often blending it with the signal from his Tech 21 SansAmp Bass Driver DI. His signal is pumped through an Eich Amplification XLCab cab, which is stocked with a range of speakers: two 15", two 12", four 10", and two NT1 tweeters.
Pat Bruders’ Pedalboard
Bruders’ DIY board couldn’t be simpler. It’s got a Boss TU-2, and the aforementioned Tech 21 Sans Amp DI unit.
Blackstar Amplification has launched the Beam Mini, a compact desk amp offering component-level digital modelling and powerful DSP, packaged with an immersive sound and intuitive control.
The amp offers an array of cutting-edge features, making it a highly versatile tool – and a great companion for practicing, songwriting and creating. Thanks to native support for TONE3000 NAM captures, Beam Mini can load over 200,000 community-created NAM captures, giving players access an immense tone library.
Beam Mini also integrates Moises AI stem separation, letting you isolate or remove instruments from any song. Want to play along with a classic track? Remove the guitar and step into the player’s shoes, or isolate a part to study every detail of the performance. This works for all instruments, giving musicians a completely new way to practise, learn, and play along with their favourite music. Moises AI is not available on launch, software update coming August 2026.
Beam Mini delivers great tone for both electric and acoustic guitar – as well as bass – along with Bluetooth audio playback, and intelligent app control. Everything you need to play, practice, and create is at your fingertips.
You can use the Beam app to deep edit tones and explore infinite content for jamming and learning. Beam Mini delivers classic and Blackstar amp models, plus over 35 studio-grade effects and thousands of user and artist-generated patches. With more content and AI features being added all the time, Beam Mini will continue to evolve with your musical journey for years to come.
Powered by a USB-rechargeable battery with 18+ hours play time, you can do what you love – wherever you want, for as long as you want.
Blackstar partnered with one of the UK’s leading acoustics experts to design a sealed, acoustically tuned cabinet that delivers powerful and articulate guitar tones and exceptional Bluetooth music playback. Two 60mm full-range drivers plus two passive bass radiators combine with Blackstar’s Super Wide Stereo technology to create a startlingly immersive, room-filling tone.
Beam Mini delivers the dynamic, responsive feel of a tube amp through advanced component-level modelling. It features twelve authentic component-level electric guitar amp models – six Blackstar designs and six Ampton recreations of iconic amps – plus three bass amps, two acoustic voices, an acoustic simulator, and Blackstar’s patented ISF control.
Shape your tone directly on the unit using the tactile SpeedDial and Light Beam Display, which give instant visual feedback with no menus to navigate. Or take full control through the Beam app, where a growing library of professional-grade amp, cab, mic and pedal models is waiting. Combined with ISF, you can access an infinite number of tonal possibilities to explore, enjoy, and create.
XpressFX instantly adjusts the intensity of multiple effects with one movement of the SpeedDial, giving you fast, musical control of your sound. A studio-quality headset mic input with built-in reverb lets you record vocals and guitar together, making Beam Mini ideal for songwriting, streaming, and creating content on the go.
CabRig technology offers IR-based speaker and mic simulation that goes beyond static snapshots, giving your guitar a more lifelike, room-filling presence – the same way a cranked valve amp moves air in front of you.
With its dust-tight and weatherproof design, combined with over 18 hours of playtime, Beam Mini is ready for life on the move – indoors, outdoors, anywhere.
You can explore Official Artist Patches from an ever-growing list of all-stars including Doug Aldrich (The Dead Daisies), Gus G. (Firewind), Will Sergeant (Echo & The Bunnymen), and many more. You can share your own tones on the online community and download other creators’ patches within a vibrant global network. You can even share your favourite patches with friends with just a simple tap.
Within the ‘Music’ section of the app, you’ll find backing tracks and video lessons to keep you inspired and progressing.
Designed for electric, bass, and acoustic guitar, Blackstar’s Beam Mini carries street price of $229.99. For more information visit blackstaramps.com.
Blackstar
Beam MINI
For musicians who want inspiration without barriers – powerful immersive sound, intuitive control and the world’s best tones, all in a compact desktop amp you can take anywhere. Combining decades of amp design expertise with cutting-edge component-level digital modelling and Neural Amp Modeler (NAM) compatibility, Beam Mini redefines what a compact amp can be. Enjoy best-in-class guitar tone and world-class Bluetooth audio playback, without compromise
Dawner Prince Electronics announces the release of the Eclipsa Triple Rotary, a rotary cabinet emulator inspired by the famous Yamaha RA-200 system. Unlike traditional Leslie-style designs, the RA-200 is based on a unique architecture combining three independently driven rotating drivers with additional static speakers, resulting in a distinctive and dynamically evolving spatial character. Eclipsa recreates this behavior through detailed DSP modeling, capturing both the tonal response and the complex movement of the original system. The design also incorporates an analog solid-state version of the Alembic® F-2B tube preamp, known for its warm yet articulate character.
Built as a complete, performance-ready unit, Eclipsa features full MIDI control with up to 127 presets, a magnetic contactless true bypass system, and stereo outputs via three virtual microphones.
Features:
Rotary cabinet emulation based on the Yamaha RA-200
Integrated Alembic F-2B–style preamp
Full MIDI control with 127 presets
Magnetic, contactless true bypass switching system
Line/Instrument input selector
Stereo output via three virtual microphones
Expression pedal input
Low-noise, efficient design (~140 mA)
Custom CNC-machined aluminum enclosure
Availability
Eclipsa Triple Rotary is priced at $589.95 USD (MAP). First batch is available exclusively through the Dawner Prince Electronics web store, with broader availability at dealers worldwide from late May.
Don’t be fooled. Yes, José González’s mellifluous folk-pop, powered almost exclusively by Spanish acoustic guitars, sounds like it must have been a breeze to make. But if it were, a lot more of it would exist. As things stand, the acclaimed Swedish singer, songwriter, and guitarist (a child of Argentinian parents who emigrated to Scandinavia in the 1970s) has managed to put out just five solo albums in the past 23 years. Because his work is truly a solo production—González plays, sings, and records all the parts either at his home in Gothenburg or in a private studio space nearby—he has nobody to blame for this but himself. And as he explains during a recent Zoom interview with Premier Guitar, a key issue is that he starts the creative process for each of his albums intending to attain a noble ideal, of which he inevitably and invariably falls short.
“The first ambition always is to do everything, the whole album, with one guitar and one voice,” González says. “But then I’ll have a song that I feel will still be good enough for the album [that way] but I’ll just try adding one more guitar, or some vocals, or some clapping, or some looping. It’s cheating,” he acknowledges, “but you know, I’m old enough to not care that much about it. So that becomes part of the new ambition, which is to make it all sound like it was done with just one guitar and one vocal.”
A bemused grin flashes from behind the 47-year-old González’s dark, scraggly beard. “But then I run into another problem,” he continues, “which is that if the album sounds like it was done with just one guitar and one vocal, it’s a bit too homogeneous and boring for many people. So that’s when I start pushing each song in different directions, adding echoes and reverbs, changing the style of guitar playing. When I put my producer’s hat on, then it’s a different ambition: to make the album more interesting.”
González in recording mode.
Photo by Ellika Henriksson
José González’s Gear
Guitars
Estevé Adalid 11 classical acoustic
Estevé 9CB classical acoustic (one with spruce top and one with cedar top)
D’Addario Pro Arté EJ46 Silverplated Wound/Nylon Core
Shubb C2 capo
Pickups, Mics, & DI
Fishman Prefix Pro Blend pickups
Neumann U 67 and SM 69 microphones
Radial Engineering Firefly tube preamp/DI
Recording Software
Logic Pro
Universal Audio plugins, including A-Type Multiband Dynamic Enhancer, EP-34 Tape Echo and Precision De-Esser
Does González foresee a time when he might actually achieve his first ambition of making a literal solo album? “That could happen,” he says. “I don’t know, there’s many things I want to do with life. If I look into my future, when the kids [an eight-year-old daughter and a four-year-old son] are older and they move from home, I might play every day and all of a sudden have 10 songs that are amazing and just put them out on an album like that. But then again, I might just be happy on my porch by the water. And I might not have an audience that wants to see this old dude.”
One has a hard time imagining the latter situation ever coming to pass if González keeps making music that matches the consistent quality of his latest release, Against the Dying of the Light. Like its four predecessors, the new album sounds simple at first, quiet alt-folk spotlighting González’s gentle, reedy voice and mellow nylon-string plucking. But it reveals greater complexity the more closely you listen: in the tricky rhythms that course through each song, derived from West African, Caribbean, and Brazilian sources; in the harmonic richness of the chord progressions; and in the advanced philosophical concepts referenced in the lyrics.
“The first ambition always is to do everything, the whole album, with one guitar and one voice.”
Indeed, Against the Dying… could legitimately be called a concept album—not in the rock-opera sense, but in the more basic definition of a linked group of songs that explore kindred ideas. The album opens with “A Perfect Storm,” which presents a problem: Human consciousness and well-being are threatened by artificial intelligence, algorithms, memes, and other human creations. The implications of that problem are examined more deeply as the album progresses, until 13 songs later, we arrive not at a solution but at an awareness with which a solution might be found—an awareness of our own humanity. The closing song, “Joy,” concludes with these words: “As we cognify everything/We’re still conscious souls/Who can’t help but sing.”
Each song on Against the Dying… flows into the next one naturally, like the evolution of an argument or the telling of a tale. Some of this is the product of post-facto track sequencing, but sometimes González wrote the songs with their order in mind from the start. For example, the lightly skipping “For Every Dusk” is followed by the more introspective “Sheet” because the songs were originally written as two sections of the same composition. The former track, with three subtly interlocking guitar parts, is also the one that strays farthest from its author’s opening play-it-all-on-a-single-instrument mission.
Onstage in Cleveland
Photo by Robert McCune
According to González, “For Every Dusk” was composed in a manner similar to the way he writes most of his songs, but ended up sounding different due to certain performance realities. “I always start with guitar,” he says, “and then I start humming. And then I start writing, and when I start writing I do the words and the melodies, partly on their own and partly by sitting with the guitar. That’s the part where I give up sometimes, because I raise the bar a bit too high for myself. With some songs, I’m not able to play that well and sing at the same time. I could sort of lower the bar for the guitar part, but usually I record the guitar separate. ‘For Every Dusk’ was one of those songs. I basically did full takes and felt like they had some highlights, but none of them were good enough, even if I tried to edit them. It sounded way better if I just put two of the takes together [running simultaneously]. Then it sounds like two guitarists hanging out. The guitars are almostplaying the same thing, but you get these variations that are nice, and they also sound similar to the music from Mali, where usually a couple of people with guitars are playing.”
“It became obvious that people were liking my acoustic guitar and vocals. That was what I was doing best.”
González has been a fan of Malian music for the past two decades; guitarist Ali Farka Touré and kora player Ballaké Sissoko were his gateway drugs. “Later, I got to hang out with [fellow guitarist] Sidi Touré and Bombino [Omara Moctar] from Niger. It was a pleasure to see how they play, and it’s just fun to jam with that sort of music. And I recently sang on a track for [Saharan “desert blues” band] Tinariwen’s new album—I’m really happy with how that turned out.”
Another highlight of Against the Dying…, “Ay Querida,” features an ear-grabbing alternate tuning. With a nod to legends Joni Mitchell and Nick Drake, the guitarist cranks the low E string of his Estevé Adalid 11 down, waydown, to B. That, however, is the song’s only deviation from standard. González employs several similar tunings, all of which share a minimum of retuned strings. “I never retune the A, D, B or high E,” he points out. “It’s only the low E and the G that go down, or up—there are many songs that are E-A-D-A, for example. But it’s fun to have those downtuned songs. The first one that became popular was ‘Far Away,’ that was used in a video game [Red Dead Redemption]. And since then, I have a couple of songs that are in that tuning. They’re really fun to play live, because you have a P.A. with subwoofers, and when you tune down, all of a sudden you’re not playing guitar, you’re playing bass.”
Photo and Makeup Credit: Laura and Mateo, ages 8 and 4
Besides the transglobal rhythms and the altered tunings, the most distinctive elements of González’s guitar style are what he plays (nylon-string acoustics) and how (always with a combination of the flesh and nails on his right-hand fingers, never a pick). That’s the way he played when he first took up the instrument at age 13; he even studied classical guitar for a while in his youth. “I went to a private teacher here in Gothenburg,” he remembers, “and I asked him, ‘Could you teach me jazz guitar?’ He told me, ‘No, I can’t, but I can teach you classical guitar.’ So I started learning all these Spanish classical tunes, like [Francisco Tárrega’s] ‘Recuerdos de la Alhambra,’ [Isaac Albéniz’s] ‘Asturias,’ some Bach even. I went to see my teacher once a month for a couple of years, but it took too much time to learn. So I let that go, but I learned a lot during those years.”
It wasn’t long before González had made a significant stylistic break from his early classical studies. By age 15, he was playing bass in the first of three hardcore punk bands that occupied his spare time for most of the ’90s, eventually switching over to electric guitar. “The hardcore songs weren’t bad,” he says now, “but they weren’t that good, either. And we didn’t have much success with them.” His next band, formed in 1998, was Junip, a trio that reunited him with the classical acoustic in a new indie-rock context: “It became obvious during those years that people were liking my acoustic guitar and vocals. That was what I was doing best.”
“I always start with guitar, and then I start humming. And then I start writing.”
Five years into Junip’s career, González released a solo seven-inch single, which unexpectedly hit No. 4 on the Swedish pop chart. The band proceeded to go on the backburner (though it reconvened for albums in 2010 and 2013), and González dropped his university studies—he’d been working toward a PhD in biochemistry—to focus on music full-time. “All of a sudden, I was famous in Sweden,” he recalls.
And the nylon-string guitar had played a major role in making this happen. “At that point it became a thing for me to not switch to steel-string, even though that would have meant louder sound when we were playing live,” González says. “My sound engineers were trying to get me to play steel-string, but to me that sounded like what everyone else was doing. I wanted to do what I liked, and in a way that wasn’t new either, because in the ’60s and ’70s there were Spanish guitars everywhere, in the folk traditions and the protest singers and the music that I listened to when I was young.”
Against the Dying of the Light is González’s fifth studio album, and first in five years.
That vintage sound has informed not only González’s writing and playing but also his approach to recording. Although he works strictly in the digital domain with Logic Pro, he’ll add analog-style ambience to his tracks whenever he deems it necessary—which is most of the time. “I’ll record through a tube amplifier, so I get that distortion that you can’t really take away later,” he says. “After that, I’ll add some saturation in different steps, depending on the type of song, and some tape emulator. And then, one of my favorite things to do is to add noise. The Universal Audio A-Type plugin has a noise generator that’s pretty round in its sound. I’ve got some nice mics—on the new album, I used Neumann’s SM 69 stereo mic a lot—but I don’t want things to be too bright or hi-fi, so I try to make it sound more old-school.”
Add every hour spent looking for just the right kind and amount of tape-style distortion to every hour spent struggling with the relative complexity of guitar arrangements, and you begin to understand why it generally takes five-plus years for a José González album to be completed. And of course, those aren’t the only things that can eat up a lot of time. “I’ll tell my label, ‘The album’s almost done, I have all the demos so I’m gonna start recording soon,’” González says. “So they start booking tours and setting up interviews. But then, you know, life catches on. Someone in the family gets sick, and I’m not rehearsing guitar as much, and then I need another month, or two more months. But eventually,” he concludes with a shrug, “I get to a point where I feel like this is good enough.”
He’s being humble here. For most listeners, José González’s “good enough” is way more than that.
