BluGuitar Amp X

Ca. 2022 I loudly proclaimed in another (now defunct) forum that the next piece of guitar gear I would buy would be the Amp X.

I wish that I would have stuck with my guns. Would have saved me a lot of money :columbo
 
2dor said:
Looks like Thomas is teasing a big announcement on the 7th of January.
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Amp X update from their latest live stream:
  • Release in 2026.
  • Price around 2000 euros.
  • Will be shown off at NAMM by multiple players.
  • Hardware pretty much done, software still a work in progress. Nothing new there!
  • Will likely ship with every amp/fx they have done so far.
  • Purchaseable sounds will have some sort of demo mode. They don't want to make it too annoying, but still provide incentive for your to buy them.
  • Boost pedal section can now include simpler drives so you could do dual analog drive pedals with Boost + Drive.
  • Pedals can have various modes. Showed a Dallas Rangemaster Treble Booster with multiple options.
  • Likely no pitch effects on release because they are not happy with the quality of the ones they have.
  • Amps can have things like different input selection. Showed Plexi model with Normal/Jumped/High treble inputs.
  • Bright cap can be adjusted on Amp 1 Mercury models at least, which makes it much easier to work with. On the Amp 1 you need to work around it with Gain knob vs guitar volume or reducing max gain via MIDI.
  • Front panel "Boost" knob will be relabeled "Guitar in" and will be a knob with a detent in the middle that you can use to compensate for lower/higher output guitars so your presets will work without having to adjust all of them if you change from say a Strat -> Les Paul. Basically input gain control.
  • There will be a way to select between editing amp tone stack EQ vs Amp 1 style post EQ.
  • Fx loop can be adjusted between series, parallel, and stereo in series or parallel.
  • Cab sim can be applied even to amp speaker out. Could be used in the future to power a FRFR cab?
  • Footswitch programming is flexible. Fx on/off, preset selection, dual functions (e.g dual presets on one footswitch)
  • Supports 128 presets atm.
  • Supports reamping via USB.
I'm still interested, but will have to see what the final product looks like. I feel like the software they showed off still felt like it needed a good amount of polish, and had a good amount of "not there yet but coming" features. Reminds me a bit of HX Stadium release in that sense.
 
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Thoughts based on what I saw on their live stream:

I can see some pitfalls like having to remember what your footswitches do since it has no scribble strips nor some overall view of their functions. Hopefully they can add some sort of function view for this sort of thing, similar to e.g Helix LT.

The actual operation does not look totally terrible. The top panel Pedal/Amp/Fx/Cab buttons seem to be more like setup functions where you pick your pre- and post-fx, amp and cab models.

You spam one of the buttons next to the screen to go through different categories (e.g boost, drive, modulation in pre-fx) and then pick a model for each. Then you have the 4 X controls showing what can be adjusted. I don't know how they will implement more param pages as everything seemed to have max 4 params atm. When you adjust any knob it will also show up on the bigger screen so it's easy to read.

You can assign any amp to each of the 4 amp slots (Clean/Vintage/Classic/Modern) so you could have 4 switchable amps in one preset similar to how channels works on Fractal. No similar feature for fx though, but you can always just do preset changes instead and it seemed to be very fast.

After you have set all that up, you can use the amp channel selector and the dedicated boost/drive/mod/delay buttons to toggle and edit those easily.
 
Where I see challenges for BluGuitar is that there's a lot of competition now.

Helix Stadium and Fractal AM4 just came out and both do a lot of what the BluGuitar does, just purely digital and without poweramp functionality, but way ahead in the number of amp models and fx. Even if you argue for analog authenticity over digital, I don't think it's a huge driving force for most people.

I could easily buy one of those and plug it into the poweramp of my Amp 1 Mercury Edition because it works so great with modelers and is almost as neutral as my Fryette PS-100.

On the analog side, the Synergy stuff is growing every year. If they put out a SYN-50 with dual module slots and add the rest of the SYN20-IR feature set...that would be very tempting for me. While each module is more expensive than buying new models for the Amp X, and switching is a chore, it's still a viable system for straight up tube amp sounds.

Meanwhile e.g Victory is putting out 50W multi-channel amps in a lunchbox format. One of those and a few pedals for fx is not going to be a huge chore to bring to a gig.
 
laxu said:
Amp X update from their latest live stream:
  • Release in 2026.
  • Price around 2000 euros.
  • Will be shown off at NAMM by multiple players.
  • Hardware pretty much done, software still a work in progress. Nothing new there!
  • Will likely ship with every amp/fx they have done so far.
  • Purchaseable sounds will have some sort of demo mode. They don't want to make it too annoying, but still provide incentive for your to buy them.
  • Boost pedal section can now include simpler drives so you could do dual analog drive pedals with Boost + Drive.
  • Likely no pitch effects on release because they are not happy with the quality of the ones they have.
  • Amps can have things like different input selection. Showed Plexi model with Normal/Jumped/High treble inputs.
  • Bright cap can be adjusted on Amp 1 Mercury models at least, which makes it much easier to work with. On the Amp 1 you need to work around it with Gain knob vs guitar volume or reducing max gain via MIDI.
  • Front panel "Boost" knob will be relabeled "Guitar in" and will be a knob with a detent in the middle that you can use to compensate for lower/higher output guitars so your presets will work without having to adjust all of them if you change from say a Strat -> Les Paul. Basically input gain control.
  • There will be a way to select between editing amp tone stack EQ vs Amp 1 style post EQ.
  • Cab sim can be applied even to amp speaker out. Could be used in the future to power a FRFR cab?
  • Footswitch programming is flexible. Fx on/off, preset selection, dual functions (e.g dual presets on one footswitch)
  • Supports 128 presets atm.
  • Supports reamping via USB.
I'm still interested, but will have to see what the final product looks like. I feel like the software they showed off still felt like it needed a good amount of polish, and had a good amount of "not there yet but coming" features. Reminds me a bit of HX Stadium release in that sense.
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I can’t really see this selling anywhere close to well enough for it to ever see all of these future promises come to fruition. This costs essentially what I paid for a BE100. Jack of all trade products can make sense if they have a clearly defined audience. I’m not totally sure who this is for.
 
MirrorProfiles said:
I can’t really see this selling anywhere close to well enough for it to ever see all of these future promises come to fruition. This costs essentially what I paid for a BE100. Jack of all trade products can make sense if they have a clearly defined audience. I’m not totally sure who this is for.
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I see it as a product for the gigging player who wants an all-in-one. It's designed mostly for that. But unlike a modeler it's designed for running into a guitar cab first, PA second.

I could replace my pedalboard and Amp 1 rig with this. Whether I want to is a different discussion.
 
MirrorProfiles said:
This is the main point I'm saying. Even at a competitive price Im not sure how many people really want this product. At £2k it becomes an even tougher sell. Its really cool tech but I can't really picture where it makes sense for anyone.
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You pay for a boutique amp, and get fx and future upgradeability thrown in with a way more portable form factor.

Do you think you have hangups about the cost because it's not all-tube, or because modelers do more?

A Synergy SYN50 rig costs more than this with 2 modules, and will cost more for additional modules, while still not having effects or cab sims.
Similarly most boutique tube amps are in a similar or higher price point.
A Helix Stadium or FM9 costs more in Europe and doesn't have the poweramp, plus all those usual "does the digital model do the same thing as the analog gear" stuff.
 
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