6 MICRO RIGS SHRINK AGAIN

Take a walk round NAMM and you’ll find growing numbers of improbably small amps powerful enough to gig with. While miniaturising amps to pedal size has been possible for some time, making them sound good is more problematic. But that problem is getting ever closer to being solved. Vox, for example, showed off their new range of 50-watt NuTube amps. Powered by a combination of a class-D power amp and a flat, miniature triode valve invented in the 1960s to power the display of an alarm clock. Vox’s MV50 NuTube amps (£199) [5] come in three flavours: Clean, AC and the high-gain Rock, with custom-designed cabs. Vox say they’re not just as good as a small backup or practice amp, but could be used to build inexpensive stereo rigs, as tone conditioners for a multi-effects unit and more. Vox weren’t the only ones pursuing micro-sized amps, as Hotone’s dubiously named 50-watt Britwind dual-channel micro amp (£tba) with effects loop and cab simulator attests. For those running pedalboards and preamps straight into the desk, NAMM also offered means to lend that tone some air and authority in the form of pedal-sized cabinet emulators, notably Digitech’s CabDryVR pedal (£129) [6] loaded with 14 guitar and bass cab models. Finally, the most complete solution for getting amp tone from a pedal was offered by Atomic, whose popular and powerful Amplifire modelling unit has been boiled down to its essentials in the pedalboard-friendly and purposeful new AmpliFirebox pedal [7], which packs in nine amps and three cab models, plus reverb, into a box no bigger than most twin-channel distortion pedals. One to try, if you want tone on the fly.