Modeler News
Firmware updates, gear announcements, industry trends, and the practical bits that change how a modeler player actually works.
Strymon's TimeLine MX Runs Two Delay Machines at Once for $679 — Here's What Your Helix Can and Can't Do About It
Strymon announced the TimeLine MX on July 7 — a $679 successor to the delay that has anchored worship pedalboards for over a decade. It runs any two of twelve machines simultaneously with series, parallel, or split routing and per-engine panning, and adds four new engines: Spectral granular, a per-tap MultiTap, Oil Can, and Drum. The original TimeLine stays in the lineup at $449. If yours lives in a Helix effects loop, here's the honest math.
Darkglass Brings the Anagram to Guitar: The Essentials Edition Is a $1,300 NAM-Native Modeler
Darkglass announced a Guitar Essentials Edition of its Anagram workstation on June 29 — a Sweetwater-exclusive build at $1,299.99 that adds 11 guitar amp models and three effects to the bass-first platform. The headline for guitarists isn't the amp count. It's that the Anagram loads NAM and AIDA-X captures natively, no proprietary conversion, three profiles at once.
Two Notes Genome 2.0 Adds a Free Parametric Capture Engine — And It Quietly Fixes the One Thing Static Captures Always Got Wrong
Genome 2.0 landed with iOS support, seven new amps, and a free capture studio. The headline everyone's running is 'all-in-one modeling suite.' The part that actually matters: PARADEX captures how an amp responds across its whole control range — so a captured amp finally cleans up when you roll your volume knob back, the way a static NAM or TONEX snapshot never did. Here's what that changes, and what a Helix or HX Stomp player should take from it.
EHX Ships the Pico Shimmer Cosmic Reverb at $149 — And Most of It Already Lives in Your Modeler
Electro-Harmonix put three shimmer worlds — Intergalactic, Off-World, and Etherdust — into a $149 sub-compact pedal that's available now. If you run a Helix or HX Stomp, two of those three sounds are already a parallel pitch-into-reverb path away from free. Here's how to recreate them, and the one scene that's genuinely worth $149.
Mooer's GE100 Pro Puts NAM, MNRS 2.0, and AI Tone-From-Text in a $96 Modeler
Mooer's new GE100 Pro is a sub-$100 floor modeler that loads NAM captures, runs MNRS 2.0 profiling, and generates tone settings from a text prompt. The battery-equipped Li version is $116. At this price the spec sheet reads like a typo — the real question is whether the modeling holds up.
Eventide Puts the Full H90 Library Into the H9 Footprint — the H9 Harmonizer Gen 2 Is $599, Ships June 24
Eventide announced the H9 Harmonizer Gen 2 this week: the iconic small-footprint multi-FX gets the complete 74-algorithm library from the flagship H90, a real screen, three Quick Knobs, stereo I/O, USB-C, and MIDI. It runs one algorithm at a time — it's half an H90, not a whole one — and it's $599, shipping globally June 24. Here's what actually changed, and why the workflow story matters more than the algorithm count.
TONE3000 Releases NAM Architecture 2 — Free, Open-Source, and It Beat Neural DSP and Line 6 in Blind Tests
On June 2, TONE3000 and NAM creator Steve Atkinson released Architecture 2 — a ground-up rebuild of the free Neural Amp Modeler engine. It runs better than Quad Cortex's capture engine at 50% CPU on a $3 chip, it's fully open source, and in a 1,000-person blind test it out-scored Neural DSP, IK ToneX, and Line 6 Proxy. The whole thing costs nothing.
Positive Grid's REACTOR Builds a Tone From a Text Prompt, a Recording, or a Photo — and It's $349
Positive Grid announced REACTOR on June 2 — a 1x12 combo (50W/$349, 100W/$449) with an 'Amp Intelligence' engine that generates a full signal chain from a typed description, an uploaded recording, or an image. It's the first time the company's AI tone engine has lived in hardware instead of the Spark app. Here's what's actually interesting about it if you think about tone as a system, and where the marketing gets ahead of the physics.
IK Multimedia Captures Three Museum-Grade '60s Marshall 45s for TONEX — Royal 45 Legends
IK's new Royal 45 Legends Signature Collection puts 50 Tone Models of three mid-'60s British 45-watt amps into TONEX — two captured from the Capitol Records vault, one from a European vintage collection, all run through V2 AI Machine Modeling. It's $99.99 ($79.99 intro), free for TONEX ONE+ owners, and it's the closest most of us will ever get to plugging into a 60-year-old amp that lives behind glass.
TONEX ONE+ Adds Bluetooth App Control and MIDI to IK's Pocket Modeler at $249.99
IK Multimedia launched the TONEX ONE+ on May 7. It is the same 48 mm wide aluminum brick as the original TONEX ONE, but with Bluetooth editing through the TONEX Control app, full TRS and USB MIDI, and 20 preset slots addressable from a switcher. Same $249.99 price. Same machine-learning amp models. The interesting question is what this changes for the backpack rig.
Chase Bliss Ships the Big Time at $999 — A Six-Year Stereo Delay Built Around '80s Rack DNA
Chase Bliss has officially launched the Big Time, a $999 hybrid digital/analog stereo delay built in collaboration with John Snyder of Electronic Audio Experiments. It is the most expensive pedal Chase Bliss has ever shipped, and it is a deliberate attempt to recreate the specific sonic fingerprint of early-'80s rack delays like the Lexicon PCM 70 and the Korg SDD-3000.
MXR Ships the EVH Modern High Gain — A Pedal Built Around 5150 III Channel 3, Not the Brown Sound
MXR's new $269.99 EVH Modern High Gain pedal started shipping April 28. It is not another brown-sound box — it is the 5150 III's third channel (the modern high-gain lead channel) compressed into a stompbox, with a 55Hz/80Hz bass shift switch, onboard noise gate, and a boost. For anyone running a Helix, Quad Cortex, or Kemper that already models the 5150 III, this is a useful reference point in the other direction.
Keeley RK2000 Funk Siren Delay Ships at $369, Reviving the Ibanez DM2000 Trey Anastasio Has Used for Decades
After weeks of teasing, Keeley has shipped the RK2000 Funk Siren Delay — a $369 floor pedal built around the character of the vintage Ibanez DM2000 rackmount that Trey Anastasio has used for most of his career. It does ping-pong pitch-shifted delays, LFO modulation, and stores presets with full MIDI.
NUX MG-50Li Ships April 20 With Three-DSP Modeling, DeepImage Profiling, and 5-Hour Battery
NUX confirms April 20 ship date for the MG-50Li at $499. It runs TS/AC-4K physical modeling across three dedicated DSPs, includes built-in DeepImage profiling, and has a five-hour rechargeable battery. This is the most capable battery-powered modeler shipping this month.
Valeton's New GP-150 and GP-180 Put NAM Support Under $200
Valeton's two new floorboard modelers ship with SnapTone NAM file support, 12-module parallel routing, and built-in battery — the GP-150 at $169.99 with an onboard expression pedal. For the budget modeler audience, this is the most interesting sub-$200 release since the Donner Arena 2000.
Quad Cortex Mini Starts Shipping to Pre-Order Customers
Neural DSP's compact flagship is finally landing on doorsteps. The Quad Cortex Mini packs the full CorOS experience into a smaller enclosure at EUR 1,299, and first impressions from early adopters are overwhelmingly positive.