Guitar Journal: Gamechanger Audio Recoder
Ross Electronics is back and HeadRush announces firmware 5.0 for Prime, Core, and Flex Prime!
This week, we look at Gamechanger Audio’s Recoder Pedal, which, apparently, they don’t even fully understand! Next, are Ross Electronics about to make an official comeback? Finally, HeadRush has just announced the 5.0 firmware, with many great new features for Prime, Core, and Flex Prime.
Guitar Journal
Recoder Pedal
Gamechanger Audio, the Latvian company known for its wacky and unique guitar pedals, has invented something so unusual. They aren’t even sure quite how to categorise it. It is part of their Math Series and offers some weird and wacky sound-smashing capabilities.
Think of the Recoder as the oddball cousin of a looper pedal. It’s designed to take any recorded phrase—be it a 12-second riff, melody, or even feedback and transform it into a “living, breathing, unique audio effect”.
Modes
The way the recorded phrase behaves is heavily influenced by its length, offering two distinct sonic palettes. Short phrases (50–200 ms) act like “spectral filters, resonators, or timbral imprints,” while longer phrases evolve into “living rhythmic maps, vowel vocoders, and phantom riffs.”
- Red Mode: Manipulates the core sound parameters: Tone, Pitch (spanning an eight-octave range), Damage (from digital degradation to aggressive harmonic chaos), and Stretch (speed).
- Yellow Mode: Focuses on time-based modulation using Slice (for overlapping repeats), Repeats, Resonance, and Distance controls.
- White Mode: Affects frequency and envelope with Amplitude (adding/subtracting active frequencies), Attack, Decay, and Timbre (ranging from vocoder-like sounds to cleaner resynthesis).
Limited Run
If you like weird and wonderful, then this is for you. However, it is a minimal run and only available to order until 10 December 2025. If you want, you need to go directly to Gamechanger Audio and place your order soon.
If you get one, please let us know what you think. As it sounds bonkers!
MSRP – £182.50
Ross Electronics Return?
It looks as though Ross Pedals are coming back! This is the brand that JHS Pedals reinvigorated and brought back to life, and then ultimately sold off all the stock not too long ago.
Well, now there is a new Ross Electronics site where you can register your interest in a new launch.
After a short-lived, turbulent JHS-led revival, the Ross brand is entering a truly new chapter. It has resurfaced with the exciting announcement of the Era 6 pedal line, and this time, the iconic effects company is officially back in family hands.
Ross Era 6
Taking over the leadership is Cameron Ross, grandson of founder Bud Ross, ensuring the storied name returns to the original Ross lineage. Cameron celebrated the news on the official Ross Instagram page, declaring, “I am the Captain now.”
Ross Electronics
There is not much on the site, but when you sign up, you get an email with “The next era of Ross is about to drop, and it’s built to hit harder, run cleaner, and inspire the kind of riffs that get you into trouble (the good kind).” Along with a 10% off code for the upcoming pedal release.
Which Models?
We should see the Compressor, Distortion, Phaser, Chorus, and Fuzz all making a comeback. We will keep you updated on this once more information becomes available, but certainly one to watch out for in 2026.
HeadRush 5.0 Firmware
HeadRush has launched a major free firmware update, 5.0, for the Prime, Core, and Flex Prime pedalboards.
New Tools
This update focuses on delivering powerful new tools for practicing, writing, and performing. I love a free update, and this one is packed with useful stuff. Below is a brief overview of what to expect from this latest firmware.
What’s New?
The headline feature is the new onboard Drum Machine, drawing on the world-class expertise of Alesis Drums and BFD. It offers 16 professional kits and 134 styles across 15 genres, all controllable via the footswitches for dynamic fills and variations during live performance. This provides users with a studio-grade “on-call drummer” right inside their pedal.
Equally exciting is the TIDAL streaming integration. Users with a TIDAL account can now stream over 110 million songs directly into the Practice Tool. This makes learning new material easier than ever, allowing musicians to set loop points, slow down the tempo without changing the pitch, and transpose songs to fit their needs.
Beyond the practice tools, Firmware 5.0 expands the tonal palette with a redesigned, high-gain 25 ON-1 Amp Model, plus two new boutique overdrives: the transparent Jimmy OD and the vintage-inspired Palace OD. Pitch effects have also been upgraded with improved tracking on the DropTune and an added UpTune effect.
This update is available now for free.
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