Laney has unveiled the Ironheart Loudpedal, a compact 60-watt twin-channel guitar amp in pedal form that is packed with features and yet super affordable. Indeed, you might well pay more for a lot of overdrive pedals, and this… Well, it’s an entire amp, all you need to drive a cabinet.
Not that it looks it. The Loudpedal is no bigger than a twofer deluxe drive pedal. Each channel has it’s own Volume and Gain dials, with a mini-toggle on Channel 1 to switch between Bright, Natural and Dark voicings. Channel 2, meanwhile, has a three-way toggle for Clean, Rhythm and Lead voicings.
The red knob is a boost. Simply dial it in, 1 to 10, then activate it via its own dedicated footswitch. Just the thing to push your sound for a solo.
Each channel shares a passive three-band EQ. LEDs light the way to let you know whaAround the rear of the amp you will find a transformer isolated effects loop so you can integrate it with your pedalboard while also mounting it on said ‘board.
There is a balanced XLR output with switchable ground lift and switchable analogue speaker emulation for sending your signal direct to a guitar audio interface for recording.
There is an 1/8” headphones output to facilitate silent practice or monitoring, and an aux input so you can play along to external audio – as Laney says, this is a practise anywhere device – and there’s an 8 ohm speaker output, too.
While it designed to be primarily a fly-rig, a none-more-portable option for the player on the go, it can also be incorporated into a conventional rig. You can use it as a twin-channel drive or boost pedal and hit the front end of another amp with it.
All this weighs a shade just over 1kg, pretty much the same weight as, say, the Warm Audio Centavo, and that is just a drive pedal while this it could be your entire rig if needs be. This being an Ironheart Foundry series amplifier, there’ll be no shortage of gain if that’s your thing.
The size and form factor obviously positions this as an amp option for those on the go, but as to kind of guitar players who’d enjoy the tones, it’s something of a blank canvas, with multiple voicings per channel, allied to the boost, making for a versatile set of tones to play with.
And the price? At £189 street in the UK, and a $299 list price in the US, that makes it a cheap amp option by anyone’s money, and we’d imaging more than a few guitarists might want to grab one as a backup for live performances just in case anything goes south with their rig.
The Ironheart Loudpedal is out now. It is, as Laney says, loud, and for more details and pics, head over to Laney.
