HeadRush, an innovator in next-generation guitar products, launches its first product, the HeadRush Pedalboard. Powered by a custom quad-core processor and its Eleven® HD Expanded ™ platform, it gives guitarists endless power to create powerful tones using realistic emulations of classic and modern effects, amps, cabinets and microphones.
HeadRush Pedalboard
A key element of this experience is its support for third-party solutions, that is, accurate sound profiles, speaker tonal characteristics and amp cabinets. For the solutions included out of the box, the HeadRush team chose Celestion Impulse Responses.
“The unique feature of the HeadRush Pedalboard is definitely its intuitive user interface,” explains Walter Skorupski, HeadRush’s product manager. “Since we have a touchscreen, building rigs by dragging and dropping is quick and easy. It’s a guitarist-centered workflow, because it comes very naturally. We’re not only modeling the sound of the gear; we’re modeling the experience of putting together composite rigs to create a dream setup”
Celestion is best known for those drivers that typified the sound of British rock, such as the famous “Alnico Blue” and “Greenback” models, which graced the inside of guitar cabinets from names like Marshall and Vox. With the digitally downloadable Celestion IRs, the sounds of these and other authentic Celestion guitar speakers are available to any musician who doesn’t have the space or the budget for a set of vintage amps. Even for those who can afford them, Celestion IRs offer unlimited creativity to the user, along with the ability to save favorite tones for later use, as well as the benefit of auditioning models before buying physical speakers.
“We announced the HeadRush at the same time Celestion launched its line of authentic Impulse solutions,” says Skorupski. “We knew right away we wanted to partner with Celestion because of its history and the high quality of its IRs. I strongly recommend checking out their entire library, not just the products we’ve included. It’s a way to add more tones to your HeadRush”
Capturing a high-quality IR is a very complex process, but Celestion has mastered and perfected it!
Given the robustness of the HeadRush hardware, the Celestion IRs can run alongside everything the pedalboard can do, and that’s quite a lot, as Skorupski details: “It has 11 preset slots, along with options to change its routing. You can load one effect or impulse response per slot, or two amp or cabinet models per slot. Our Eleven HD Expanded platform has incredible, faithful high-definition models of all the classic and modern gear you need, and combines them with features never before seen in a guitar pedal of this scale, such as preset-free switching, reverb pre-configuration, delay trails, a looper with 20 minutes of recording time, advanced signal-chain routing... and much more”
The touchscreen ensures the process stays a piece of cake. “Most guitarists will program the HeadRush on a table or desk and then put it on the floor to play live,” explains Skorupski. “Because our user interface is so intuitive, we’ve been able to reduce the number of controls, letting the guitarist make adjustments faster than on any other pedalboard and from any position. Whether at a gig or in rehearsal, you can use the hands-free mode to adjust any parameter of your rig preset, using the pedal”
And just as the sound of any classic guitar amp is good, the Celestion IR experience included in the HeadRush goes beyond the speaker cones: “The included impulse responses emulate the speakers, the cabinets as well as the microphones, the acoustic space and other recording equipment used when capturing the response,” he adds: “Capturing a high-quality IR is a very complex process, but Celestion has mastered and perfected it!”
