Rather than do a ‘best of’ style post, every year I’m doing a rundown of what home studio gear I’ve used this year, and why.
Previous years: [2019] [2020] [2021] [2022] [2023] [2024]
tl;dr
My home studio’s largely settled right now. There’s been a couple of changes (one to make my life a little easier, and one forced by something dying), but that’s it.
A Year Of Stability
By and large, nothing’s really changed this year.
… Except For UAD Luna And UAD Connect 🙁
After several years of reliability, the last few updates to Universal Audio LUNA and their UA Connect software manager have been problematic.
- UA Connect often sits there with a completely blank white screen after opening, and requires multiple restarts before it starts working.
- I’ve also had iLok error messages from UA Connect, when opening the UA Connect app.
- LUNA would completely hang (“Application not responding”), requiring a force-quit to get it working again. Most of the hangs were on the ‘New Project’ screen, but I’ve also had it hang when trying to record audio too (grrrr).
I hope that these are temporary glitches, and that LUNA in particular gets back to being rock solid and dependable for 2026.
I’ve Gone Back To Those Old Celestion Impulse Responses
All the way back in 2018, I bought a bunch of official Celestion impulse responses. I’ve used them on and off since then. This summer, I switched my most-used presets in the Axe-FX 3 over to using them.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think that the Dynacab IRs in the Axe-FX 3 are amazing. So why switch? I’m simply happier with the results.
If I understand correctly, the Dynacab IRs are (for lack of a better term) very raw. No post-processing has been applied to them at all. They’re meant to be incredibly accurate captures of the speakers and cabs that Fractal Audio have access to.
I’m finding that the official Celestion IRs are producing great results with a lot less effort. I’m pretty sure they’ve been captured with more emphasis on sound quality, rather than raw accuracy (although I can’t find anything definitive on Celestion’s website to confirm what post-processing has / hasn’t been applied).
The other thing is that (a bit like with nearly all the amp models in the Axe-FX 3), the Dynacab IRs aren’t captures of gear that I have access to.
I can get official Celestion IRs for all the physical speakers that I’ve owned for many years, captured in the kind of 1×12 open-backed cabs that I use. I feel that this gets me much closer to the tones that I’m already used to at home.
And that’s what it’s all about for me.
A Forced Change For Power Distribution
Right at the end of the year, the power conditioner in my studio rack died.
I’d had my Furman PL-PLUS C E for 13 years and 11 months (to the day!) when it suddenly stopped working. Can’t say I didn’t get my money’s worth there.
Alas, a like-for-like replacement didn’t make financial sense. These units are pretty rare here in the UK right now, with an asking price to match. I could have saved quite a bit of money by importing one from Thomann, but that wasn’t going to be quick – and it was still going to be a lot of money.
Thankfully, as a home player, I don’t need all the advanced features of the PL-PLUS model, so I picked up the budget-friendly Furman M-10XE unit instead with next day delivery from Andertons.
At the time of writing this, I’ve only had the new unit a few weeks. The power switch is in a slightly different place, which is messing up nearly 14 years of muscle memory. Other than that? So far, so good.
Why Didn’t You Try Out The NeuralDSP NanoCortex This Year?
Most people seem to want to use captures / profiles as a way to avoid buying the real amp or pedal. I can relate to that. I bought my Kemper many years ago hoping it could be the Deluxe Reverb amp that I don’t have space for at home. It couldn’t, and that’s a big reason why it’s the most disappointing piece of gear that I’ve ever bought.
[And yet you still have it – Ed]
These days, I’m far more interested in capturing my own rig, so that I have a permanent record of it; so that I can pull the exact same sound up months later, should I need to re-record a guitar part.
(I use a hybrid rig – a mixture of analogue and digital units. It’s very tricky to recall exact settings on analogue gear down the road, and firmware updates on digital units normally change the sound of the unit. Captures / profiles solve this problem, because they’re a snapshot of your signal chain’s sound, specifically meant to be recalled at any future time.)
(This is the exact reason the Kemper is popular in many professional studios. Alas, the Kemper does not capture tweedy tones very faithfully in my experience.)
Thing is (and a spoiler for tomorrow’s blog post!), I’m not recording any music at all. The band I was in is done, and I haven’t done anything about recording any solo music.
So right now, I don’t need anything to make captures / profiles with.
If that changes in 2026, I won’t be looking at the NeuralDSP NanoCortex. Towards the end of 2025, NeuralDSP released a new (and much improved) version of their capture process, but it was only available on their flagship QuadCortex unit. That rules out the NanoCortex for me.
How Did You Do On Your 2025 Plans?
Last year, I said that I wanted to look into three things:
- room correction software,
- connecting the Axe-FX 3 to my audio interface via digital I/O, and
- adding more mic pre’s to my setup.
None of that happened.
The main problem with room correction was lack of availability. Whenever I looked into it, either the IK Multimedia ARC Studio was out of stock, and/or the required reference mic was.
(This has been a bit of a running theme for several years now: having trouble catching all the individual components for something in stock at the same time.)
I should just bite the bullet, and order everything directly from SonarWorks.
I’ve stuck with analogue connections from my Axe-FX 3 mostly because its digital I/O port uses a different connector to the one on my audio interface. From what I’ve read, I’d need to use a converter box. They seem to be pretty cheap, but I don’t have any spare power sockets to run one off.
(I’m also wondering how much latency a converter box might add. If you know, please leave a comment down below.)
As for adding more mic pre’s to my setup … with the band no longer together, I haven’t hooked up any microphones at all this year. I certainly don’t need more mic pre’s right now. Doesn’t stop me wanting more, though (totally irrational, I know).
Any Plans For 2026?
I do need to revisit room correction. I know it’s a good idea. And it would be good to have this in place before I try my hand at “documenting” pedals.
Other than that … no plans. Everything’s very settled.