The battle for home guitar amp dominance just blew its top quite spectacularly with a very exciting winter NAMM 2026 release! There’s a new amplifier in town…and it is positively volcanic with possibilities! Yes, I’ve just had a look at the brand new Lava Studio, and I need to share some of this info with you, because it’s too hot to touch!
More Than Just an Amp
I’ll get to the regular guitar amp stuff in a second, but first of all, it’s worth you knowing just what is under the hood here! This sleek lil’ box houses a lot of clever tech, all accessible from the generous 13.3” fully interactive touchscreen. Now, we are getting more and more used to these home amplifiers adding features to make our practice/pleasure time more fun, and the Lava Studio excels in this regard. You could say it erupts with ideas!
I’ll go into a little more detail below, but here are some of the main points of excitement:
Lava Studio Features at a Glance
- Cutting edge digital amp and FX modelling
- 13.3” touchscreen interface
- ADI Sharc processor with 64 bit audio processing
- Built in DAW Multitrack recorder
- Built in drum loops and jam tracks
- Importing and exporting of audio
- Song stem extraction via AI
- Video lessons
Built-In DAW
Yes, there is an entire DAW recording system built into this! For those unfamiliar with the term, a DAW is a Digital Audio workstation, the collective term for computer recording software such as Logic and Pro Tools. The Lava Studio has one built into it! Record your guitar parts, listen back to them, layer up more, edit them, and then export them to wherever you want.
It’s also able to import your own personal audio - be that recorded tracks or samples or whatever you like - and use them to build up songs alongside the Lava’s preset drum loops.
You get a count-in, so you can sit with guitar on lap and Lava Studio beside you, and create multiple layers of music over a pro-sounding drum loop. It really couldn’t be easier.
Also Just a Great Amp
The primary function of any guitar amp is that it provides you with a good tone when you plug your guitar in. Right? Without that, you’ve got nothing much to stand on, and so in that regard, it’s good to be able to say that this is an impressive part of the Lava Studio. Using the touchscreen, you can choose from a room’s worth of boutique and classic amps, all graphically represented in a way that shouldn’t have you guessing too much about each model’s provenance.
From classic tube combos that are famous for their clean tones, to a bevy of some of the most wonderful high gain amps in the world, there’s a plethora of choices to be made, and the results are certainly convincing from a standalone point of view. Amp models have their relevant controls - the 5150 model (called the 5000 here) has resonance and presence knobs, for example, and the Boogies have their microswitches - so you can lean into the actual characteristics that make these amps so appealing.
Enviable Pedal Collection
In addition to the room full of boutique amps, the Lava Studio’s gear roster includes shelves of virtual pedals, all as realistically - and recognisably - recreated as the amps. You get a treasure trove of famous stompboxes, from overdrives and fuzzes to vintage modulation and highly sought after delays and reverbs.
As you’d hope, you can chain these up in any order you wish, and rearrange them to alter the signal chain. The sounds themselves are as impressively realistic and naturally reactive as the amp models. In my short time with it, I was particularly impressed by the ‘Cat’ distortion, and I just know you’ll understand what that model name refers to!
Great Jamming Tool
The Lave Studio seems designed to be your one-stop shop for all home guitar playing. Jamming to the supplied drum loops is straightforward (and you can record your jam if it sounds like it’s worth keeping and developing!), and you can import audio via Bluetooth (such as a finished song) and use the AI facilities to separate the individual tracks, making jam and practise sessions more deeply involving.
Space Age Stylings
You’ll immediately see that this is no ordinary practice amp just by looking at the pictures. It’s a space-age thing indeed, with a brushed aluminium styling that goes right alongside Macbooks and the like. The actual onboard controls are minimal because pretty much all of the action takes place on the touchscreen. This leaves a particularly minimalistic layout, and one that’s more easily incorporated into the home decor of any given room. This seems a minor point, but it’s certainly a consideration, particularly when cohabiting!
The chassis itself is sturdy and solid, so it won’t be flying off your desktop when you insert the guitar’s jack cable! The input is in the front, and most other connections sit around the back.The screen rests on top of the amp, and is tiltable to your preference.
All in all, it’s a good looking device that seems to be solidly built.
As always, the proof of this digital pudding is in the tasting. Get your analog ears around the available sounds, and get fingerprints all over the screen as you recreate your favourite guitar tones from the multitudes of virtual gear included when you buy. Of course, more sounds and backing tracks will become available in due course, but there’s already a pretty healthy lifetimes' worth of stuff to dive into here and enjoy!
Visit us and try it for yourself: the Lava Studio is one volcano you don’t want to flee from!
