The Soran Tiny Stomp impressed me, like REALLY impressed me...

The Soran Tiny Stomp – The Budget Modeller That Finally Fixed That Problem

If you follow the channel, you might have noticed something slightly unusual last week. Within the space of a few days we dropped three full videos and a stack of shorts all covering the Tiny Stomp from Soran Audio.

That wasn’t an accident.

I was excited. Properly excited.

This little box feels like a genuine step forward for the mini amp modeller / multi-FX world, especially at the super budget end of the market.

To explain why, we need to rewind about a year.

When NAM Went Portable

Around this time last year we covered the Sonicake Pocket Master, and that thing landed with a bit of a bang. The big deal at the time was that it brought NAM profiling to a portable unit.

Now NAM (Neural Amp Modeler) itself wasn’t new. It had already been around for a couple of years as a DAW-based tool, letting people capture and share amp profiles in a free open-source platform. The problem was that you pretty much needed to be sat at a computer to use it.

The Pocket Master changed that. Suddenly you could take NAM profiles out of the studio and onto a pedalboard.

Naturally, the floodgates opened.

We saw companies like Valeton jump in with things like the GP-5, and Sonicake themselves started rolling the tech across the Matribox range. Since then we’ve had more refined units aimed squarely at players who actually want to take these things out gigging.

But there’s been one persistent little annoyance.

The One Thing Everyone Wanted

Most of these budget NAM-capable units share the same limitation:

You can’t run NAM profiles and cab sims at the same time.

Whilst that might not be like a massive deal breaker, in practice it restricts what profiles you can use.

NAM captures can represent different stages of an amp signal:

• Just the preamp

• Preamp and power amp

• The full amp and cab together

Because these portable units couldn’t run cab sims alongside NAM, you were basically forced to use full-rig captures that already included the cabinet sound.

And to be fair, that’s workable. There are loads of great full rig captures floating around for free.

But it does limit your choices.

In the back of everyone’s mind there was always the same thought:

“Wouldn’t it be great if we could just run NAM and IRs together?”

Well… Now You Can

And that’s exactly what the Tiny Stomp does.

You can:

• Import NAM captures

• Import your own IR files

• Run them together at the same time

That means you can pair a pure amp capture with whatever cab IR you fancy. Or run NAM with the built-in cab sims, which are actually surprisingly good (and in-depth too).

You can even skip NAM entirely and run the built-in amp models with IRs if that suits the tone you’re chasing.

In other words, it finally delivers the flexibility people have been asking for since NAM first landed in portable units.

But Soran weren't content in just adding one bit of versatility, they said "hold my beer...."

A Signal Chain That Actually Makes Sense

Another thing that often crops up in these smaller modellers is static signal chains.

You get an amp block, a cab block, a couple of effects blocks… and most of them are locked in place. You might be able to shuffle a few things around, but generally the layout is fixed.

Soran clearly looked at that and thought:

“Why?”

On the Tiny Stomp you can move any block anywhere in the chain.

Seriously. Anywhere.

During one of the videos I even moved the cab block before the amp, which obviously makes absolutely no sense in the real world… but the point is it lets you do it.

Is it always useful? No.

Is it great for experimentation and creativity? Absolutely.

It’s Not a Helix (But It’s Not Trying to Be)

Now, to keep things realistic, this isn’t a full-blown modular playground like a Line 6 Helix or even something like the Sonicake Matribox II Pro.

Those units let you pile on multiple instances of effects until the processor gives up. Want eight phasers in your signal chain? Go wild.

The Tiny Stomp isn’t quite that level of flexible.

But here’s the thing.

It’s a sub-£100 modelling unit.

At that price point, the fact that it offers:

• NAM support

• IR loading

• NAM + IR simultaneously

• Fully movable signal blocks

is genuinely impressive.

Why We Made Three Videos About It

So yeah… when you put it all together, you can probably see why I got a bit carried away and ended up making three videos about this thing in one week.

The Tiny Stomp isn’t trying to compete with the big boys. What it’s doing instead is raising the bar for ultra-budget modellers.

If you want something with more footswitches and deeper gigging functionality, the Matribox II Pro is still probably the most versatile budget modeller out there.

But if you’re looking for maximum tonal flexibility for the smallest amount of money, the Tiny Stomp is pushing the category forward in a really interesting way.

/watch this space, Soran just moved the needle with this one.

A Blue Tube Screamer? It's £18? Ah, go on then...

This one’s going to be short and sweet.

The Shaevle Blue Tuber is, let’s not beat around the bush, a green overdrive in a blue overcoat. Three knobs. Volume, Tone, Gain. True bypass. All-analog circuit. If you’ve ever seen a Tube Screamer, you already know what this is trying to do.

And honestly? It does it.

This is a straight-up TS-style overdrive in exactly the way you’d expect. It’s got the mid-hump. It thickens up Strat single coils beautifully. It’ll do the low-gain, clean-ish solo boost thing. It’ll push the front end of a tube amp into that singing saturation (which is that tonal nirvana  I'm aiming for, at very least). And yes, it’ll tighten up heavier amp tones too — trimming the flubby low end and pushing those all-important mids back into the spotlight.

So far, so predictable.

The reason we’re even talking about this is the price. As of writing, it’s sitting at £18.55 on Amazon.

Now, ultra-budget pedals aren’t exactly rare these days. AliExpress and Temu are full of them. The problem is, you usually feel the compromises. Narrow sweet spots. Tone controls that are basically “bad, usable, worse.” Gain sweeps where 80% of the rotation is off-limits. They technically work, but they’re not refined.

The Shaevle is a bit different.

The tone control is actually well voiced. You can sweep it without fear. There’s usable ground across the range rather than one tiny magic notch. The gain range is solid too — from glistening, edge-of-breakup tones through to a proper classic crunch. It doesn’t feel like a one-trick box.

And on a completely superficial note, it’s reassuringly heavy. Does that mean anything? Probably not. But in my head, heavy pedals equal quality. Science may disagree.

This isn’t ground-breaking. It’s not innovative. It’s not going to change the overdrive landscape. What it is, is a genuinely solid Tube Screamer-style pedal for under £20.

For a beginner buying their first drive? Perfect.

For someone building a budget board? Easy win.

For a backup to throw in a gig bag? Why not.

Shaevle are quietly shaping up to be one to watch if they keep delivering this level of quality at these prices. Sometimes boring and done well is exactly what you want.

 This week we’re revisiting an old friend of the channel — the NUX Horseman. It’s popped up in its own demo, and in more Klon-style shootouts than I can remember at this point. There’s a reason for that.

It’s good. Really good.

A Budget Klon That Keeps Showing Up

The Horseman is NUX’s take on the legendary Klon Centaur circuit — that mythical mid-’90s dual overdrive that now costs the same as a small car if you want the real thing.

NUX have built the Horseman around the same core concept: transparent-ish drive, loads of headroom (thanks to an internal voltage converter pushing things up to 18V), and that slightly gritty, amp-like breakup that made the original so popular. You get the standard three controls — Gain, Treble, and Output — plus two modes: Gold and Silver.

Gold mode is your classic Centaur-style voicing. Silver mode gives you a bit more gain on tap — think of it as the hot-rodded version. Switching between them requires a long press of the footswitch, which isn’t the slickest system in the world, but you can access that without bending down to the pedal itself, so it works I guess.

You can also toggle between true bypass and buffered bypass on startup. Yes, it involves a bit of button-holding and LED colour interpretation, but it’s nice to have the choice — especially since the Klon buffer is half the magic for some players.

Blind Tests and Big Praise

A few years back, my good friend and partner in crime, Lee did a blind Klon shootout over on Tonepedia. We’re talking everything from an incredibly affordable Mosky Silver Horse all the way up to an actual Klon Centaur. There were some serious contenders in there too — KTR, J Rockett Archer, the usual well-respected names.

Blindfold on. No bias. Just tones doing the talking.

The comments about the NUX were along the lines of, “If that’s not the Klon itself, it’s probably the KTR.”

Lee came away from that video with a new found respect for NuX and it's easy to understand why.

And considering the price difference between a Horseman and an original Centaur… well, you don’t need me to finish that sentence.

The Klon Thing (And Why I’ve Changed My Mind)

Now, I’ve said before that I’m not the biggest Klon fan. I play a lot of Strats, a lot of single coils, and those guitars often benefit from something that fills out the mids a bit more aggressively. A Tube Screamer does that. A Klon… not so much.

But over time, I’ve come to appreciate what the Klon circuit actually does well.

It’s subtle. It adds that “amp just starting to break up” grit. It doesn’t smother your tone — it enhances it. Push the gain and you start getting that upper-mid bite, not unlike a Boss Blues Driver.

Where it really comes alive, though, is into a driven amp. Take a crunchy British-style rhythm tone and hit it with a Klon-style boost and suddenly you’re squarely in classic rock territory. Tightened low end, singing top end, more sustain and a tone that growls.

That’s the sweet spot.

And the Horseman does that convincingly.

More Than Just a Clone

On the technical side, NUX have gone with Schottky diodes for the clipping stage (since the original germanium parts are incredibly hard to find consistently these days), and they’ve built in their own voltage converter circuit to get that higher headroom feel. Whether you care about the internal topology or not, the important thing is that it behaves like a proper Klon-style circuit should.

It can do clean boost duties brilliantly — low gain, high output, push your amp harder. Or you can dial in more drive and let the pedal do the clipping itself. It’s flexible without being complicated.

And in typical NUX fashion, it’s compact, solidly built, and sensibly priced. I've said it once and I'll say it again, NuX give you absolutely loads for your money with their stuff. They are never lacking in features, nor does the tone come second.

So… Is It Worth It?

If you’re chasing a Klon-style overdrive and don’t fancy remortgaging the house, you could do a lot worse than the Horseman. In fact, you’d struggle to do much better in this price bracket.

It’s featured on the channel multiple times for a reason. It holds its own in blind tests. It sounds right. It feels right. And it captures that elusive “transparent but better” thing that made the original so famous in the first place.

If a Klon is on your wish list, the Horseman deserves a serious look.

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