BRIGHTWORK All nine $79
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New wave guitar amp

Cathode

Chorus, chime and a VHS deck.

  • 5 amps + NAM capture
  • 10 pedals and effects
  • VHS tape
  • 33 presets
Free demo
Read the manual

Demo audio is a stand-in until our recorded playing is in

Cathode is a guitar amp for the 80s side of things: cold chorus cleans, chiming arpeggios, compressed rack tones, post-punk crunch and singing synthwave leads. The pedals that era used are built in, and a VHS deck at the end of the chain goes from gentle tape wear to completely eaten.

5
amps, plus a capture slot
10
pedals and effects
33
presets in eight groups
8x
oversampling

The whole window

Click or tap to see it full size.

Cathode on Ice Arpeggios: the GLASS amp with compression, detune, a dotted-eighth delay, plate reverb and the VHS deck.

What it does

Five amps

GLASS is a glassy solid-state stereo clean. PRISM is British chime that breaks up when pushed. CHROME is compressed 80s rack tone. STATIC is raw, thin, loud post-punk crunch. LASER is a hot 80s lead with singing mids.

Pedals in front

A gate, an octave down, a compressor that adds sustain, and Swell, which fades each note in for violin-like pads.

Effects behind

Chorus or flanger, tremolo with tempo sync, a stereo detuner, a delay with analog mode, modulation and ping-pong, and a reverb with Plate, Hall and Gated.

The VHS deck

Amount runs from gentle wear, through tracking loss above 3 and tape chewing above 6, to total destruction at 10. Wobble, Noise and Mix fine-tune the damage.

NAM capture

Pick CAPTURE to play any Neural Amp Modeler capture through Cathode's pedals. Captures that already include a cabinet switch the built-in cabinet off for you.

Cabinets or your own IR

Four built-in cabinets with mic position, low cut and high cut, or load any impulse response. Each amp has its own animated waveform behind the knobs.

Signal chain

  1. Gate
  2. Octave
  3. Comp
  4. Swell
  5. Amp
  6. Cab
  7. Chorus
  8. Tremolo
  9. Detune
  10. Delay
  11. Reverb
  12. VHS

Fixed order, mono through the cabinet, stereo after.

33 presets

GLASS

  • Cold Chorus Clean
  • Six-String Bass
  • Ice Arpeggios
  • Glass Swells
  • Gated Clean

PRISM

  • Dotted Eighth Chime
  • Jangle
  • Swamp Tremolo
  • Cathedral Chime
  • Pushed Chime

CHROME

  • Rack Clean
  • Chrome Rhythm
  • Synthwave Chug
  • Flanged Chrome

STATIC

  • Post-Punk Crunch
  • Flanged Crunch
  • Industrial Grind
  • Coldwave Octave
  • Shoegaze Wall

LASER

  • Synthwave Lead
  • Night Drive
  • Outrun Solo
  • Laser Swells
  • Arena Lead

TAPE

  • Worn Tape
  • Lo-Fi Arpeggios
  • Tracking Error
  • Eaten Tape

CAPTURE

  • Capture: Neon Highway
  • Capture: Full Rig Wash
  • Capture: VHS Memory

UTILITY

  • Default
  • Amp Only (no cab)

Specs

TypeAudio effect, stereo in and out
Put it onA guitar DI track
LatencyUnder 1 ms
Quality2x, 4x or 8x oversampling
WindowResizable, 60% to 160%
SystemWindows 10 or 11, 64-bit. VST3 plugin and standalone app. Mac version planned.
LicenceOne key for everything on your order, checked offline. No iLok, no account.

Cathode

$20

Yours to keep, on every computer you own. Try the free demo first: everything works, with a short gap every 45 seconds until you add a key.

Free demo

Or get all nine for $79. Need help? Read the Cathode manual or support.