A special edition of the popular load box celebrates 15 years of Two Notes digital innovation
1. The Captor X SE’s satin brown finish and amber grille light add vintageapproved visual mojo to complement the 32 pre-loaded vintage cabinet DynIR models from top names including Hop Pole, Diffusion Audio, Black Bear and Mirador
2. The front and rear panels are the same as the standard version, with all the connectivity and control we’ve come to expect from a product that’s so widely used it’s almost a de facto industry standard
While the digital revolution continues to advance, it’s also true that not every guitarist wants to give up their prized valve amp. Fortunately, there are ways of giving even the most vintage and basic valve circuits anew digital lease –and a very effective method is to use a load box. One of the best out there is the well-known Captor Xfrom French company Two Notes, whose DynIR system is practically an industry standard. To celebrate its 15th anniversary, Two Notes recently released this special‐edition, the Captor XSE, which is even more tempting.
It certainly adds some vintage mojo to the standard model, with abrown enamel finish surrounding the metalwork and awarm amber grille light. On the front panel there’s aVolume control, a global Tone control and a control called Space, which widens the stereo sound field. These are joined by a headphones socket, a button switch to vary the input level and a rotary switch to choose between up to six onboard emulation presets.
On the rear panel, you’ll find speaker in and out jacks with a three-position level control switch and a stereo pair of balanced outputs on XLR, as well as a useful ground lift switch. Micro USB and 3.5mm MIDI jacks handle external editing and control.
The Captor XSE looks great in its limited-run colourway, but the eye-opener (or should that be ear?) is the superb quality of the DynIR presets, each one of which is equivalent to using 160,000 static IRs. The Torpedo Remote app is a delight to use, with beautiful rendering and visual editing of the Captor’s virtual cabs and studio-grade effects. The realism of the virtual environments is stunning, creating in seconds what used to take many hours of studio time.
If any further temptation were needed, the vintage-styled Captor XSE comes with an all-new Anniversary Edition set of 32 matching vintage cabinet models and 10 more once you register, along with 20 presets curated by top session player and influencer Pete Thorn.
Verdict
It may not be the che
