Amp Week 2026: Misha Mansoor knows tone. With Periphery, he took djent (genre or not) into new realms of high-gain precision via painstakingly dialed Axe-Fx presets. His signature amp with Peavey, the Invective, was designed to be the greatest 5150 amp on the planet. Then there’s that industry-standard amp booster he designed, the Horizon Devices Precision Drive. Oh, and, ya know, his signature Neural DSP plugin.
Anyway, the point is: when Misha talks tone, we listen. In a new chat with GW, he revealed there’s one amp in particular that has taken his breath away recently. Which is, in itself, a big deal, given he’s played just about every permutation of high-gain head and realized just how many are really quite similar to each other…
“It's very rare for me to come across a new amp and really have it knock my socks off,” he tells GW. “I have so many amps; I'm good. And I also have this Ampete amp switcher which you can plug eight amps into and switch immediately. And then you can start to see, like, ‘Oh, even though these two amps are really different in my head, that’s just an EQ change there.’ It’s made me sell amps.
Article continues below“But it'll also show you amps that have a very different character. And I've been playing around with the Zuta GBG120, and man, that thing is unbelievable. That is probably one of the most impressive new amps I've tried.”
Typically, Mansoor prefers amps that do one thing really, really well (“Most of the time you'll end up with three channels, of which one is good and the other two you should have just left off”) – his prized Omega Granophyre being the best example of that simplicity. But the Zuta’s versatility has blown his mind.
“I don't think I've played an amp that's got as much natural breadth of actually good tones.
“The clean channel is genuinely sick. The second channel is a crunch, Plexi vibe if you want. Third is modern high gain. And then four is the most pissed-off channel I've ever heard on an amp, even without a boost.
“I've done all sorts of recording tests with it, because that's what actually matters to me. And it's shocking how tight it sounds recorded – just amp into the DAW, just through a load box.”
Crucially, the amp sounds markedly different from the rest of Mansoor’s collection – this is no mere EQ tweak.
Given the Zuta Amps story, the amp’s individuality should come as no surprise. The firm’s roots lie in the Gothenburg, Sweden metal scene – Baskim Zuta, who established the company in 2019, is something of a low-key industry legend, having engineered albums by Arch Enemy, Highlander and Slipknot, and studied at the hands of amp legends Reinhold Bogner, Steve Fryette and Mike Soldano.
The firm’s slogan is ‘from clean to extreme’, which pretty much covers it.
For more info on the GBG120, head to Zuta Group.
In other Misha Mansoor news, the Periphery guitar wizard recently named his favorite new guitar player who is pushing the instrument forwards.
For more stories, tips and insights on all things amplified, check out the rest of our Amp Week coverage.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
