Slipknot’s Jim Root has given in to the world of amp modelling, but it seems he’s not quite sold on the Neural DSP Quad Cortex just yet.

Root and co. are celebrating the 25th anniversary of Slipknot this year. They’re currently touring in honour of the milestone, with UK dates scheduled for December this year – though you might not catch the amp modeller on stage with him for any arena shows.Root confirmed he had been using the Quad Cortex back in May. Now, speaking in the new print edition of Total Guitar, he explains why he’s not so sure on it so far: “Yeah, I kind of took the plunge against my own better judgement and have been using the Quad Cortex for some shows, which, you know, is somewhat sacrilegious.

“I know I’ve told people I would never do that, but here I am, doing that! It’s been working really well, but I feel like something’s missing, so no matter how advanced the technology gets with digital, it’s still fatiguing to the ears because we’re analogue beings.”

He adds, “I’ve been using the Quad Cortex just for its effects along with my heads for a few tours, but we’re talking about doing smaller, secret shows, and the thing with doing that is we’ve got to downsize. So, part of it came out of the necessity of trying to figure that out without losing the effects we use in the studio and making things translate live, which is hugely important.”

Root says he is still a “tube amp purist”, and that he still loves his Orange amp heads the most. His bandmate Corey Taylor became an ambassador for the brand last September.