Guitar Tabloid — The week in guitar YouTube

Guitar Tabloid: 12 Sep to 18 Sep 2026

Guitar Tabloid, Week ending Friday 18 September 2026: Fender's CEO speaks; Synergy goes Orange; Rick Beato's claims cleared

Headlines

From Music is Win’s video “The Fender Lawsuit Just Took a Turn...”

AS SEEN ON 2 CHANNELS

Fender's CEO speaks

Bud Cole told Bloomberg that "the legal process got ahead of us" and that Fender now pursues only large manufacturers, not boutique builders; 18 builders have signed agreements, and the legal process was not available for comment.1

From Sonic Drive Studio’s video “Synergy goes "Orange" with the RD module!”

AS SEEN ON 2 CHANNELS

Synergy goes Orange

Synergy's new RD preamp module models the Orange Rockerverb and Dark Terror, and both reviewers found it accurate.2

From Rick Beato’s video “I Finally Defeated Every Copyright Claim on My Channel (ft. LegalEagle)”

Rick Beato's claims cleared

Devin Stone, who is LegalEagle, says 240 of Rick Beato's videos were earning nothing under Content ID claims when they started; none are claimed now, and the method is for sale as Claim Fighter.3

From Jacobra’s video “He got 100+ million views MIMING over AI music (Subu Bro)”

Jacobra calls out Subu Bro

Jacobra says Subu Bro got more than 100 million views by miming over heavily edited tracks and, more recently, over music made with Suno: "Subu is actually faking his playing in this video."4

From SpectreSoundStudios’s video “This Is Every Musician’s Nightmare”

Edge of Paradise robbed

Drum gear belonging to Jamie, the drummer in Edge of Paradise, was stolen from a car in a gated garage in Valley Glen, California, and the thief took a key fob and came back five days later for a car.5

Chapman changes hands

Chapman Guitars is now majority-owned by Brian Van Zwirtering of European distributor Musifax, is based in the Netherlands, and has cut its lineup down to Strat and Tele shapes, which this year is not the simple option.6

Reported by KDH

Slipknot debuts Casagrande

Slipknot's new single is Eloy Casagrande's first studio recording with the band, and the talk has been about a repetitive chorus and a drum mix that Bernth compares to old Steven Slate samples.7

Fractal adds NAM

Fractal's Cliff Post confirmed on the forum that the Axe-FX III will run Neural Amp Modeler profiles on its second core, with up to two NAM blocks per preset.8

IK releases TONEX Board

IK Multimedia's TONEX Board floor modeler costs $999 and runs up to four tone models at once, and the one creator who reported it has not tried it yet.9

Tone King buys a factory

Lewis of Tone King and his partners bought Sunsmith Manufacturing in Maryland, which now builds Badlands Guitars, Brubaker Basses and some unnamed brands under NDA.10

Reported by KDH

Consensus watch

Orange amps. Sonic Drive Studio and Riffs, Beards & Gear each demoed the Synergy RD module, which models Orange amps, and 60 Cycle Hum demoed an actual Orange, the OR-15. One was loaned, two sponsored.11

Mesa Boogie. Three channels covered Mesa this week. Sonic Drive Studio used a Dual Rectifier for nu metal. Riffs, Beards & Gear covered cascading gain in its history of high gain. John Nathan Cordy's Nomad 45 handled the drive while a 1965 Fender Pro Reverb did the cleans.12

Who's Beefin'

Jacobra vs Subu Bro

Heat: 4/5

Jacobra says Subu Bro's guitar videos, 100 million views and counting, are mimed over AI-generated music. "Subu got greedy. Subu is actually faking his playing in this video."13

Music is Win vs Fender

Heat: 3/5

Tyler Larson is back on Fender's legal campaign against guitar builders, in a video titled "The Fender Lawsuit Just Took a Turn...". The title does not say which way it turned. Larson did say what he thinks the company's executives should keep in mind: "I don't think that the Fender C-Suite should confuse celebration with amnesia." (Good point, and we won't remind Tyler about Nashville Noises either).14

SpectreSoundStudios vs The Orchard, and the Drummer

Heat: 3/5

Glenn Fricker covered the theft of Edge of Paradise's gear and came away with two complaints. The first is about a copyright claim on the original video of the theft, and an invitation to "drop dead". The second is about Jamie, the band's drummer, who Fricker says left expensive professional gear in a car overnight. Fricker: "The drummer is just criminally lacking intelligence. Idiot."15

Rick Beato and LegalEagle vs YouTube Content ID

Heat: 2/5

Rick Beato says he has finally beaten every copyright claim on his channel. He brought in Devin Stone to explain why YouTube still can't tell an AI clone of a creator from the real one. "It's like, no, take two seconds and look, and you will see this is an identical copy." Asking for two seconds from YouTube support? Unlikely.16

The Creator Desk

Jacobra

  • Jacobra accuses Subu Bro of miming his way to more than 100 million views, first over heavily edited tracks and more recently over music made with Suno. He supports this with frame-by-frame comparisons and what he identifies as AI artefacts in the audio.17
  • His verdict: "Subu got greedy." His wider ruling: "by generating AI music, you're endorsing the death of art."18

John Nathan Cordy

  • 13 September: "I Need to STOP BUYING AMPS". 18 September: "I'm SICK Of My Amps Not Sounding Right", solved by running two of them at once.19
  • He ditched about 50 pedals on 12 September. Among the favourites that survived, two are broken and one has never been opened.20
  • He also reports that Fractal will add NAM support to the Axe-FX III, running on a separate core, with up to two NAM blocks per preset. It was one of 14 uploads this week, and the only one with actual news in it.21

Music is Win

  • Tyler Larson relays Bud Cole's line to Bloomberg that "the legal process got ahead of us", and that Fender now only wants large manufacturers, not boutique builders. Bloomberg reports that 18 of the 32 builders working with Fender have signed agreements.22
  • Larson: "Well, we've apparently learned that Fender has very large hands.Because 60 is more than a handful" 23

SpectreSoundStudios

  • Glenn Fricker is appealing for help after Jamie, drummer with Edge of Paradise, had his touring gear stolen on 19 August from his car, parked in a gated structure in Valley Glen, California. The thief also took a key fob and came back on 24 August to steal another car. The LAPD case number is 260902900400, and there is a GoFundMe.24
  • Fricker had one question for the drummer, who had left the gear in the car overnight: "Do you think because you're a musician, somehow basic common sense no longer applies?". That sounds like a typical drummer to GT25

Ola Englund

  • Ibanez has released the 540P3, a close relative of Ola's old 540P2. Ola: "You're doing it again, eh?" At Ibanez, a new generation is one digit higher.26
  • IK Multimedia's TONEX Board is out at $999, and Ola likes the price against the Quad Cortex and the Fractal FM3. He has not tried it.27
  • Ola shared that his dog, Pix, died while he was travelling in Mexico. We are sorry to hear about Pix, and our sympathies go out to you and your family.28

Rick Beato

  • About a year and a half ago, Rick Beato hired Devin Stone, LegalEagle, to fight his Content ID claims. According to Stone, 240 videos "were making no money whatsoever". None are claimed now, which Stone says is a first for the channel.29
  • Stone is opening the service to other creators as Claim Fighter, which he says "we built it basically for you". Rick Beato was the beato-tester.30
  • Beato also launched "We'll Do It Live", in which bands play in his studio with no overdubs or fixes. His complaint about modern music now has its own series.31

KDH

  • Chapman Guitars has new owners and a new country. It is now majority-owned by Brian Van Zwirtering of the European distributor Musifax and based in the Netherlands, after the UK company, co-owned by Lee Anderton and Rob Chapman, was struck off in May 2025.32
  • The collaborative design process is gone and the lineup is down to Strat and Tele shapes. Fender are no doubt going to 'open a conversation' about that."33

Bernth

  • Slipknot's new single is Eloy Casagrande's first studio recording with the band, and Bernth thinks the drums sound like old Steven Slate samples rather than a real kit. The situation in "The Slipknot Situation is Crazy" is the mix.34
  • He also promoted the Escape the Internet II tour, on the internet.35

Davie504

Davie504 ranked the bass lines of famous rap songs, then closed with a skit inserting his own rap. No feud aired this week.36

Stevie T

Stevie T spent this week's upload combing children's cartoons for hidden swear words, with AI voice assistants on hand to adjudicate. He would definitely not need help to hear what we think of this video.37

Bradley Hall

  • Bradley Hall has asked "What The Actual F*CK Happened To Metal?" and has the answer. Monoculture died, attention fragmented, and the 2010s were "the biggest nothing burger decade of metal for me".38
  • He says music discovery is "far less exciting than it used to be" and that bands now drop singles instead of album events. His hope lies in the demand for live authenticity, a case he made in a pre-recorded video watched over half a million times.39

Mary Spender

"How CDs Are Physically Made" is a tour of the Disc Makers factory. It was actually interesting. The CDs being physically made are hers.40

Mimisounds

Mimisounds and Sean Daniel went hunting for shark teeth in "This beach trip was a disaster" and came back with minor mishaps and no significant finds. The vlog outdrew their Jeff Buckley cover about seven to one.41

Mike Cole

Mike Cole's "Why Guitar Players Choose The Japanese Build (Over the American)" turned out to be a review of the Vola JC, a Japanese Jazzmaster-style guitar with P90s. Vola sponsored the video and supplied the guitar.42

60 Cycle Hum

Ryan and Steve spent a listener Q&A on whether beginners should start on acoustic or electric. The video is titled "Don't start on Acoustic Guitar". Ryan Burke also demoed an Orange OR-15, which was supplied, and found it suits a home well.43

Rob Chapman

The week KDH asked what happened to Chapman Guitars, Rob Chapman reviewed a battery-powered speaker while waving a banana at us.44

Riffs, Beards & Gear

Ryan Bruce's history of high gain has reached the 1970s and 1980s. The week's other two videos covered a Spector bass and the Synergy RD, and were sponsored by Spector and Synergy respectively.45

Sonic Drive Studio

Jon demonstrated the nu metal guitar sound and reviewed Synergy's Orange-inspired RD module, which Synergy supplied. His favourite nu metal setting is the Rectifier's red channel in modern mode, the least surprising sentence of the week.46

Danny Sapko

Danny Sapko did not upload this week, which leaves GNN with nothing of his to quote and a duller desk for it.

sixstringtv

sixstringtv did not upload this week, so there is no new account from him to attribute.

Jared Dines

No dispatch arrived from Jared Dines, who is still in the basement of the music mansion.

Rhett Shull

Rhett Shull did not upload this week. He came up in Rick Beato's video anyway, as the source of some of AI-generated impersonations.47

Sophie Burrell

Sophie Burrell did not upload this week. John Nathan Cordy covered her share.

Old Man Yells at Cloud

The cloud is currently composed of 35% copyright anxiety, 25% AI skepticism, 20% Fender paperwork, 10% tube amps and 10% the 2010s. None of it came from Rick Beato.

The cloud got the week off. Rick hired a lawyer. He brought in LegalEagle's Devin Stone to fight the copyright claims on his channel, and every claim was removed. Not one was sustained. Rick has now turned the result into a service called Claim Fighter.48

Rick spent the rest of the week launching "We'll Do It Live!", a new live performance series. Episode one features Heavy Weighs the King. The title was the only thing he shouted.49

The shouting on Rick's own show was left to his guest. Devin Stone: "The self-censorship is absolutely the worst part. That like, there is so much art out there that creators can and should make, that they are legally entitled to make, and they hold back without even dealing with it." Coming from a lawyer, that is a grievance with standing.50

Elsewhere, in his own video, John Nathan Cordy reported that "showing up with a tube amp is becoming kind of problematic." His local shop sells "certainly not, you know, 4x12s, and certainly not Marshall heads." In the same week he uploaded "I Ditched Almost ALL Of My Pedals - Here's What I Have Left." He is running out of things to show up with.51

Rick didn't mention Shinedown in anything GNN has on file this week. Of all the claims on his channel, it's the only one nobody has tried to dispute.

The Beef League

4 beefs in 1 week so far

Beef of the week

Jacobra vs Subu Bro

Heat: 4/5

Top of the league: Jacobra, heat 4 from 1 beef.

League table
PosClubPHeatBestForm
1 Jacobra 1 4 4 4
2 Fender Company 1 3 3 3
3 Music is Win 1 3 3 3
4 SpectreSoundStudios 1 3 3 3
5 Rick Beato 1 2 2 2

Heat is Who’s Beefin’s rating out of five, added up over the season. P is beefs played; form is the last five, newest last.

Sources

  1. Music is Win, 0:35: "the legal process got ahead of us" (Tyler Larson reading Bud Cole) · John Nathan Cordy, 5:40: "Once that legal process got going, it got going, he says. It's the second time he describes the campaign as something move under its own power." (John Nathan Cordy reading Bud Cole) ↩︎

  2. Sonic Drive Studio, Synergy goes "Orange" with the RD module! (whole video): Synergy RD module · Riffs, Beards & Gear, Big Orange Energy | Synergy RD Demo (whole video): Synergy RD module ↩︎

  3. Rick Beato, 2:15: "It was 240 videos, were on your channel, were making no money whatsoever." (Devin Stone) · Rick Beato, 1:20: "And for the first time in history, you have no videos that are being claimed for copyright purposes." (Devin Stone) · Rick Beato, 7:08: "We actually created this side business called Claim Fighter. I mean, we built it basically for you, but now it's open to other creators." (Devin Stone) · Rick Beato, I Finally Defeated Every Copyright Claim on My Channel (ft. LegalEagle) (whole video) ↩︎

  4. Jacobra, 1:05: "Subu is actually faking his playing in this video." · Jacobra, He got 100+ million views MIMING over AI music (Subu Bro) (whole video) ↩︎

  5. SpectreSoundStudios, 4:50: "On August 19th, at around 5 am, my car was broken into inside the gated parking structure of my residential community in Valley Glen CA." (Jamie reading Jamie) ↩︎

  6. KDH, 0:26: "It's been over two years since I last made a dedicated video discussing Chapman Guitars, and in that time a lot has changed. The biggest though being that the ownership has changed." · KDH, What Happened to Chapman Guitars ?: Chapman Guitars ↩︎

  7. Bernth, 0:55: "To my knowledge, that's the first ever studio recording we hear with him on the drums." · Bernth, The Slipknot Situation is Crazy (whole video) ↩︎

  8. John Nathan Cordy, 6:47: "The current implementation is that the NAM blocks run on the second core along with the AMP blocks. You can have a maximum of two blocks in a preset... The NAM blocks support channels, so you can have four different NAM models per block." (John Nathan Cordy reading Cliff Post) · John Nathan Cordy, Fractal Are About to CRUSH the NAM Game with the AXE FX 3 NAM Capability: Fractal Axe-FX III ↩︎

  9. Ola Englund, 5:56: "IK Multimedia have released their Tonix board... And it's 999 dollars" · Ola Englund, SWOLA303 - SLAYER REIGN IN BLOOD 40 YEARS, I WENT TO BRAZIL, BEHEMOTH, IBANEZ PII: IK Multimedia TONEX Board ↩︎

  10. KDH, 0:48: "We had a unique opportunity to buy the very shop that was built... my partners and I own the shop, which is really not only an exciting thing for us, but we get to have better control over the instrument, the workflow, the timelines" (Lewis) ↩︎

  11. Sonic Drive Studio, Synergy goes "Orange" with the RD module!: Synergy RD module · Riffs, Beards & Gear, Big Orange Energy | Synergy RD Demo: Synergy RD module · 60 Cycle Hum, Is the OR15 the BEST ORANGE for my space?: Orange OR-15 ↩︎

  12. Sonic Drive Studio, This Is The Nu Metal Guitar Sound!: Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier · Riffs, Beards & Gear, The History Of High Gain Part 2: 1970s-1980s: Mesa Boogie Amps · John Nathan Cordy, I'm SICK Of My Amps Not Sounding Right - Maybe Eric Johnson Was Onto Something?: Mesa Boogie Nomad 45 · 1965 Fender Pro Reverb ↩︎

  13. Jacobra, He got 100+ million views MIMING over AI music (Subu Bro) (whole video) · Jacobra, 1:05: "Subu got greedy. Subu is actually faking his playing in this video." ↩︎

  14. Music is Win, The Fender Lawsuit Just Took a Turn... (whole video) · Music is Win, 0:39: "I don't think that the Fender C-Suite should confuse celebration with amnesia." ↩︎

  15. SpectreSoundStudios, This Is Every Musician’s Nightmare (whole video) · SpectreSoundStudios, 0:00: "Seriously, you suck. Next time, don't screw over the people trying to help your artists." · SpectreSoundStudios, 5:52: "The drummer is just criminally lacking intelligence. Idiot." ↩︎

  16. Rick Beato, I Finally Defeated Every Copyright Claim on My Channel (ft. LegalEagle) (whole video) · Rick Beato, 29:45: "It's like, no, take two seconds and look, and you will see this is an identical copy." (Devin Stone) ↩︎

  17. Jacobra, 1:05: "Subu is actually faking his playing in this video." ↩︎

  18. Jacobra, 1:05: "Subu got greedy. Subu is actually faking his playing in this video." · Jacobra, 26:52: "And by generating AI music, you're endorsing the death of art." ↩︎

  19. John Nathan Cordy, I Need to STOP BUYING AMPS...They Never Do What I Wanted.... (whole video) · John Nathan Cordy, I'm SICK Of My Amps Not Sounding Right - Maybe Eric Johnson Was Onto Something? (whole video) ↩︎

  20. John Nathan Cordy, I Ditched Almost ALL Of My Pedals - Here's What I Have Left (whole video): Ibanez SD9 · Jetta Monster · EHX Spruce Groose ↩︎

  21. John Nathan Cordy, 6:47: "The current implementation is that the NAM blocks run on the second core along with the AMP blocks. You can have a maximum of two blocks in a preset... The NAM blocks support channels, so you can have four different NAM models per block." (John Nathan Cordy reading Cliff Post) · John Nathan Cordy, Fractal Are About to CRUSH the NAM Game with the AXE FX 3 NAM Capability (whole video) ↩︎

  22. Music is Win, 0:35: "the legal process got ahead of us" (Tyler Larson reading Bud Cole) ↩︎

  23. Music is Win, 1:44: "Well, we've apparently learned that Fender has very large hands. Because 60 is more than a handful." ↩︎

  24. SpectreSoundStudios, 4:50: "On August 19th, at around 5 am, my car was broken into inside the gated parking structure of my residential community in Valley Glen CA." (Jamie reading Jamie) ↩︎

  25. SpectreSoundStudios, 6:45: "Do you think because you're a musician, somehow basic common sense no longer applies?" · SpectreSoundStudios, 5:52: "The drummer is just criminally lacking intelligence. Idiot." ↩︎

  26. Ola Englund, 4:42: "What the fuck, Ibanez? ... You're doing it again, eh?" · Ola Englund, SWOLA303 - SLAYER REIGN IN BLOOD 40 YEARS, I WENT TO BRAZIL, BEHEMOTH, IBANEZ PII: Ibanez 540P3 ↩︎

  27. Ola Englund, 5:56: "IK Multimedia have released their Tonix board... And it's 999 dollars" · Ola Englund, SWOLA303 - SLAYER REIGN IN BLOOD 40 YEARS, I WENT TO BRAZIL, BEHEMOTH, IBANEZ PII: IK Multimedia TONEX Board ↩︎

  28. Ola Englund, goodbye pix (whole video) ↩︎

  29. Rick Beato, 1:20: "And for the first time in history, you have no videos that are being claimed for copyright purposes." (Devin Stone) · Rick Beato, 2:15: "It was 240 videos, were on your channel, were making no money whatsoever." (Devin Stone) ↩︎

  30. Rick Beato, 7:08: "We actually created this side business called Claim Fighter. I mean, we built it basically for you, but now it's open to other creators." (Devin Stone) ↩︎

  31. Rick Beato, 0:41: "The series is called We'll Do It Live." ↩︎

  32. KDH, 0:26: "It's been over two years since I last made a dedicated video discussing Chapman Guitars, and in that time a lot has changed. The biggest though being that the ownership has changed." ↩︎

  33. KDH, What Happened to Chapman Guitars ?: Chapman Guitars · KDH, 7:47: "a YouTuber guitar brand is no different from a regular guitar brand. It's only the advertising bit that's done on YouTube that's the difference." ↩︎

  34. Bernth, 0:55: "To my knowledge, that's the first ever studio recording we hear with him on the drums." · Bernth, The Slipknot Situation is Crazy (whole video) ↩︎

  35. Bernth, The Slipknot Situation is Crazy (whole video) ↩︎

  36. Davie504, This Snoop Dogg Bass Riff Is WAY Harder Than It Sounds. (whole video) ↩︎

  37. Stevie T, Swearing in Kids Shows… AGAIN (whole video) ↩︎

  38. Bradley Hall, What The Actual F*CK Happened To Metal? (whole video) · Bradley Hall, 7:49: "the 2010s... is just like the biggest nothing burger decade of metal for me" ↩︎

  39. Bradley Hall, 5:34: "music discoverability and consumption is definitely far less exciting than it used to be" · Bradley Hall, 8:26: "the music industry feels a lot more like song focused, and it's more about when bands drop like a big single rather than like a... big album event" · Bradley Hall, What The Actual F*CK Happened To Metal? (whole video) ↩︎

  40. Mary Spender, How CDs Are Physically Made (whole video): Songbook Volumes III & IV ↩︎

  41. Mimisounds, This beach trip was a disaster (whole video) · Mimisounds, Hallelujah- Jeff Buckley (cover) Mimi/Sean (whole video) ↩︎

  42. Mike Cole, Why Guitar Players Choose The Japanese Build (Over the American) (whole video): Vola JC ↩︎

  43. 60 Cycle Hum, Don't start on Acoustic Guitar (whole video) · 60 Cycle Hum, Is the OR15 the BEST ORANGE for my space?: Orange OR-15 ↩︎

  44. KDH, What Happened to Chapman Guitars ? (whole video) · Rob Chapman, Your Entire Rig. Anywhere. (NUX Busker 200) (whole video) ↩︎

  45. Riffs, Beards & Gear, The History Of High Gain Part 2: 1970s-1980s (whole video) · Riffs, Beards & Gear, This Might Be Spector's Best Value Yet (whole video) · Riffs, Beards & Gear, Big Orange Energy | Synergy RD Demo (whole video) ↩︎

  46. Sonic Drive Studio, This Is The Nu Metal Guitar Sound! (whole video): Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier · Sonic Drive Studio, Synergy goes "Orange" with the RD module!: Synergy RD module ↩︎

  47. Rick Beato, 25:55: "It's bad. It's bad is what it is." ↩︎

  48. Rick Beato, I Finally Defeated Every Copyright Claim on My Channel (ft. LegalEagle) (whole video) ↩︎

  49. Rick Beato, "We'll Do It Live!" Ep.1 Heavy Weighs the King (whole video) ↩︎

  50. Rick Beato, 21:39: "The self-censorship is absolutely the worst part. That like, there is so much art out there that creators can and should make, that they are legally entitled to make, and they hold back without even dealing with it." (Devin Stone) ↩︎

  51. John Nathan Cordy, 0:10: "in a world where the existence of the tube amp is sort of, and, you know, showing up with a tube amp is becoming kind of problematic" · John Nathan Cordy, 1:14: "now in a space like my local music shop, it doesn't really sell that many amps, and certainly not, you know, 4x12s, and certainly not Marshall heads and all that sort of stuff" · John Nathan Cordy, I Ditched Almost ALL Of My Pedals - Here's What I Have Left (whole video) ↩︎