Radial Headlight: Switch Four Guitar Amps From a Single Footswitch

The Radial Headlight is a four-output guitar amp selector, a compact pedalboard switcher that takes one guitar signal and routes it to as many as four amplifiers, with one amp live at a time and a single footswitch to move between them. A class-A buffered input feeds custom isolation transformers on every output, so each amp gets a clean, ground-isolated feed and a bright LED tells you exactly which rig is playing. For the guitarist who has always wanted a wall of amps for clean, crunch, and lead but dreaded the hum and the tap-dancing, the Headlight turns that dream into one quiet footswitch.

Why Running Multiple Amps Creates Hum

The moment two or more amplifiers share a guitar signal and an electrical ground, they form a ground loop, a circulating current between chassis that shows up as the familiar 60-cycle hum and buzz. The more amps you add, the worse it gets, and simply lifting a safety ground to silence it is both risky and unreliable. The Headlight solves the problem at the source by isolating every output with a transformer, so the amps never share a direct ground path and the loop that causes the hum is never formed in the first place.

Transformer Isolation and Class-A Buffering

Each of the Headlight's four outputs is fed through a custom isolation transformer that passes the audio magnetically while breaking the electrical ground connection between amplifiers. Ahead of those transformers sits a class-A input buffer that presents a consistent load to your guitar and drives all four outputs without loading the signal down or robbing high end. The result is a unity-gain path with a wide 30 Hz to 30 kHz response and 116 dB of dynamic range, so switching amps never costs you tone, and per-output ground-lift switches let you knock out any residual noise amp by amp.

Drag Control: Recreating the Feel of a Direct Connection

Any buffer or switcher placed between a passive guitar and an amp changes how the pickups load, which can make a guitar feel stiff and sound overly bright compared with a straight cable. The Headlight's Drag Control load correction lets you dial the input impedance from 20 kilohms up to 1 megohm to match your pickups, restoring the natural resonance, touch response, and top-end roll-off you feel when the guitar plugs directly into the amp. It is the difference between a switcher that is merely transparent and one that actually feels like your instrument.

Sequential Switching, LED Indication, and the Mute Footswitch

The right-hand footswitch steps through the active outputs in sequence, so a repeated tap walks you around your amps in a predictable order that is easy to work mid-song. Super-bright LEDs mark the live amp so there is no guessing under stage lights, and the left-hand footswitch serves double duty: use it to mute all outputs for dead-silent tuning between songs, or set it as an ALL-ON switch that fires every amp simultaneously when you want the whole stage to erupt. Because the outputs are transformer-isolated, running several amps at once stays hum-free.

Using the Headlight as an ABY or With DI Boxes

The Headlight is not just a four-amp switcher. Wire two amps to outputs 1 and 2, set the left footswitch to ALL-ON, and you have a proper ABY switcher that plays either amp alone or both together, with the isolation transformers keeping the pair quiet. You can also mix amplifiers and direct boxes across the four outputs, sending some feeds to a mixer while others hit mic'd stage amps, which makes the Headlight equally at home routing a fly rig, a big touring backline, or a studio's amp collection.

Who the Headlight Is For

The Headlight is for the gigging guitarist who wants separate amps for clean, crunch, and solo tones without ground-loop hum or a crowded pedalboard; for the player building an ABY setup who needs true isolation between two heads; and for the studio guitarist routing one instrument across a rack of amplifiers and DI feeds. If you have ever wished you could keep several amps on hand and move between them with a single silent tap, the Headlight is the selector that makes it effortless.