Blackstar Beam Control and Beam Mini Wireless Rig: The Cable-Free Practice Setup, in One Case

Blackstar has filled the most obvious gap in its Beam lineup. On November 3, 2026, the British amp company announced Beam Control, a Bluetooth foot controller for its Beam products. It also announced the Beam Mini Wireless Rig, a bundle that packs a Beam Mini amp, an Airwire i58 wireless system and the new Beam Control into one protective carry case.

On Blackstar's official US store, Beam Control is $74.99 and the Beam Mini Wireless Rig is $459.99, which is what we saw when we checked on November 6, 2026. Both were available to order.

The pitch is simple: no cable from guitar to amp and no cable from footswitch to amp. Everything charges over USB-C. The Beam Mini already carries a list of features that would have sounded like science fiction for a desktop amp a few years ago: NAM captures, AI stem separation and a stereo speaker system. The question is whether the bundle is a smart buy or just a nice case wrapped around three things you could buy separately. We did the math.

Beam Control: What It Does

Beam Control is a slim four-switch floor unit that pairs with Beam hardware over Bluetooth. Blackstar describes it as "the dedicated Bluetooth footcontroller for all Beam products" and stresses that it connects "with no programming required." The press release carried by Premier Guitar goes further and calls it the only foot controller designed to work straight out of the box with the Beam lineup.

It has three operating modes:

• Patch Mode steps through the five patches stored on your Beam amp. This is the simplest setup: clean, crunch, lead and two others, one stomp away.
• FX Mode turns the switches into a virtual pedalboard. You can turn individual effects on and off within the active patch, like stomping a delay or modulation in and out mid-song.
• Custom Mode uses the Beam app to assign each footswitch to whatever function you want. MusicRadar's launch report gives examples like the onboard tuner or tap tempo.

The hardware details from Blackstar's spec listing and press release:

• Four footswitches (labeled A to D in Blackstar's product photos), with a small center display
• Expression pedal input for extra external control
• USB-C rechargeable battery, rated for up to 12 hours per charge
• Weight: 0.22 kg
• Dimensions: 212 × 30 × 36 mm, per Blackstar's spec listing

Twelve hours of battery life is plenty for a home-practice device. Most players will charge it about as often as they charge headphones.

Why a Footswitch Matters on a Desktop Amp

Small app-driven amps have a familiar weak spot. The tones can be excellent, but switching between them means reaching for a phone or leaning over to press a button on the amp. That's fine for noodling. It's frustrating when you're running a song with a clean verse and a dirty chorus, or practicing a solo over a backing track and need a boost on cue.

A footswitch fixes that. Because Beam Control is wireless, the amp no longer has to sit at your feet to be useful. You can put the Beam Mini on a desk or shelf where it sounds best and keep the controller on the floor. Blackstar's own framing leans on exactly that: no trailing cables between amp and player, fewer trip hazards and more freedom to place the amp wherever you want.

There's a quieter benefit, too. A lot of home players never learn to switch sounds with their feet, which becomes a real skill the first time they play with other people. A cheap, simple, no-setup controller is a low-stakes way to build that habit.

The Beam Mini Wireless Rig: What's in the Case

The Wireless Rig is Blackstar's attempt to sell a complete setup. In the box:

1. Beam Mini smart guitar amplifier 2. Airwire i58 5.8GHz wireless instrument system 3. Beam Control Bluetooth foot controller 4. A protective carry case. Blackstar and its press release describe an impact-resistant shell with a vegan-leather finish, a heavy-duty handle and an internal zippered section for accessories.

Battery runtimes listed in the press release are up to 18 hours for the Beam Mini, up to 12 hours for Beam Control, and up to nine hours for the Airwire i58. All three are rechargeable, which is what lets Blackstar call the rig fully cable-free during play.

On its product page, Blackstar describes the bundle as bringing together "everything you need for cable-free guitar playing in one premium carry case."

The Airwire i58

Blackstar's Airwire i58 is the piece that removes the guitar cable. According to the press release, it transmits on the 5.8GHz band, which Blackstar chose to steer clear of crowded Wi-Fi networks. Blackstar also says it has:

• Under six milliseconds of latency
• An operating range of up to 35 meters
• Switchable Cable Tone emulation, which recreates the high-frequency roll-off of a traditional copper cable

That last feature is more important than it sounds. A lot of players dislike wireless systems at first because the sound feels slightly too bright and too clean compared with the cable they are used to. A switchable cable-tone option lets you choose. We have not measured the latency or range ourselves. Those figures are Blackstar's.

The Beam Mini: The Claims, Attributed

The Beam Mini is the core of the rig. It is already on sale as a standalone amp at $229.99 on Blackstar's US store, which we checked on November 6. MusicRadar gave it a five-star review. Here is what Blackstar says it does, attributed to Blackstar:

• NAM support. On the Wireless Rig page, Blackstar says the Beam Mini "is also the first amplifier to natively load NAM A2 (Neural Amp Modeler) captures." The press release calls it the "world's first hardware amplifier to natively load NAM A2" profiles. That is Blackstar's claim, not a TGP finding. The wording matters, because NAM A2 support has spread across floor modelers this year. We covered Fender Tone Master Pro adding NAM A2 and Fractal's Axe-Fx III firmware 33. Blackstar's claim specifically rests on the word "amplifier."
• TONE3000 partnership. Blackstar says players can browse, audition and wirelessly transfer community-made captures to the amp through the free Beam app. Blackstar's Beam Mini page refers to "200,000+ community-created captures" in the TONE3000 library.
• Moises stem separation. Built into the Beam app, it lets you isolate, turn down or remove parts such as the original guitar track from a song, creating a custom backing track.
• Super Wide Stereo for a wider-sounding image from a small box.
• Component-level modeling plus Blackstar's patented ISF (Infinite Shape Feature) tone control.
• 35+ effects.
• Bluetooth music streaming, so the Beam Mini doubles as a speaker.
• IP66 dust and water resistance rating on the Beam Mini enclosure.

MusicRadar's report also notes the Beam Mini can work as a guitar audio interface, and that deeper editing happens in the app.

None of this is new to the Beam Mini. What is new is that the rig gathers it into a portable, battery-powered package with foot control.

The Bundle Math

This is the part most buyers will care about. Using the prices on Blackstar's own US store on November 6, 2026:

In other words, at the prices we saw, the bundle cost $5.02 more than buying the three components separately from the same store, and the bundle includes the carry case. Blackstar does not list the case as a separate product on its US store, so we cannot price it on its own.

So the honest framing is this: the Wireless Rig is not a discount bundle. It is a convenience bundle. You are paying a few dollars for the case and the one-box purchase. If you already own a Beam Mini, the smart move is to buy Beam Control on its own for $74.99. If you already own a different wireless system, the same advice applies. If you are starting from nothing and want a grab-and-go setup with a case, the bundle makes sense.

Dealer pricing and holiday promotions can change this math quickly, so check current prices before buying.

UK Pricing

MusicRadar's launch report gave UK prices of £44 for Beam Control and £369 for the Wireless Rig. When we checked Blackstar's UK web store on November 6, the Wireless Rig was listed at £349.99 and was not available to order. Treat UK prices as unsettled until the stock arrives and check before you buy.

Who Should Buy It

Buy Beam Control if: you already own a Beam Mini or another Beam product and keep reaching for your phone to change sounds. At $74.99 it's the obvious add-on, and the no-programming pairing is exactly what a home player wants.

Buy the Wireless Rig if: you want a complete, portable practice setup from scratch and like the idea of everything living in one case. This is a strong gift option, too, since it covers the amp, the wireless and the control in one purchase.

Look elsewhere if: you need a stage amp. The Beam Mini is a desktop and practice amp, and Blackstar positions the Beam series around home use. Players who need volume for a band should look at a gigging amp or a floor modeler into a PA.

If you are comparing small, app-driven practice amps more broadly, our guide to the best budget modeling amps of 2026 is the place to start. You can also check our take on the BOSS Katana 25 practice amp and our Positive Grid Spark pedal review. Stem separation on small rigs is a fast-growing category, too. We covered the same idea on a pocket device in our look at the NEKO pocket guitar rig and its on-device stem splitter.

Questions We Still Have

A launch announcement answers the big questions and leaves some practical ones open. These are the ones we'd want answered before buying, and we'll update this story if Blackstar clarifies them.

• Which Beam products, exactly? Blackstar says Beam Control works with "all Beam products." The current Beam line on Blackstar's US store includes the Beam Mini and the Beam: Solo headphone amplifier. We have not seen a detailed per-product breakdown of which modes work on which unit.
• What can the expression input control? The press release confirms an expression pedal input but does not spell out which parameters it can be mapped to, such as volume, wah or effect level. Expect that to live in the Beam app's Custom Mode, but confirm it before you buy a pedal for it.
• How does it behave with the Airwire running? The rig runs two wireless links at once: Bluetooth for the footswitch and 5.8GHz for the guitar signal. Blackstar designed them to work together, and putting the guitar on 5.8GHz is part of the reason. But real rooms are full of other devices, and hands-on reports will tell us more.
• Battery wear over time. Every part of this rig depends on rechargeable batteries. Blackstar's runtime figures are for a full charge on new hardware, and like any lithium battery, those numbers will drift with years of use.

None of these are red flags. They are just the gaps between a spec sheet and the first month of daily use.

The Bigger Picture

There's a reason this kind of product keeps appearing. For a lot of players, the "rig" has quietly become a small amp on a desk, a phone app and a pair of headphones. We wrote about that shift in our piece on the disappearing guitar rig. Beam Control and the Wireless Rig take that idea one step further. They keep the convenience of an app-driven desktop amp and give back two things players lose when they leave a traditional rig: foot control and the freedom to move around.

The NAM angle is part of that, too. Community-made amp captures used to require a computer, a plugin and a decent interface. Putting them on a battery-powered desktop amp that pairs with a footswitch lowers the barrier a lot. Whether Blackstar's "world's first" wording holds up, the practical result is clear: a player with a phone and a Beam Mini can audition a capture of an amp they will never own and switch to it with their foot a few minutes later.

The Bottom Line

Beam Control is the accessory Beam Mini owners have been waiting for: four switches, three modes, no setup and 12 hours on a charge for $74.99. The Beam Mini Wireless Rig at $459.99 is a tidy way to get the whole cable-free system in one box. Just know that, at the prices we saw on Blackstar's US store, it cost slightly more than the parts bought separately. You are paying for the case and the convenience, not a bundle discount.

Fact flags

• US prices ($74.99 Beam Control, $459.99 Wireless Rig, $229.99 Beam Mini, $149.99 Airwire i58) checked on Blackstar's official US store, blackstaramps.us, on November 6, 2026.
• UK prices: MusicRadar reported £44 and £369. Blackstar's UK store listed the rig at £349.99 (unavailable) on November 6. Treat UK pricing as unconfirmed.
• "World's first" NAM A2 claim is Blackstar's. TGP has not independently verified it.
• Latency, range and battery life figures are Blackstar's. We have not tested them.
• Beam Control dimensions come from Blackstar's spec listing.
• We have not tested Beam Control or the Wireless Rig. This is news coverage, not a review.

Sources

• Blackstar Amplification US store product pages: Beam Control, Beam Mini Wireless Rig, Beam Mini, Airwire i58 (blackstaramps.us), checked November 6, 2026.
• Premier Guitar: "Blackstar Unveils the Beam Control and Beam Mini Wireless Rig," November 3, 2026 (press release).
• MusicRadar, Jonathan Horsley: "Blackstar's Beam Mini Wireless Rig has everything you need for cable-free playing," November 3, 2026.
• Blackstar Amplification official YouTube video: "Introducing the Beam Mini Wireless Rig & Beam Control | Blackstar," November 3, 2026.