Cornerstore Music Gear

Cornerstone Music Gear: boutique pedals and preamps

Emilio Massari Linda Lunardon e Lorenzo Cornerstore Music Gear Boutique PedalsFounded by Emilio Massari and Linda Lunardon, Cornerstone Music Gear is a family-run business projected on an international scale. Recently enriched by the opening of the new and elegant Cornerstone Lounge, a contemporarily designed space where guitars, amplifiers, and prototypes converse to define tone, the principle is that the pedal and the gear must follow the guitarist and not vice versa. Emilio Massari designs devices oriented towards the plug-and-play concept, conceived to eliminate the complications of digital machines and allow the musician to focus on their own expression.

The construction philosophy focuses on the demystification of tube saturation, recreating under the fingertips the same dynamic sensitivity and touch response of a vintage amplifier pushed to the point of breakup. With the support of Linda Lunardon, who manages production planning and has overseen the manual assembly of every single circuit since 2019, and the addition in 2021 of Lorenzo, specialized in audio testing and quality control, Cornerstone has structured a rigorous production where craftsmanship and expertise are placed at the service of the musician and the sound.

The collection

Collection Cornerstore Music Gear Emilio Massari Boutique PedalsThe Cornerstone catalog is developed around overdrive architectures, boutique preamps, and vintage-inspired analog modulations redesigned for the needs of the modern professional:

  • Gladio SC (Single Preamp): born from the single section of the famous Big Gladio, now out of production, it is a boutique preamp designed to capture the dynamic behavior and typical compression of the incredibly rare and expensive Dumble amplifiers.
  • Antique Classic Drive: Cornerstone’s personal and refined reinterpretation of the legendary Ibanez Tube Screamer TS-808 circuit, modified to eliminate the intrinsic limits of that circuitry.
  • Imperium (Double Preamp): a sophisticated dual system that merges the architecture of the Gladio SC and the Antique within the same chassis, offering a seamless transition between Californian-style saturation and focused mids.
  • Colosseum (Dual Overdrive): dubbed the Community Pedal, it is an instrument born from the voting and direct feedback of the global musician community. It combines Cornerstone’s personal interpretation of the Marshall Bluesbreaker circuit and a revisiting of the legendary Klon Centaur circuit (Klone).
  • Aquarium Vibe: The modern interpretation of the classic Uni-Vibe effect, based on an analog system with exposed photoresistors.

Construction philosophy, techniques, and materials

Philosophy Cornerstore Music Gear Emilio Massari Boutique PedalsThe development path of a new Cornerstone circuit, such as the complex Aquarium modulator, can take up to a year and a half of research, while merging two existing architectures like the Imperium engages the workshop for about 9-10 months of breadboard analysis before the release of the final PCB. This construction rigor is expressed through cutting-edge solutions:

  • Parallel Clean Signal Routing: introduced in flagship models like the Gladio SC and the Aquarium, this system splits the incoming analog signal into two independent paths. One path goes through the clipping or modulation stage, while the other remains entirely unaltered. Through a dedicated potentiometer, the musician can blend the base clean sound with the treated one. This technique prevents the hollowing out of low frequencies and preserves the natural attack of the guitar, ensuring that the body of the note remains intact even at high gain levels.
  • Compression and Mids Control: on the Antique platform, Massari introduced a compression selector, the comp switch, calibrated to pair the pedal with both single coil and humbucker pickups. Furthermore, to eliminate the typical predominance of mid frequencies at 1kHz—a characteristic of the classic Tube Screamer often defined as nasal—a targeted cut filter was added that restores transparency to the wave spectrum.
  • Resolution of Vintage Impedance Loss: in the Aquarium circuit, based on vintage photoresistors, an Output Master Volume control was engineered to solve the intrinsic volume drop caused by impedance mismatches typical of historic Vibes, even allowing the pedal to be used as a signal boost on the amplifier’s front end.
  • Intelligent Clickless Switching: Cornerstone implements custom footswitches without the classic mechanical click (clickless). The internal programming allows for intelligent channel management: a single press activates a channel, while holding the button down can simultaneously engage or bypass both gain stages, if present.

Collaborations and recognitions

Collaboration Cornerstore Music Gear Emilio Massari Boutique PedalsThe international value of Cornerstone Music Gear is easily noticeable thanks to a roster of endorsers that includes some of the most authoritative and influential hands in contemporary guitar. Global blues and rock icons like Robben Ford and Kirk Fletcher steadily use these pedals to sculpt their tonal nuances.

Alongside them, the brand actively collaborates with a global community of elite artists, teachers, and content creators, including Paul Davids, Tomo Fujita, professor at Berklee College of Music, Ariel Posen, Joey Landreth, Brad Whitford of Aerosmith, Chicco Gussoni, Riccardo Onori (Jovanotti), Davide Pannozzo, Artur Menezes, and many other professionals around the globe. This dense network does not act simply as an advertising vehicle, but constitutes the “Cornerstone family,” whose exchange of technical opinions is fundamental in guiding the design of future devices.