Cornerstone revives its Dumble-style Gladio pedal as the MKIII, with per-channel compression

Cornerstone has brought back its Gladio double preamp as the Gladio MKIII, shown at Guitar Summit 2026 in Mannheim. The original Gladio launched in 2019 and built a strong reputation for its Dumble-style tone before going out of production in 2022; designer Emilio Massari decided on a reissue after sustained customer demand, rebuilt around feedback from players who used the earlier versions.

The dual-channel format carries over — Channel 1 still delivers a softer, more compressed voice while Channel 2 leans into harder clipping, the same contrast that defined the original's Dumble-inspired character. The MKIII's real changes are under the hood: compression is now independently adjustable per channel rather than fixed with a simple switch, new Deep and Ratio controls add finer tonal shaping, and both channels can now be chained in either direction through their own separate front-panel inputs and outputs, letting players patch external effects between the two stages. The old single-mode channel-switching toggle is gone entirely in favor of that more flexible routing.

The Gladio MKIII is priced at €379 in a standard version, with a Limited Edition also planned, and is due at Thomann within a few weeks of the show.