Fender Blues Junior Anyone

bertie · December 2013

asimmd said:

Looked at BJ on youtube,seems there are some mods you can do to make it sound better.

take all the valves out ?

asimmd · December 2013

Ha Ha,naughty

57Deluxe · December 2013

Super Champ XD.... any amp that can be coaxed into these tones gets my vote... Oh and yes I have one too!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGeWr6dHvFk

Jalapeno · December 2013

Summary so far .....

BJ is a one trick pony (the Blues in the title is the give away) - there are endless mods you can apply and you can easily get them to sound great. Takes pedals well.

The negatives:

- Loud cleans almost impossible as gain on 3, with master on full is about as high as you can go - and that isn't very loud
- Stock speaker isn't very good (hence all the boxy comments), new one makes A LOT of difference
- No FX Loop
- No DI out

I have one - I use it for practice sessions. I like it. (But I did sell one a few years back (to Estheroid) as I wasn't using it, and needed louder cleans for 8 piece Jazz gigs)

Axe_meister · December 2013

I love my little Fender Jnr pro. Just a volume and a tone knob.

Yes you have to push it quite hard, but it reacts perfectly to the volume on your guitar, hit it with a Tube screamer

and you get instant SRV. Hit it with a V-Twin (you need to attach a 2x12 or bigger cab) and you can even get some

great high gain out of it.

I do need to get an open back cab for mine though, the 1x10 speaker can sound a little boxy it opens up with a closed back 2x12 but the dynamic response gets a little lost with the closed back.

kelvinburn · December 2013

hughes and kettner tubemeister?

ICBM · December 2013

bertie said:

asimmd said:

The Deluxe is a non starter as it is 40 watts,and my Attenuator only handles 25 max,

you dont "have" to use an attenuator, and if you do, you dont "have" to use it on 100% and crank the amp to its limits to get bennefits.

This is exactly true. Contrary to popular belief/attenuator company marketing copy, the best way to use an attenuator isn't to turn a non-master-volume amp up full and attenuate down to a whisper.

They work much better used to just slightly attenuate a master volume so you can get the volume up to the point it starts to sound good, and then balance the MV and the attenuator to find the 'sweet spot', which is usually well below full up.

But be careful, because with the attenuator set to -6dB or quieter, three-quarters of the power is going into the attenuator and not the speaker, so if you do turn the amp up a bit too far - which is also quite easy to do, since it's hard to tell the power output from the audible volume, and the HRD gets very loud very quickly - you might be putting more than 30W into it. If you're going to do it, make sure you keep checking the attenuator for overheating until you're sure it's not going to be a problem. In the Weber the load resistors are mounted on the inside of the casing (I can't remember exactly where) so it should be pretty noticeable quickly if it is. Warm is OK, too hot to touch is not OK

.

I also totally agree with bertie that you probably don't need to go down this route - the clips you posted of your ID30 are excellent, and even getting *as good* results like that with a valve amp (any valve amp) are going to be tricky. Not impossible, but quite likely involving a lot of complexity, experimentation, buying and trying different gear, and ending up spending a vast amount of money and time to (often) go around in circles. It *is* possible that you might get a slightly better result eventually, but it depends whether you want to get on the gear merry-go-round that a lot of us do and end up never being happy! Or worse, never knowing when you have actually got there...

asimmd · December 2013

Thanks for the reply,i am grateful for the positive comments regarding my sound,it's nice to know

it's was ok,better than I would have though it was.

I understand what you are saying,and my last effort at bettering my sound is the thread i have started on a Kemper

Profiling Amp.

I don't know whether your comments will apply to the Kemper as well,but it would be interesting to hear

what you think about them.

I have never tried one,i am just going off the demo's i hear on Youtube,but that was enough to make me

think it was better than what i already have.

Alan

ICBM · December 2013

I've never tried the Kemper either, but I would guess it will work well for what you're wanting to do. Just be prepared for an *enormous* amount of tweaking and fiddling, compared to the Blackstar - even though it's not quite the same as other digital modellers, that's the main thing I find about all the ones I've tried. It's very easy to get bad sounds, and much harder to get good ones… although it can be done.

I actually think this is one of the reasons valve amps are still seen as "sounding better" - they perhaps inherently do, but more importantly, they're usually very easy to set up for a good sound and respond naturally in a way that makes them forgiving of not being dialled in perfectly. Analogue solid-state amps are much harder - usually I can get good tones out of them, but I find them far more touchy and fussy about being set *exactly* so to get there, partly because the response changes with picking technique in a less 'natural' way so you find yourself constantly fiddling to get it 'just so'. Most digital amps I can't even get that far with yet - the ID being one of the only exceptions, it's almost as easy to dial in as a valve amp.

asimmd · December 2013

As far as i can see all the hard work has been done,sounds are available

from The Amp Factory,they have demo's to listen to,I was impressed.

Have a listen if you have time,I would be interested in your thoughts.

Alan

ThePrettyDamned · December 2013

ICBM;110241" said:
I've never tried the Kemper either, but I would guess it will work well for what you're wanting to do. Just be prepared for an *enormous* amount of tweaking and fiddling, compared to the Blackstar - even though it's not quite the same as other digital modellers, that's the main thing I find about all the ones I've tried. It's very easy to get bad sounds, and much harder to get good ones… although it can be done.

I actually think this is one of the reasons valve amps are still seen as "sounding better" - they perhaps inherently do, but more importantly, they're usually very easy to set up for a good sound and respond naturally in a way that makes them forgiving of not being dialled in perfectly. Analogue solid-state amps are much harder - usually I can get good tones out of them, but I find them far more touchy and fussy about being set *exactly* so to get there, partly because the response changes with picking technique in a less 'natural' way so you find yourself constantly fiddling to get it 'just so'. Most digital amps I can't even get that far with yet - the ID being one of the only exceptions, it's almost as easy to dial in as a valve amp.

This is so true. The Bandit for bedroom whisper is eqd totally differently to the Bandit at high bedroom volume, and needs a third eq (and less gain) for loud stuff. As the volume goes up, the treble and upper mids goes up a lot - which is that nasty solid state sound people hate. You just dial it out, ignore the 'normal' amp settings you'd use and make it sound good.

I've seen someone reject an amp in a shop before because he felt he shouldn't have to turn the treble up past 7, even though he got his sound when it was at 9.

ICBM · December 2013

ThePrettyDamned said:
This is so true. The Bandit for bedroom whisper is eqd totally differently to the Bandit at high bedroom volume, and needs a third eq (and less gain) for loud stuff. As the volume goes up, the treble and upper mids goes up a lot - which is that nasty solid state sound people hate. You just dial it out, ignore the 'normal' amp settings you'd use and make it sound good.

Exactly. Many people seem to think that the EQ on an amp is a 'set and forget' control - you then just adjust the volume after you've dialed it in. Nothing could be more wrong, it's the other way round! Set the volume first then the EQ. Of course, on a lot of valve amps the EQ doesn't really do all that much once the power section is being pushed, so perhaps it's an easy mistake to make!

The same applies to attenuators - don't set your amp for a great sound at high volume then expect the attenuator to just make it quieter... this is why so many people think attenuators kill the tone. Set the rough volume with the attenuator *first*, then dial the amp in for it.

ThePrettyDamned said:
I've seen someone reject an amp in a shop before because he felt he shouldn't have to turn the treble up past 7, even though he got his sound when it was at 9.

I've always found that ridiculous. They don't seem to have any problem with getting "their sound" when the volume or the gain is up full, so why not the tone controls?

impmann · December 2013

I was once told by the engineer at the Marshall factory that effectively all classic Marshall amps' tone controls work as attenuators... so to get the full oomph out of it, you dime all the tone controls, then adjust your volumes and then back off anything that's too 'much'.

Frankly I thought that was BS til I tried it on a pre master volume 70s job - I had to turn the treble down a touch for my taste (and possibly my guitar) but the tone from the amp was utterly roaring, yet good.

Maybe the theory is BS but if you own one of these amps and have never tried that technique, give it a go...

ICBM · December 2013

It's not BS, in the sense that the tone controls are passive and hence only subtract frequencies - but they are on most classic amps. Active tone controls don't usually sound 'right' to most guitar players.

In fact, the tone stack on many *other* amps is even more an attenuator and will cut off the sound completely when all the controls are zero'ed - it's do with the way the mid control is wired. Marshalls don't actually do that.

My favourite setting on those old Marshall is just that though - everything full up except for the treble (which needs to be turned down a little usually, but not below halfway) and presence (which is not a normal EQ control and affects the power section).

Bron_Yr_Aur · December 2013

ICBM said:

My favourite setting on those old Marshall is just that though - everything full up except for the treble (which needs to be turned down a little usually, but not below halfway) and presence (which is not a normal EQ control and affects the power section).

I didn't know that about presence. That's the one I always struggle to get 'right' interestingly... Have (another) wisdom.

ICBM · December 2013

Bron_Yr_Aur said:
I didn't know that about presence. That's the one I always struggle to get 'right' interestingly... Have (another) wisdom.

Presence is actually a high-frequency negative feedback control for the power section in most amps. It doesn't so much affect the 'tone' as the dynamics of the high frequencies - which is why it's called 'presence', because it really affects how the amp sits in the mix, or cuts through it. It's much more effective when the amp is cranked up usually.

Quite a lot of modern amps now have 'resonance' controls as well, which do the same thing but for the low frequencies.

[/fishing for wisdoms]

Bron_Yr_Aur · December 2013

ICBM said:

[/fishing for wisdoms]

Tough. You got a lol instead.

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Fender Blues Junior Anyone

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