Bluguitar Amp1??

steamabacus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xebgRvt-P3w


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHUmS6kKjRw

dindude

Certainly the best execution of an amp-pedal I've yet seen. Though it looks a bit 80's and sounds a bit 80's in places too. I'm not sure I've heard a clip yet that makes me think it is got great tone.

57Deluxe

The demos all sound a bit compressed to my ears...

Blueingreen

Mine too.  Great idea if it works but I'm not liking what I'm hearing on the demos very much.

Fortheloveofguitar

57Deluxe;452867" said:

The demos all sound a bit compressed to my ears...

Not surprising as Blug is/was a H&K user for years so he obviously loves that compressed tone.

Kebabkid

I put this on the other blog too:-

Hi guys,

I got the heads up on one of these having arrived at Ivor Mairants, London (JHS distributor) and tried one out today. I used a Fret King HSH guitar with the unit plugged into a H&K 1X12 speaker (probably a 60 watter) and both belonged to the shop.

To my ears, the unit is a little more dynamic than a Boss multi-fx unit or a POD and responded well to guitar volume and tone knob changes, but it's not as dynamic as a valve amp. It's pretty versatile and fairly intuitive to use and most sounds are pretty generic with a good degree of control over them and the EQ. In fact, I found the sounds not too dissimilar to a Hughes & Kettner amp and that's no surprise given Thomas Blug's input and association with the company. I liked the clean sounds (spanky and funky were in there but not chimey) and the vintage overdrive was nice and quite touch sensitive to the pick. There's also more than enough gain on tap in this thing, especially when you engage the boost, and it reminded me of how I use my own EP Boost on my overdrives for a general thickening up and pushing of the sound. That brings me to the lack of noise from the unit and I didn't need to deploy the inbuilt noise gate even when the gain was high up on the modern channel.

To be honest, I couldn't get a harsh sound out of the unit and whereas I'd previously found it hard to dial in good overdrive sounds on my old H&K TM36, on this it was a doddle.

The reverbs nice and smooth too and I missed it when it wasn't on.

I think to get the most out of the unit live, you will need the additional footswitch. Also, you know what it's like in some music shops regarding volume, well,whilst I had the volume and master up a fair bit, I didn't think the unit was producing a lot of volume, so I do recommend playing around more with the additional channel volumes, trying different cabs and seeing if you can turn the wick up on this to a decent level.

Bottom line, I liked it and I think it should be tried. I think it's a useful piece of kit to build a rig around or have as a spare amp or even use for recording, but I'm not sure of the price. I don't want to offend Mr.Blug or his R&D people, nor do I know what the quality of components are like in this unit, but I'm not sure I'd pay £595 - it seems steep and I wish this was more around the £350-400 mark. I  dunno, maybe I've got that wrong for such a versatile unit that includes a power amp. I also need to be convinced that a gigging volume can be obtained from this thing (it claims to have a 100W power amp) and I'd like to plumb in a few of my own pedals, like a compressor, delay and favourite OD and try it again with different cabs and speakers.

I hope that helps and I look forward to seeing other people's comments on here once they've tried it.

monquixote

Fantastic review. Can't wait to try one myself.

Kebabkid

Hi @monquixote-given your recent gear requirements and the way you now rehearse, it certainly ticks the boxes. What remains is whether you like the sounds and interaction, think it's worth it and whether it works well with your fave pedals.

bingefeller

Nice review.  I think the unit sounds great, although having Thomas Blug playing them certainly helps a lot.  

Stupid question maybe....is the nanotube something like what Seymour Duncan had in Twin Tube pedals?

Voxman

The Bluguitar Amp 1 popped up on another forum & rather than start a new thread, it made sense to re-activate this one particularly as it contained an interesting review.

As the last posts here were a couple of years ago now, I was curious if anyone else has since tried or bought the Amp1, who can share some further thoughts on it.  

The reason for my interest is that at band practice I'm using whatever amp is in the rehearsal room to run my Vox Tonelab SE.  Some are very good, others less so.  I don't want to take my own amps, simply because of weight.  The idea of a compact power amp that I can put in my gigbag and plug my TLSE into and use with the studios 4x12 cab  for a more consistent tone, appeals, especially as the Amp1 comes up used at way less than the new price.  

imalrightjack

@voxman I liked it but ultimately found it to be a bit fizzy and lacking true valve warmth. Perhaps it was how I dialled it in (or failed to).

My band's new album features some tracks using it. I wish I could recall which overall but the outro to this one is definitely the AMP1: 



I think the main lead on this (four minutes or so in) used it too:



It was largely reliable but developed a faulty trim pot. JHS were really good to work with though and priced reasonably out of warranty. 

TheBigDipper

I seem to be the Amp1 fanboy on here - but I'm well aware it's not perfect. I've stuck with mine for over a year and like it for the things it does well (IMHO) and not beating it up for the things I don't like - I just don't use them. 

I'm popping out for a few hours, but I promise to come back to this later on. I think using it for the Tonelab would work fine and sound decent, though. Later...

TheBigDipper

@Voxman An Amp1 should do fine for your needs. The clean channel can be set to have a fairly neutral tone (using the custom control on the side- set and forget) if you want to go in through the preamp. If you go in through the FX return you'll bypass the preamp tones but still get the nanotube goodness before the Class D amp makes it very loud.

I don't know much about the Tonelab, but if you can run it without modelling an amp, you might enjoy the Amp1 clean and vintage channels as a pedal platform. I do. If it sends MIDI commands you'll be able to change channels and toggle the boost and reverb, too. 

The tone controls are interesting. They aren't intended to be used to 'shape' the guitar sound. The custom controls on the side set the basic channel tonality and then you leave them be. The tone controls are used to adjust the overall tone for the room you're playing in. Seems to work well like that. 

Risks: If it breaks, you'll need to send it away to be fixed. I bought mine second hand and had a small problem - one custom control pot was very crackly. JHS swapped the Amp1 for me even though I wasn't the original buyer and the replacement has been fine for over a year. 

There's a lot more to the Amp1 than this, but if you're using the Tonelab, you won't want to use any of it, I expect. 

Voxman

Thanks guys, appreciate your thoughts.  I need to find one to try - definitely wouldn't buy something like this until I'd put it through  its paces with my TLSE or TLLE.  

Out of interest, are there any other similar compact amp solutions at a sensible price that might do the same type of thing?  As this is to be used with my Tonelabs, its simply a portable power amp with its own EQ & volume control that can deliver clean tone to power a cab - my TLSE/TLLE will do everything else effects & amp modelling-wise. 

Voxman

The Amp 1 may be more than I need.  I just come across this - anyone ever used one?

https://www.andertons.co.uk/p/44MAGNUM/compact-pedals/electro-harmonix-44-magnum-pedal-power-amp

ICBM

TheBigDipper said:

Risks: If it breaks, you'll need to send it away to be fixed. I bought mine second hand and had a small problem - one custom control pot was very crackly. JHS swapped the Amp1 for me even though I wasn't the original buyer and the replacement has been fine for over a year.

This is what worries me about this sort of stuff - not that it's unreliable, but that if you're unlucky and yours is one of the inevitable percentage - no matter how small - that fail, is it repairable if the manufacturer can't supply new parts? Since they're often not repairable at component level. I already have quite a lot of trouble with new-technology stuff I can't repair for customers.

Voxman said:

The Amp 1 may be more than I need.  I just come across this - anyone ever used one?

https://www.andertons.co.uk/p/44MAGNUM/compact-pedals/electro-harmonix-44-magnum-pedal-power-amp

No, but I have seen a couple of dead ones. No idea how bad a percentage it is, since obviously people only bring me them when they break! Not economically repairable - if at all - of course.

steamabacus

Voxman said:

 

Out of interest, are there any other similar compact amp solutions at a sensible price that might do the same type of thing?  As this is to be used with my Tonelabs, its simply a portable power amp with its own EQ & volume control that can deliver clean tone to power a cab - my TLSE/TLLE will do everything else effects & amp modelling-wise. 

Vox have just unveiled the MV50 Clean (there's 'AC' and 'Rock' varients as well) at NAMM These also use the nanotube technology into  a class D (like the Amp 1) for 50 watts into 4 ohms. And they're VERY small - a couple of these would make a very compact stereo rig. They seem a little pricey, though (paying for the Vox branding?)

TheBigDipper

ICBM said:

TheBigDipper said:

Risks: If it breaks, you'll need to send it away to be fixed. I bought mine second hand and had a small problem - one custom control pot was very crackly. JHS swapped the Amp1 for me even though I wasn't the original buyer and the replacement has been fine for over a year.

This is what worries me about this sort of stuff - not that it's unreliable, but that if you're unlucky and yours is one of the inevitable percentage - no matter how small - that fail, is it repairable if the manufacturer can't supply new parts? Since they're often not repairable at component level. I already have quite a lot of trouble with new-technology stuff I can't repair for customers.
<snip>

Quite. There's a lot of functionality inside that little box and you just cannot provide it using full-size, easily-available  components without making it bigger and heavier. That needs to be taken into account when considering buying one.

I wanted to see if the promise of lots of "real world" functionality could be delivered in the small, light package it came in. In the main, it does and I'm comfy with the functionality it provides that I actually want to use. Therefore, it's staying for now! 

vasselmeyer

Interesting thread bump. Sometime in the next few months I'm going to get my arse in gear and sort out a lightweight setup, purely because  my body  is really beginning to complain about lifting heavy stuff in and out of the car boot. I've done what I can with casters and decent handles but I'm  having to face the inevitable.

One of the changes will be  going to a very lightweight head and cab. I'll almost certainly buy a Neolight cab and I've been looking at a few  lightweight heads. The Bluguitar is one of them but I'm also looking at the  Matrix VB800 and the Quilter 101.

I'm leaning towards the Quilter, which is a 50W unit and is less than 1Kg. It's £315 from the UK dealer but I'm in the US in a few  weeks time and can pick one up for $299 which is £240 at current exchange rates.

Voxman

vasselmeyer said:

Interesting thread bump. Sometime in the next few months I'm going to get my arse in gear and sort out a lightweight setup, purely because  my body  is really beginning to complain about lifting heavy stuff in and out of the car boot. I've done what I can with casters and decent handles but I'm  having to face the inevitable.

One of the changes will be  going to a very lightweight head and cab. I'll almost certainly buy a Neolight cab and I've been looking at a few  lightweight heads. The Bluguitar is one of them but I'm also looking at the  Matrix VB800 and the Quilter 101.

I'm leaning towards the Quilter, which is a 50W unit and is less than 1Kg. It's £315 from the UK dealer but I'm in the US in a few  weeks time and can pick one up for $299 which is £240 at current exchange rates.

I hear you & feel your pain!  I have a back problem (L3,L4) and am getting aches & pains just from getting older.  I've quite a reasonable collection of amps, but its the weight that's the problem - carrying these up/down stairs and in/out of cars isn't funny anymore!