Blackstar Amped 1 user thread

relic245

Thought I'd start this, similar to the axe-fx thread as a place to share thoughts and ideas etc. 

I think that at the moment it may be  only me and @impmann who have one but I'm guessing that will grow. 

relic245

My "I've owned it for 24 hours" review.

Basically I love it. 

I walked out of the shop thinking it was really good and shows potential. It's taken a lot of playing about to start to get the best from it. If you try one, please don't give it 10 minutes and give up on it because it doesn't blow you away. 

My experience so far. 

I think I'll probably use it direct into the PA and a speaker to monitor on stage. 

I'm also getting the best tones (for me) by using it on a pretty clean setting and using my pedal board. That's what I've done with a physical amp so makes sense. I think I prefer pedals to amp overdrive. 

There is a huge difference between the 1, 20 and 100 watt settings. I like the 100, it's still very usable at home but just sounds more authoritative.

Like a valve amp, it sounds better turned up a bit. 

I'm getting fantastic sounds both through a speaker cab and through a tiny pair of cheep studio monitors. The eq requirement is vastly different though. 

If it set it up for a good speaker sound then it's quite cak through the monitors and vice versa. All is not lost as I you tweak the emulated cab eq using the software and it does the trick but it does need doing and you don't get the best experience out of the box. 

For me there is 1 downside on the way that I'm planning to use it. 

The direct to PA sound comes after the master volume. That means that if I set everything up at a gig and then want to turn up my monitor a little I can't do it as it will affect the FOH sound too. Don't know what the workaround for that will be. 

How does it sound? 

Absolutely ****ing brilliant to my ears. 

My live rig has been HX FX into Blackstar Artisan for a while now. I get drive from the HX. 

Plugging into the amped 1 and using the Blackstar cab as my speakers I have to remind myself that the sound is not being generated by the valve amp but rather that little white box.  

It is as dynamic as a valve amp and responds exactly how you would expect. 

If I set up a clean USA sound and close my eyes I can easily imagine that I'm playing through a Fender Twin - I have owned one in the past so have a reference in my head. No doubt if I was A/B ing they wouldn't be the same but good enough for me. 

So 24 hours in, is it a keeper. Absolutely - can't do it right now but you'll be seeing both my Artisan and HT5 in the classifieds very soon.  My back is going to love me forever. 

I still feel that I've not yet got the best from it either. 

kennedydream1980

relic245 said:

My "I've owned it for 24 hours" review.

Basically I love it. 

I walked out of the shop thinking it was really good and shows potential. It's taken a lot of playing about to start to get the best from it. If you try one, please don't give it 10 minutes and give up on it because it doesn't blow you away. 

My experience so far. 

I think I'll probably use it direct into the PA and a speaker to monitor on stage. 

I'm also getting the best tones (for me) by using it on a pretty clean setting and using my pedal board. That's what I've done with a physical amp so makes sense. I think I prefer pedals to amp overdrive. 

There is a huge difference between the 1, 20 and 100 watt settings. I like the 100, it's still very usable at home but just sounds more authoritative.

Like a valve amp, it sounds better turned up a bit. 

I'm getting fantastic sounds both through a speaker cab and through a tiny pair of cheep studio monitors. The eq requirement is vastly different though. 

If it set it up for a good speaker sound then it's quite cak through the monitors and vice versa. All is not lost as I you tweak the emulated cab eq using the software and it does the trick but it does need doing and you don't get the best experience out of the box. 

For me there is 1 downside on the way that I'm planning to use it. 

The direct to PA sound comes after the master volume. That means that if I set everything up at a gig and then want to turn up my monitor a little I can't do it as it will affect the FOH sound too. Don't know what the workaround for that will be. 

How does it sound? 

Absolutely ****ing brilliant to my ears. 

My live rig has been HX FX into Blackstar Artisan for a while now. I get drive from the HX. 

Plugging into the amped 1 and using the Blackstar cab as my speakers I have to remind myself that the sound is not being generated by the valve amp but rather that little white box.  

It is as dynamic as a valve amp and responds exactly how you would expect. 

If I set up a clean USA sound and close my eyes I can easily imagine that I'm playing through a Fender Twin - I have owned one in the past so have a reference in my head. No doubt if I was A/B ing they wouldn't be the same but good enough for me. 

So 24 hours in, is it a keeper. Absolutely - can't do it right now but you'll be seeing both my Artisan and HT5 in the classifieds very soon.  My back is going to love me forever. 

I still feel that I've not yet got the best from it either. 

From the pics on-line it looks like there is a mini level control next to the DI out on the side of the pedal. Is this not independent of the master volume control?? 

impmann

relic245 said:

My "I've owned it for 24 hours" review.

Basically I love it. 

I walked out of the shop thinking it was really good and shows potential. It's taken a lot of playing about to start to get the best from it. If you try one, please don't give it 10 minutes and give up on it because it doesn't blow you away. 

My experience so far. 

I think I'll probably use it direct into the PA and a speaker to monitor on stage. 

I'm also getting the best tones (for me) by using it on a pretty clean setting and using my pedal board. That's what I've done with a physical amp so makes sense. I think I prefer pedals to amp overdrive. 

There is a huge difference between the 1, 20 and 100 watt settings. I like the 100, it's still very usable at home but just sounds more authoritative.

Like a valve amp, it sounds better turned up a bit. 

I'm getting fantastic sounds both through a speaker cab and through a tiny pair of cheep studio monitors. The eq requirement is vastly different though. 

If it set it up for a good speaker sound then it's quite cak through the monitors and vice versa. All is not lost as I you tweak the emulated cab eq using the software and it does the trick but it does need doing and you don't get the best experience out of the box. 

For me there is 1 downside on the way that I'm planning to use it. 

The direct to PA sound comes after the master volume. That means that if I set everything up at a gig and then want to turn up my monitor a little I can't do it as it will affect the FOH sound too. Don't know what the workaround for that will be. 

How does it sound? 

Absolutely ****ing brilliant to my ears. 

My live rig has been HX FX into Blackstar Artisan for a while now. I get drive from the HX. 

Plugging into the amped 1 and using the Blackstar cab as my speakers I have to remind myself that the sound is not being generated by the valve amp but rather that little white box.  

It is as dynamic as a valve amp and responds exactly how you would expect. 

If I set up a clean USA sound and close my eyes I can easily imagine that I'm playing through a Fender Twin - I have owned one in the past so have a reference in my head. No doubt if I was A/B ing they wouldn't be the same but good enough for me. 

So 24 hours in, is it a keeper. Absolutely - can't do it right now but you'll be seeing both my Artisan and HT5 in the classifieds very soon.  My back is going to love me forever. 

I still feel that I've not yet got the best from it either. 

This has been my experience too. 

CabRig is massively powerful for direct inject sound shaping. There are so many variables and don’t forget you can save three different settings to the pedal accessible at the flick of a switch. 

I’m seriously giving consideration to selling all my regular amps too and investing in a top quality cab to run with it instead.

TimmyO

Sounds good. The CabIR output section seems very well thought out 

relic245

kennedydream1980 said

For me there is 1 downside on the way that I'm planning to use it. 

The direct to PA sound comes after the master volume. That means that if I set everything up at a gig and then want to turn up my monitor a little I can't do it as it will affect the FOH sound too. Don't know what the workaround for that will be. 

From the pics on-line it looks like there is a mini level control next to the DI out on the side of the pedal. Is this not independent of the master volume control?? 

Basically it is a 20db pad to make sure you're not overloading the mixer or whatever.

It doesn't change the fact that if you change the mater volume to change the level in the guitar cab then the xlr output changes too. 

ICBM

relic245 said:

It doesn't change the fact that if you change the mater volume to change the level in the guitar cab then the xlr output changes too.

That's poor design. OK, it's not actually worse than what happens with a mic'ed cab, but a DI feed from the amp should be pre-MV - that's how it's almost always done with bass amps, and many have a pre/post-EQ option as well.

TimmyO

TimmyO said:

Sounds good. The CabIR output section seems very well thought out 

…slightly taken back if that’s right that DI out changes with MV changes :-/ 

mark_jwedge

relic245 said:

For me there is 1 downside on the way that I'm planning to use it. 

The direct to PA sound comes after the master volume. That means that if I set everything up at a gig and then want to turn up my monitor a little I can't do it as it will affect the FOH sound too. Don't know what the workaround for that will be. 

I guess that was a difficult conundrum for the blackstar team from a design point of view. On the one hand as you say it would be good to be able to make adjustments on stage and not affect the signal going to the PA. This is a definite advantage I have found when using my HX stomp to run a cab on stage via a SD powerstage 170 but also go direct to front of house. Because the SD170 is independent to the amp model and IR going to FOH I can adjust my onstage eq and volume on the SD170 and not change what goes out to FOH.

On the flip side, the way I have I interpreted how the blackstar works is that - just like a valve amp - the level of the master volume effects the sounds, sag, feel etc of the amp. That is key for the ‘realisim’ of how the blackstar sounds and is probably one of the reasons why so many people are saying it nails the feel as well as the sound of a valve amp. To give the most realistic ‘valve amp’ sounds direct to PA I guess blackstar felt the trade off of the master volume also affecting the level out to the PA was the lesser of two evils? Particularly as the marketing seems to suggest that realistic valve amp tones was what they were shooting for?

Maybe a future firmware update can give users the option to turn this on/or off in the architect/cab rig software?

relic245

TimmyO said:

TimmyO said:

Sounds good. The CabIR output section seems very well thought out 

…slightly taken back if that’s right that DI out changes with MV changes :-/ 

Me too - Seems to be the way it's working and page 13 of the manual seems to confirm that It's not user error. 

185401MVA1-AMPED-1-OWNERS-MANUAL-280922.pdf (blackstaramps.com)

I'm going to bring it up on the user forum and see if anyone from blackstar comments. 

The more I think about it, the more of a problem it is. 

It's not just about needing to tweak mid set. How do you even set it up in the first place?

I don't know how loud I need on stage monitoring until we are playing a song as a band. By that stage the sound engineer will have set up my levels so any changes I make will mess with their settings. 

gatheredinsong

I'm confused. Can't the sound engineer just turn you down as they see you turning up?

relic245

gatheredinsong said:

I'm confused. Can't the sound engineer just turn you down as they see you turning up?

In theory of course.

More difficult if we're using our own PA and we are doing our own sound. Sometimes the PA head won't be on stage. 

Faff

I've had it from day 2...

Blackstar seems to have sent a whole load of units to every You Tuber out there who rave about it but they seem to have missed some vital points. It does sound fantastic though - particularly USA on 100W. Like a Fender Twin I'd say.

However from a practical Live pedalboard perspective...

The very thin lines on the knobs are impossible to see from standing up - particularly with the extremely bright logo.

Promo material says Full MIDI control and yet there is no MIDI patch selection? How hard can that be and is expected in this day and age?

The XLR output on the right hand side takes up too much space on pedalboard.  Their publicity photo is deceiving.
The loop requires a Stereo to 2 mono splitter cable. The part that plugs into the unit is a full length large TRS cable which sticks out a lot making pedalboard positioning tricky.

Even the manual and product photos are wrong - IN and LOOP are shown wrong way round.

I could almost keep it with workarounds but but this is a deal breaker…

“The POWER and MASTER settings will not be saved to the Preset.”

This is a problem because I cannot balance the sound output between channels. I would like Manual to be clean on US and Preset to be UK dirty.  

eg I set a preset using UK Amp with Master at 50%. Then in manual mode using USA Amp I have to adjust Master to 30% match the sound level of the preset. When I go back to the preset, the volume stays at 30% and so is too quiet.
You cannot balance the sound levels between Manual and Preset.

relic245

Faff said:

I've had it from day 2...

Interesting, I hadn't noticed that the master volume is not saved in the preset which does sound like an oversight. 

I thought at first that maybe it was a hardware limitation and not possible to control via software but you can control it via midi so it's not that. 

Perhaps that can be addressed in a firmware upgrade.

Faff

I thought at first that maybe it was a hardware limitation and not possible to control via software but you can control it via midi so it's not that. 

My exact thoughts. It's just not thought through for live use.

Danny1969

One work around for the DI volume going up when raising the master volume is leave the master volume alone and use something like this on the output. I made this one for my Pod Go which doesn't have the amp out volume controlled by the unit, you have to use the amps volume. Basically it's just a volume control in a box with an integral jack in and a socket for the output. 

@gatheredinsong said:

I'm confused. Can't the sound engineer just turn you down as they see you turning up

The trouble with turning up is even if the sound engineer turns it down on the fader on the desk the aux sends feeding the wedges or IEM' on the desk are pre-fader so it will still go up in the monitors and in peoples IEM's. Although this is the same situation as a single mic'ed speaker amp with no DI  any sane designer on a modern bit of kit would generally make the DI socket out pre - master volume for this reason. 

You can mod this fairly easy on normal amps, basically you can just take the audio signal from the in leg of the master volume and then feed that along with a ground to a small DI transformer. On a small device like this though it would be much more of a mission I expect. 

  

relic245

Thanks Danny.

So would that box you built go between the pedal and the speaker cab then?

If so then is it just a potentiometer in there or is there more to it?

Also would it be safe in this situation. I'm guessing that the pod go is line level where this is a 100 watt amp out.

I did wonder if something like that was possible.

Faff

No you definitely would not put this  between amp and speaker. The output needs to stay at 8 or 16 ohm. 

Also...putting this in the line out would not solve this problem because the amp volume changes between manual and preset mode. We want the master to be saved to match the volume of the preset and manual mode. 

gatheredinsong

relic245 said:

gatheredinsong said:

I'm confused. Can't the sound engineer just turn you down as they see you turning up?

In theory of course.

More difficult if we're using our own PA and we are doing our own sound. Sometimes the PA head won't be on stage. 

Ah, yes, can see that situation being awkward. 

monquixote

Pleased this seems to be a good product.

I've been saying for years that it's insane they put modern SS amps in big headshells because that's how a valve amp looks.

We need a tiny decent sounding amp revolution like bass players got with Mark Bass.

impmann

At the risk of being ‘that bloke’… why would you need to turn up your volume mid gig if you had set all your levels properly at sound check?

if the bass player suffers from ‘turnitupitis’ a simple application of a lump hammer to the knuckle joints solves this.

However if you are ‘that guy’ who likes to hear yourself above all others then perhaps the problem isn’t really with the design? ;-)

Being serious for a mo - there is a level control in the side of the unit to adjust the output to desk from the CabRig out. Yes, that’s not as convenient as having the master independent of the xlr out but because the master volume is so interactive with the tone shaping created using the response circuit, it would be hard to do. Tbh, if you are tweaking a minor adjustment on stage mid gig to correct a volume imbalance, it’s likely your FoH will be wrong too. The trick is not to slam the trim on the desk so if you do raise the volume slightly, you don’t clip the desk… and then you can tweak that on the fly using the control on the side.

:-)