Tiny Amp

[JD01]

At this point, with what I know about Blackstar the company in addition to how shitty they sound, I'd buy literally any amp over a Blackstar.

What's wrong with them as a company?

[Greg_L]

What's wrong with them as a company?

They suck for support when their shit amps fail. Many amp techs refuse to work on them because they can't get schematics or parts. So where does that leave the owners of these amps? They have to send them back to Blackstar at their own expense and wait....or just buy a better amp.

[JD01]

Fair enough.
Dunno what to do now. I might just get one of them shitty little headphone dongle amp things instead.

[Greg_L]

Fair enough.
Dunno what to do now. I might just get one of them shitty little headphone dongle amp things instead.

What happened to the Joyo thing?

[Greg_L]

I remember back at that other place there was a guy that was an engineer/designer for Blackstar. He had something to do with the ISF circuits or something like that. I used to ask him questions about the amps and he wouldn't tell me anything. He acted like their amps were a matter of national security or something.

[JD01]

I remember back at that other place there was a guy that was an engineer/designer for Blackstar. He had something to do with the ISF circuits or something like that. I used to ask him questions about the amps and he wouldn't tell me anything. He acted like their amps were a matter of national security or something.

Wasn't he called ECC83 or something? He was pretty convincing when I initially bought the Blackstar HT20... then it was him who told me to put an EQ in the loop with a notch at 400hz to make it sound decent. Which to be fair, worked. But I'd have preferred to save up the extra 300 quid and just got the H&K to start with.

[JD01]

Fair enough.
Dunno what to do now. I might just get one of them shitty little headphone dongle amp things instead.

What happened to the Joyo thing?

I'm suffering from a lack of trust in the cab-emulation for the ones that are actually designed to work as real amps.
I'm gonna call the Joyo UK support guy shortly and ask him to effectively "vouch" for the quality of his cab sim. I don't mind sending something back to Andertons. I don't want to get into sending shit back to Thomann in Germany.

[Greg_L]

Wasn't he called ECC83 or something? He was pretty convincing when I initially bought the Blackstar HT20... then it was him who told me to put an EQ in the loop with a notch at 400hz to make it sound decent. Which to be fair, worked. But I'd have preferred to save up the extra 300 quid and just got the H&K to start with.

Lol yeah. Nothing wrong with an EQ pedal to fine tune one's tones or whatever. But to need one just to make the amp usable? That's a shitty amp.

I'm suffering from a lack of trust in the cab-emulation for the ones that are actually designed to work as real amps.
I'm gonna call the Joyo UK support guy shortly and ask him to effectively "vouch" for the quality of his cab sim. I don't mind sending something back to Andertons. I don't want to get into sending shit back to Thomann in Germany.

Are you looking for good cab sim for recording? Or just for headphones?

[Lt. Bob]

I remember back at that other place there was a guy that was an engineer/designer for Blackstar. He had something to do with the ISF circuits or something like that. I used to ask him questions about the amps and he wouldn't tell me anything. He acted like their amps were a matter of national security or something.

He presented him self as that but there's was never a time when he answered an electronics question that someone didn't have to correct him and then he'd "Oh, I read the question wrong" ..... I think he couldn't answer questions about Blackstar because he didn't know the answers

[JD01]

Wasn't he called ECC83 or something? He was pretty convincing when I initially bought the Blackstar HT20... then it was him who told me to put an EQ in the loop with a notch at 400hz to make it sound decent. Which to be fair, worked. But I'd have preferred to save up the extra 300 quid and just got the H&K to start with.

Lol yeah. Nothing wrong with an EQ pedal to fine tune one's tones or whatever. But to need one just to make the amp usable? That's a shitty amp.

I'm suffering from a lack of trust in the cab-emulation for the ones that are actually designed to work as real amps.
I'm gonna call the Joyo UK support guy shortly and ask him to effectively "vouch" for the quality of his cab sim. I don't mind sending something back to Andertons. I don't want to get into sending shit back to Thomann in Germany.

Are you looking for good cab sim for recording? Or just for headphones?

Mainly just for headphones - I was gonna get one of them cheapo digital dongle things, like the Fender Micro Mustang, but I figured that it might be fun to try and get a full "mini-rig" which I could also plug into a cab or even the power section of my H&K and use like a real amp.

But it appears that cheap things that are like real amps may have unusable cab sims (the Orange anyway) and that the toy amps/dongles are going to be no use as a 2ndary recording tool.

I'll see what the Joyo guy says when he gets back to me. If he says something along the lines of "I can 100% garauntee you that our cab-sim is way better than Orange and that you can overdrive it without it sounding like a swarm of bees in microwave" I'll take it that he's confident in his product and maybe give it a punt. If he says, "I think it is but YMMV" I'll steer clear.

[Greg_L]

He presented him self as that but there's was never a time when he answered an electronics question that someone didn't have to correct him and then he'd "Oh, I read the question wrong" ..... I think he couldn't answer questions about Blackstar because he didn't know the answers

Lol maybe. I don't remember that much. And I've never personally been inside a Blackstar. But I've talked to really good amp techs that have, and the general consensus is stay away from them. Blackstar engineers would rather take three left turns instead of one right turn.

And besides all that, my own ears tell me no.

[Greg_L]

Mainly just for headphones - I was gonna get one of them cheapo digital dongle things, like the Fender Micro Mustang, but I figured that it might be fun to try and get a full "mini-rig" which I could also plug into a cab or even the power section of my H&K and use like a real amp.

But it appears that cheap things that are like real amps may have unusable cab sims (the Orange anyway) and that the toy amps/dongles are going to be no use as a 2ndary recording tool.

I'll see what the Joyo guy says when he gets back to me. If he says something along the lines of "I can 100% garauntee you that our cab-sim is way better than Orange and that you can overdrive it without it sounding like a swarm of bees in microwave" I'll take it that he's confident in his product and maybe give it a punt. If he says, "I think it is but YMMV" I'll steer clear.

You might be a candidate for one of those digital floor processor things.

[JD01]

You might be a candidate for one of those digital floor processor things.

Yeah, true. But that's just no fun is it? I'll see what the Joyo guy says and then I'll either try a Joyo or just get one of them dongle things like the Micro Mustang or this other one I looked at the other day.

[Greg_L]

Yeah, true. But that's just no fun is it?

Well if it does the job, that would be good, right? And you'd get a shit ton of fx with it too. You could run one of those things through your h&k fx return.

[JD01]

Yeah, true. But that's just no fun is it?

Well if it does the job, that would be good, right? And you'd get a shit ton of fx with it too. You could run one of those things through your h&k fx return.

Yeah, that's true. I do quite like the sound of my cab compared to any cab sim or impulse I've heard (they all appear to have way too much bottom end in them for recording). I think decent floor boards, Helix etc are quote pricey. Hang on, I think Mooer do one. I'll look it up.

[Greg_L]

Yeah, that's true. I do quite like the sound of my cab compared to any cab sim or impulse I've heard (they all appear to have way too much bottom end in them for recording). I think decent floor boards, Helix etc are quote pricey. Hang on, I think Mooer do one. I'll look it up.

Yeah I'm not talking about AxeFx or whatever, but there are simpler floor units out there. I think the TC Nova is pretty solid?

[JD01]

Yeah, that's true. I do quite like the sound of my cab compared to any cab sim or impulse I've heard (they all appear to have way too much bottom end in them for recording). I think decent floor boards, Helix etc are quote pricey. Hang on, I think Mooer do one. I'll look it up.

Yeah I'm not talking about AxeFx or whatever, but there are simpler floor units out there. I think the TC Nova is pretty solid?

Never heard of that. I'll look it up. There's bound to be a top 5 budget floor units list when I find out what to look for.

[Greg_L]

Never heard of that. I'll look it up. There's bound to be a top 5 budget floor units list when I find out what to look for.

Yeah I don't know much about any of them. I've seen people use quite a few though and it seems like they'd do what you're looking for as a supplement to your usual amp setup.

[WhiskeyJack]

sounds like they use the same employee training system as guitar center.

Obviously depends who you speak to. The guy I spoke to when I wanted to return it was much more helpful and also gave me a few other recommendations to think about.
Theres a mini Blackstar and a Boss Katana

to be honest JD, i have the Blackstar Fly Three 6W stack and i am quite smitten with it. That video clip i sent you a while back was my tele caster through that amp with the a bit of hantaun and spark in front of it. Full Disclosure i have never messed with the Em. Out on it, but have heard tracks recorded with it from others and it's passable for demoing stuff.

I just didn't recommend it to you as i knew you had a bad go with Blackstar.

[Lt. Bob]

You might be a candidate for one of those digital floor processor things.

Yeah, true. But that's just no fun is it?

BZZzzzzt! .... wrong answer!
.... they're a LOT of fun and significantly more fun than a tiny amp and I have both.

I have like, hmmmmm , 6 modelers .... major fun and way more so than my small amps.
Tiny amps sound .... well, tiny.
You really never get past, "It sounds surprisingly good for a tiny amp" .... and "surprisingly good" means 'meh, it's ok I guess'

I have a J-Station you could have cheap that's pretty nice even though old.

OR you could get a Digitech RP-360 used for maybe $80 ..... it's what I've used for several years for live work and I like it so much that when they discontinued them I immediately bought a second.

Get something that'll take IRs and you have a world of toans at your fingertips.