Blackstar St. James - All the features.
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- Опубліковано 5 вер 2024
- In This video, I look at the new Blackstar St. James 50 Watt valve amp.
Blackstar is lording this as the lightest 50-watt valve amp in the world, but does the weight compromise the sound, Quality and features?
Full disclosure Blackstar has loaned the amp for the review, and are taking it back after I finish. This review reflects my honest opinion of the amp.
Here's what Blackstar say about the St. James
When it comes to tone and that all-important ‘feel’ factor, great valve amps rightfully remain the ‘gold standard’. The trouble is that great ones capable of delivering 50 Watts or more are all back-breakingly heavy. Until now… enter St. James Series - the lightest 50 Watt valve guitar amps on earth.
Hundreds of hours of critical listening against the most revered amplifier references mean St. James raises the sonic benchmark again. In addition to the obvious tonal differences between EL34 and 6L6 power valves, both of the St. James designs are honed to their own particular use case. The St. James EL34 is the amp for Classic tones combining world-class British Crunch and jaw-dropping, very US-sounding Cleans. The 6L6 version has the same clean headroom, but this is coupled with Blackstar’s highest gain Overdrive circuit to date.
St. James amps are packed with cutting-edge features to deliver class-leading recording performance. From 50W, 2W and SAG switchable power modes, to an inbuilt reactive load that routes the post-power valve output signal to the amp’s three direct recording outputs (XLR, Stereo Line-Out and USB) for truly authentic ‘amp-in-a-room’ feel. This is then passed through our state-of-the-art and fully customisable Cab Rig™️ DSP speaker simulator.
The Studio Rats are core band members Paul Drew on guitar/production/mixing, drummer James Ivey and Dan Hawkins on bass. They collaborate with singers and musicians to produce radio-ready songs.
I'd never cast a strong opinion, good or bad based on a UA-cam video. Been misled too many times. However I will cast one based on the live performance of a St james el34 I heard on Friday night. It sounded super rich clean and overdriven. Pub band and straight into the desk and out to pa. One of the best tones I've ever heard. There you go, just based on a real world experience.
what does straight thru the desk mean? pub band is usually un miced?
@@soofitnsexy that depends where you play, three of the pubs my band play have a sound desk, stage and monitoring. It's also pretty standard place in most 'music' pubs around London.
@@curteisj9491 not sure what a sound desk is?
@@soofitnsexy The guitarist used the XLR plug on the back amp & that cable is run to the house sound mixing board (straight into the desk) that runs the PA system, instead of micing the guitar amp. This is done to control the volume in a small pub/venue. It keeps the overall band volume down for a more enjoyable experience for everyone, as we guitarists usually play to loud. You can still use your pedalboard for any effects needed for different songs. But the on stage volume coming out of your amp is just loud enough for you to hear it and not tear the flesh from the listeners close to the stage. When this done you essentially use your amps speaker as a monitor to hear yourself, if the band is not using in ear monitors.
i appreciate u! thanks@@xtimator
I really appreciate your honesty Paul! Its difficult to be critical in a review im sure but thats what we want. Many others have talked about this rig like its a commercial and its AWSOME! Thanks for another great video. The Hulk is sounding great
Switching to the 'Standby' does not turn off the power section. The XLR, HP and USB outputs still contain the sound of the power amp, which drives directly in to the internal reactive load and then in to the CABRIG DSP. Therefore the sound of the valve preamp, valve power amp and output transformer are always in the signal path, even when using 'silently'. The Standby switch turns off the connection to the speaker outputs, not the power amp itself.
Thanks for your review and we are looking forward to you trying the St. James 6L6. Regarding the latency please update to the latest version of Architect.
Finally! Someone who plays clean really well on this amp. Thanks.
As a Tone King hound, expensive but good I have to say I'm changing my mind. BlackStar .... I'm impressed
I have an ht5 so have no hate towards blackstar but they're at that awkward point where the competition just seems more appealing, be it as a combo or stack
I miss my Blackstar HT60 Stage. The clean and naughty channels were both superb, as was the beautify reverb. Unfortunately, it was barely transportable. I had been considering buying a Blackstar St James combo for home and pub gigs until you pointed out that the EQ is shared. That is the deal-killer for me as I can't use gear that takes more than one trip between car and stage.
As James always says, you sound like you through anything!
Unfortunate that.
@@TheStudioRats Hardly - tone in the fingers is great- you can take it anywhere.
Excellent review! 👍
I have & use Blackstar's HT5R MkII Bronco Grey Edition amp, which sounds excellent (the 12" speaker having a big role on such a small amp) and is very versatile, loud enough, pretty easy to get good sounds out of, with perhaps less sterile sounding default clean than this one. Has a similar digital reverb which I, too, find perfectly usable and good. And has a similar but more primitive USB recording option and just switchable 2 speaker cabinet emulations, as well as the XLR out. Both these outs sound excellent, but the USB relies on Asio4All drivers and suffers terribly from latency, glitchy DAW compatibility, and a fixed extraordinarily low digital output level.
Wish Blackstar bettered and updated the USB recording side of things, it's a killer little amp!
I had an HT Club 40 for years. I heard a lot of complaints from other users about the amp sounding "slushy, thin, and sterile."
What I found was that they all were setting the channel Volume low and cranking the Gain fot maximum OD. And when you do that, it DOES get squishy and loses punch.
The secret, for me, was to use the OD channel without the "modern" button pushed, crank the Channel Volume to about 3 o'clock, and back the Channel Gain to about 10 o'clock.
That completely opened up the tone and the amp sang. I cranked the Bass and Mids, and set the Treble at about 2 o'clock. So, I basically set it like a Plexi, pushing the tubes and using the Master Volume according to the room.
Yup, you have to tweak a lot and find the tone. Some amps are just lacking, but Blackstar do sound good. Even my HT-5R MKII sounds good with the volume on the clean channel set to 1-2 o'clock. It gets to the edge of breakup, depending on the guitar... And my pedals sound very good through it, but I prefer them on channel 2, the British sounding one with more mids. The more scooped American sounding channel is better with cleans in my ears. I'm usually not using the gain channel, except sometimes to mix tvings up. Then I do low gain and overdrive, distortion and/or fuzz pedals. I'm still waiting for my Artist 15, I'm going to pick it up in July, probably not before that. Having said that, I've got my eyes set on a Marshall Origin 50C. There's one used three hours' train ride from where I live, and that one could become mine soon.
Totally agree. The channel volume is where the balls of the HT series is at. The masters is not so important.
@@deepzepp4176 yes! Also, once I set the Gain Channel that way, I didn't need the clean channel. Rolling off my guitar volume got me all the dynamic, glassy clean I needed. Setting the amp that way basically turned it into a tameable Plexi.
That trick also works great with their Series One heads.
Shared eq always gives me fitts if you're trying to play live.
It sounds great using headphones. Saw one today at Sam Ash Nashville and was intrigued. Great review.
Is there an amp with shared eq that Paul likes? To me, the amp sounds good & is quite workable. I'm fascinated by the fact that Paul hits the OD button for added gain & doesn't go for his favorite pedals as he usually does, for added gain. I see the overdriven sound as one sound upon which to build, & the BOOSTED sound as another overdriven sound, something different. Both good. The biggest "fault", other than latency, seems to be that it must be turned to 3:00 to get a satisfying big clean sound that Paul approves of. Interesting. By the way, I hear some kind of vibration happening when Paul plays clean. Listen to the opening playing. I clearly hear *something* going on when two or more notes are played together (chords of any type).
Damn, that's a nice tone. I picked up a Blackstar HT Stage 100 and matching 2 x 12 for £350, winner, winner, chicken dinner.
Beautiful playing Paul nice sounding amp 😊 ❤️ 🎸👍
Another good review.
Have you measured the latency of the XLR and USB outputs by comparing them to the miked-up signal on the DAW? Easy enough to do by looking at the time displacement between the two waveforms. t would be good to know what sort of delay you have to cope with.
just got the 6l6 head version and it gets some great tones, haven't played with the cab software yet.
I don't understand why any amp would not have EQ controls per channel. To me it's inexcusable at this point.
Well that settles that. All the You Tube opinions of this amp,the tones aren’t all that great unless you really mess with it. I like the light weight technology and being able to have tubes. I’ll wait until they get it right. Your reviews are really helpful with my decisions on gear. Using a power transformer that is DC helps with hum I heard. The amp has cool options. Thanks 🙏
".....tones aren't all that great unless you really mess with it...." what in the world is that even supposed to mean? What disappoints? Just curious.
Sounds great to me. Weight etc. Great gigging amp.
For TWO NOTES people this is a great deal, for people who play out... you can get an ENGL Fireball for the same price and there’s no comparison.
Try swapping out the tubes. 2 RCA long black plate 12AX7's and Tung Sol EL34's made it much sweeter
Sounds a bit anemic but of course I'm not in the room. Is this the first Blackstar without ISF? Surprised they didn't include it- always seemed to be a defining feature of their products.
Isnt the 6l6 cleaner with more clean headroom and the el84 more distorted?
Hi Paul, two questions for you: this or the boss katana? Second question, how is this amp so light?
Very good sounds great audio
Good guitar song 👍 good show
I would love to get your take on the Fractal Audio products.
What does the sag option do
I had hopes for this. Sounds like I should just stick to the Kemper and the GT-1000core
Defo
Someone PLEASE expose the truth. Does the Blackstar St. JAMES EL34 mount the tubes directly onto the circuit board or do they incorporate traditional valve sockets into a steel chassis? What wrong with being HONEST about the design? No one wants to answer this design question. It's a simple question.
I just want to know how they are so light.
No trafo
Have you tried the 6L6 one? It has more gain on the overdrive channel I believe the main difference
6L6 version is the way forward :)
I really like the sound of this amp. Is it true or false bypass? Asking for a friend
Tell your friend it’s super optimist bypass. 😀
Not a big fan of Blackstar except for my little Fly amp. Simple to use and just to much for fun for at home jammin' :) All their tube amps seem like they are just not quite there.. always something missing.
Yep agree with this. I had an HT 5r MK 2 and just couldn’t get the tone I was looking for. I ended up selling it and getting a Marshall DSL 40R, similar price but in my opinion a better amp. I hope they do well, but can’t help thinking they’ll struggle to compete at the price they are selling these at. I don’t think being a lightweight amp is a particularly strong feature, but I may be wrong.
Light weight, amp sounds good. I'm 73 years old, my hauling a Fender twin around are over. Sounds nice and punchy and new technology, light weight were great selling points. I own it and like it, time will tell if she holds up.
Nothing wrong with these amps. If something is missing, it's the player.
They say the drive on that is Vox sounding , sounds more Vintage Marshall to me ?
That guitar looks and sounds great . What is it ?
It’s a fender CS 62 Hss
@@TheStudioRats yeh it reminds me a lot of my xotic xsc-2 . HSS . I think they are modelled on a 60s strat , but guess a little darker as they didn’t really have HSS guitars back then .
Love the green man . Looks absolutely gorgeous - I’d say best strat colour ever that relic green
i just prefer the amp 1 and the bluebox
Me too
@@TheStudioRats the amp x will be introduced tomorrow academy of tone livestream in namm show
Me too. At least my amp1. Trying to go stereo and thought this amp might make a good compliment.
Cool amp. Why is your guitar so scratched up?
I Can’t afford a case.
Nice joke 😂
@@TheStudioRats ill send u 5 bucks...start a collection
And another one bites the dust. And another one down….
Latency thru the xlr as well as the usb? Or just usb?
It’s noticeable more through the USB. I’m guessing the drivers need a bit of work.
@@GCKelloch I have a Mac Pro and thunderbolt interfaces, I can run 16 samples all day long without stability issues.
Just my opinion, no knock on anyone that loves this amp. I can't get there for $1,300 USD. I feel, for the price, the REVV D-20/G-20 offers more.
very brittle top end. wonder how much is attributed to their speaker choice? i just can't gel with this type of hype about being light weight. it's their big selling point, but it seems to sacrifice in the tone department. the top end also seems to get away on you into a awful squeal of feedback, not pleasing at all.
Might be worth demoing the cabs with a katana head just to have a fixed point of reference.
I got to try it in person, it was a really nice sounding amp actually
What you hear on UA-cam amp demos is limited to what mics they used and where they positioned them, keep that in mind
I agree - I thought by listening to UA-cam it sounded very digital . Then tried one on the shop floor and I agree I was impressed . Wasn’t as impressed by the el34 but the 6l6 was good - more versatile as well
Hi , blackstar software cabinet emulation sound fake according to you ?
It’s making your magnificent strat sound less magnificent.
haha
Meh
love it love it love it, assholes make TINY little changes and act like it totally destroys their tone on the other channel (not even a crack of difference between the tones there, but gotta love fanboys that change dials and convince themselves there is a difference, and not a little one, ohhh no, a massive dofference(I must be fucking deaf not to hear this right?) the amp is mehhhh (but that is the case with all Blackstar amps, they are just mehh, until you figure in the isf knob, then they are total garbage