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Just got a Fender Blues JR NOS tweed with Jenson speaker in it. Great little 15watt Tube amp. I'm in love with it. It's my first ever tube amp and I got it used for only $250. The guy bought it on at GC two years ago, and used it with his band and that's about it. Little dirty and a couple small nicks but it adds that vintage feel to the amp.

My question is how long after having a tube amp till you find your right/go to tone? I played with it for over a hour and it just seems like I have some many possibilities with it. I'm using a EQD Hoof Fuzz and a Fuzz Face. This thing rocks with these pedals.

Other question is it has a amazing built in reverb in the amp. Does anyone leave a little reverb on when they use a amp for live shows or recording? I don't think I would dial that in past 3 unless it was for a certain song, but it just adds a nice smooth sustain to everything at around 2-3.

Love this amp and I'm sure now this is gonna change a lot of things for me going forward. Sold all my music gear except my Recording gear a few years ago thinking I would never get back into music. Man was I wrong, and now having a great job and extra cash around I have nice things to invest in. lol (Just bought a new pearl kit, a fender acoustic/electric, fender MIM strat, and a few pedals in the last month). The lady is a little upset, but I haven't bought shit for me in over 2 years.

I find that I usually hit my tone sweet spot in about 15 minutes. If I can't find it by then, I'm not going to.

I think I just found it with the mids and treb on 5 and the bass on 7-8. Plus a little reverb on the whole thing with some fuzz pedals and or clean it's so sweet. I can't believe in all the years I was playing in a band and gigging/touring I never had a tube amp. Also I was the drummer at the time so I guess it didn't matter.

Tubes are rad.

As for dialing them in, I'm with tuj. I basically look for specific sonic characteristics and it's fairly apparent whether or not a given amp has them.

I try to figure out what the amp does well, and its shortcomings; and dial-in the eq to flatter the instrument I'm using and emphasize the resonant frequencies that sound best in that situation. I generally prefer an amp that's breaking up on its own even before slamming it with fuzz.

Non-master amps will get their gain set around the range where everything seems to come alive and exponentially increase in beef and volume, lightly breaking up; usually around 4-5 on the knob...or 50% open. With a MV it varies more, but I typically set it to simulate a non-master.

On a simple straight forward type of amp like a Blues Jr (my favorite kind btw), or on any MV amp, I jus try to keep the master volume as high as the place/circumstances allow.

Other than that...There's just three controls for the EQ, and one for the reverb. Tweak em till it sounds right, shouldn't take ya longer than 5 mlins, right?

When you change guitars it's just a matter of slightly adjusting the eq I guess. Hb's vs single coils, hot pickups vs not so hot ones, dark and mellow vs sharp and twangy, etc...

AstralFeedbackM wrote: My question is how long after having a tube amp till you find your right/go to tone?

First thing I do is roll tubes till I find the right balance that I think works best. That can take days/weeks depending if I need to order nos tubes. I also take mental note of how certain combo's work for when I want to tweak the sound later on. Otherwise its up in the air cause I like to constantly change up the pedals I use and the amp setting I'll use are usually temporary. I've never set it and forget it cause I've always got a new sound I'm going for, unless I'm recording then I take notes. I've never played an amp that only sounded good in one setting, but i'm always experimenting with sound. I do keep the tone controls set mid-way when I'm first trying out a new pedal, and I go from there.

turn everything to ten and work back from there if you need to.

misterstomach wrote:turn everything to ten and work back from there if you need to.

There's no right way, but in general this is a good one.

I mean, it really depends on the tonestack. One tone knob? Start at noon. FMV? Start at 10. Bax? Start around noon... what kind of taper are the pots in the tonestack? Is it active or passive? I dunno, depends on what you're trying to do man. In general I set and forget eq once I find a good distortion/fuzz tone, which is usually some preamp gain, lower treble, and much mids and bass.