Who of you own a Fender Blues Junior

[dragonworks]

oh i really want one


going for the stevie ray vaughan sound

already got the tube screamer and vox wah

you are going to need a leslie

 

[acidrock]

I'm very happy with mine.

I like it for clean to slightly dirty tones.
When I say "clean" I mean Fender clean,which in my world is something different than say Roland Jazz Chorus clean.

If you want metal or grunge you'll need to put a pedal or something in front of it or consider a different amp.

It's LOUD!

I'm not real crazy about the EQ and never turn the reverb past 2 or 3.

The fat switch....eh,who cares.

It's probably one of the cheapest tube amps you can get without going into off brands or companies that are'nt known for making amps.

Equally important is the guitar pluging into it.A nice Seymour Duncan pickup is going to sound a lot better than some generic low output pickup.

Better for recording and jamming than giging in my book as it only has one channel and no effects loop.

I'm going to read about the mods,but at this point I'd rather buy another amp that sounds different than spending the money to make my Blues JR sound different.

In the end I'd rather have an amp that does one thing really well than something that does a lot of things mediocre.

 

[andyman91]

Yesterday I tried both the Blues Jr. and the Pro Jr.

The Pro Jr. sounded really good for something so small. It sounded better the louder I got it (for better or worse) but I couldn't put it up high enough in the store to get any distortion.

The tone control created a lot of different sounds.

All it was missing was reverb. I like having just a touch.

Super cute practice amp.

The Blues Jr, however is more of a real amp. Much fuller sound, more versatile, enabling distortion at low volumes. The sound was more like my Hot Rod Deluxe.
Not much heavier/bigger, than the Pro, and probably worth the extra hundred bucks. for something that is a bit more practical for different situations because of the extra features.

 

[hixmix]

I just read this really funny review of the Blues Jr. at harmony central(I'm still thinking about getting one, though):

Price Paid: US $1,560
Features: 10

Sound Quality: 10
So I just scored this new Blond Blues Junior for $399. It sounded okay, but I thought I could get it to sound better by doing some mods on it, as most people on this site have said.

First thing I did is replace the horrible stock Eminence speaker with a Celestion Alinco Blue for $310. Wow, what an improvement. But I still think it could have sounded better, and a lot of people here said to replace the tubes.

So then I bought a complete set of NOS Mullards (3 12AX7s and 2 6BQ5s) for around $300. It put them in the amp and I couldn't believe how good this thing sounded.

Then someone told me that you could improve the tone by putting in a genuine 5Y tube rectifier in this thing. (Nothing like adding some loose-fart tones to this amp). So I bought a quality tube rectifier for another $150. Wow, the sound's really turned to mush since I ditched that lame tranny rectifier. Awesome.

But then I started to think that the stock reverb unit sounded lame. So I bought a full sized spring unit for $100. It doesn't fit in the cab, so it's currently outside, but now it sounds AWESOME!

So I decided to have someone build me a solid birch ply cab for another $200. I couldn't figure out how to transfer the amp chassis to it, though, so I paid the carpenter another $100 labor to put it in the new cab.

Oh my GOD! This freakin' thing now sounds AMAZING.

Now I have a $399 Fender tube combo that sounds just as good as any new boutique amp on the market..... wait.... uh oh...

woops.... I just spent $1560 for this amp, not including tax!!!!

But it's still the best $1560 "$399 Tube Combo" that money can buy. Don't know what I'm gonna do about the PCB issue, though. hmm...

Last night I saw this awesome guitar player at my local blues club playing though a Blues Junior. He sounded "slammin'." Best tone I've ever heard. When I asked him what mods he'd done to his amp, he told me it was a stock $399 Blues Junior. Then he said something about "talent." "TAL-ENT?," I asked, "which mod is that?" He told me that "talent" wasn't a mod and I should look the word up in the dictionary.

I was gonna look the word up this morning, but I'm too busy modding my new Blues Junior right now.

The only feature I wish it had is a CD input so I can practice along with my Kenny Wayne Shepard CDs. I've never played out, but once I get those burnin' KWS/SRV licks together I may go to my local blues jam to try out my new amp.

For some reason, everytime I play with other musicians, they laugh at me. Not sure why.

When my therapist told me that I'm not really a musician, more like a wannabe amp-tech/internet geek, I threw a fit and ran out of his office. To make myself feel better, I ran home to do some more mods on my new Blues Junior.

In closing, don't overlook this amp. With a few mods and $2,000, you can get it to sound as good as any $2,000 amp on the market.

Now if I can just get the guts to leave my bedroom.....

Reliability: 10
Customer Support: 10
Overall Rating: 10
Submitted by More Onn at 05/07/2005 06:30

 

[Nick The Man]

is this amp good for studio use?

 

[SteveK]

I have one of the tweed lacqered BJ's. My main gig amps are made by Andy Fuchs and cost a couple grand. The BJ is definitely a keeper! Great tone, less hassle!

 

[bongolation]

The Pro Jr. sounded really good for something so small. It sounded better the louder I got it (for better or worse) but I couldn't put it up high enough in the store to get any distortion.

The serious guys I know who think more highly of the Pro Junior than any of the rest of the Hot Rod series of Fender amps do so on the basis of the Pro Junior's fully-cranked sound and single tone control (less tone-suck). Overdrive stomp optional.

Some use extension speakers.

The simpler circuit is regarded as a virtue.

Personally, I don't know as I don't have one, but they are well respected by a lot of real players.

 

[KKM1]

is this amp good for studio use?

Its a small, cool sounding 15W tube amp. If you record blues or bluesy rock its the perfect formula for a great studio amp.

 

[ibanezrocks]

The serious guys I know who think more highly of the Pro Junior than any of the rest of the Hot Rod series of Fender amps do so on the basis of the Pro Junior's fully-cranked sound and single tone control (less tone-suck). Overdrive stomp optional.

Some use extension speakers.

The simpler circuit is regarded as a virtue.

Personally, I don't know as I don't have one, but they are well respected by a lot of real players.

The Pro Junior really is a one trick pony though, if its not completely cranked it sounds horribly weak.

 

[ggunn]

is this amp good for studio use?

Which one? The stock Blues Jr. or the modded one? ;^)

 

[Nick The Man]

Which one? The stock Blues Jr. or the modded one? ;^)

stock



i am playing stevie and hendrix, would the stock model be a good choice

 

[bongolation]

The Pro Junior really is a one trick pony though, if its not completely cranked it sounds horribly weak.

I dunno, that's possible. These guys tend to have a lot of amps, so if one amp does one thing very well, I'm sure they're happy.

The "one thing" it does better than anything else in the Hot Rod line -- again, according to them -- is, largely because of its simplicity, duplicate the sound of small vintage Fender tweed/blonde-era amps.

They do not regard the Blues Junior as highly.

At some point I may pick up a Pro Junior to see for myself, though an amp that has to be really cranked is problematic for me because of my hearing problems.

 

[cavedog101]

The Pro-Junior is more like an old Tweed-style Princeton in tone than anything else.As for versatility thats all pretty much in hands of the player.The Blues Jr. has more of that extended midrange that the whole line of the 'Blues" amps have...ala Blues Deville/ Hot-Rod deluxe.Its just a single channel with not much in the switchable side.All and all, its one of the better recording and small gig amps out there and a bargain in cost.I'd play mine anywhere. I have a friend who uses two of em with a stereo-pedal setup and it sounds great.When you back off the bass control it sounds seriously like my 65 Vox Cambridge tube amp.In the studio, I'll unplug the speaker and use other cabinet combos and it works great for this.I'll even use it on a 16 ohm load 4-12 cab .This does run it hot and wouldnt recommend it,but it gives a nice sheen to things.BTW, the cabinet is a very very old Dallas-Arbitter 4-12...This is very much pre-Sound City and this thing is built like a tank.

 

[bongolation]

The Pro-Junior is more like an old Tweed-style Princeton in tone than anything else.As for versatility thats all pretty much in hands of the player.The Blues Jr. has more of that extended midrange that the whole line of the 'Blues" amps have.

Check out Bill Machrone's page on the Blues Junior tone stack. It's pretty informative. The stock Blues Junior does have a very hyped mid as you mention, and Bill has some nice oscilloscope screen captures and graphs about this.

 

[boingoman]

Check out Bill Machrone's page on the Blues Junior tone stack. It's pretty informative. The stock Blues Junior does have a very hyped mid as you mention, and Bill has some nice oscilloscope screen captures and graphs about this.

Not a bad page. He has some good ideas. But his measurements and those screen captures are pretty suspect. At least, the conclusions he draws from them are.

First of all, he is using an SM58 for his measurement mic. He mentions being "surprised" to see a buildup in response leading up to 3500hz. Well, the 58 has a large hump in this region, basically centered on 5K. It has about 5db higher response at 4000hz- making that build-up no surprise at all if he knew anything about microphones. He also took his measurement off-axis of the speaker. Frequencies above about 3K will get highly directional in a 12" speaker. An off-axis mic will not pick them up as well. It is likely the amp and speaker have better response above 3.5K than his measurements show.

So the response of the amp measured at the speaker is very different than his picture indicates, likely much flatter. Your ears should tell you this. An amp with the response he shows would be extremely unpleasant to listen to.

He also seems surprised that response drops sharply at 5K. Pretty much every 12" speaker in the world has a top usable frequency of about 5K. 5K will be the 3, 6, or 10db down, depending on how the company specs their speakers. After that, response drops off even more sharply. The amp, measured with a mic at the speaker, especially an off-axis mic, isn't going to have much response past that no matter what. Again, not much of a surprise.

I'm not dissing him, just pointing a few things out.

Different speakers have different responses. In general, guitar speakers have a broad peak centered around 3K. But be aware that changing the speaker can have as much effect on tone as a lot of mods. An amp that sounds thin and trebly may be helped with a different speaker. Conversely, mods that add bass may make the amp sound muddy if you change the speaker. Guitar amps are systems, not piles of discrete compnents. Changing one component affects the whole.

A couple of things about tone stack mods:

Guitar amp tone controls are passive. They cannot boost. They can only cut. Any mod that claims to boost bass is really only cutting less bass. Also, the important change in tone (IMO) involves the fact that when you change the bass cap, the frequency where the bass and mid controls meet has changed, and the mid control has more control over a lower section of the frequency range than it did before. The bass control goes higher. This change in this region of interaction makes a huge difference in how the amp sounds.

This can be shown in Machrone's tone stack calculator picture-the region affected by the mod does not cut off sharply. The frequency response changes well up to 500-600hz. So more bass is allowed through, but the balance of frequencies in the mid control has changed as well. I did a pretty crude paint drawing to show what I mean. Well, it's too large, and I don't know how to make it small enough.

The same thing applies to mid and treble mods. Changing the treble section affects the mid control. Changing the mid control affects both the bass and treble controls.

His own comparisons pre- and post-mod bear this out. He points out that the amp sounded muddy post-mod, and that adjusting the controls can compensate. It could make you wonder why not just adjust the controls and skip the mod? Because the mod affects much more than just bass response. It changes the response, curve, and overall sound of the eq section, hopefully for the better.

And since the controls are more interactive, they do not have the same effect on the tone as they did before. Simply twisting the knobs on the pre-mod amp won't sound the same. He kind of hints at this, but I thought I'd flesh it out a bit.

That leads me to the last thing (I promise )

He mentions that the amp breaks up quicker post-mod. This makes sense. The frequency response of the amp is fuller, especially after increasing treble to compensate for the mod. There is more bass, mids, and highs for a given volume setting. This essentially reduces the headroom of the amp, making it distort sooner. There is nothing wrong with this.

A thought- one might ask "Why didn't Fender just make a better-sounding amp with better bass response to start with?"

I won't claim to know Fender's logic or make any judgements, but they probably try to make the amp loud and clean as possible, to make it more attractive to customers who need volume and keep up in the amp volume wars with competitors. Cutting a bit of bass is an easy way to do this. Though the amp sounds better modded, it's hard to tell marketing that your amp isn't as "loud" as the competition's on purpose, to make it sound better.

 

[bongolation]

Not a bad page. He has some good ideas. But his measurements and those screen captures are pretty suspect. At least, the conclusions he draws from them are.

I was having somewhat similar feelings, though I didn't really give them much thought. I didn't like the "after" recording and didn't quite get the "improvement," but that wasn't my main concern on the page. I just took a look at the tone stack thing in passing. His real point, I think, is that you can monkey with the tone stack more cheaply than swapping speakers.

A thought- one might ask "Why didn't Fender just make a better-sounding amp with better bass response to start with?"

I suppose for the same reason they couldn't design a functioning reverb on the first try. ALL of this started with my discussion (as the late "Chaingun") on the FDP with Bill about the wretched reverb misdesign on the Greenboard, and other mods came later.

I won't claim to know Fender's logic or make any judgements, but they probably try to make the amp loud and clean as possible, to make it more attractive to customers who need volume and keep up in the amp volume wars with competitors. Cutting a bit of bass is an easy way to do this. Though the amp sounds better modded, it's hard to tell marketing that your amp isn't as "loud" as the competition's on purpose, to make it sound better.

That's probably a fair call.

 

[boingoman]

I was having somewhat similar feelings, though I didn't really give them much thought. I didn't like the "after" recording and didn't quite get the "improvement," but that wasn't my main concern on the page. I just took a look at the tone stack thing in passing. His real point, I think, is that you can monkey with the tone stack more cheaply than swapping speakers.

Whew! I've seen you link to this guy's page a couple times, I figured you were gonna flame me for pointing out his flaws.

I agree about the speaker vs. tone stack mods, as far as price. If you know how to do it, the parts for completely replacing the whole tone stack can't be more than $5 or so.

I dig that tone stack calculator thing. Cool app.


I didn't listen to the recordings at all. I kind of figured he was a bit off base already, especially evaluating the amp with the tone controls dialed back. How do you know what the amp sounds like if you are cutting a bunch of stuff out by dialing back the tone knobs?

The way I go about it, I usually do my overall assessments with the tone controls all the way up, as this is the best way to find the amp's true sound, I feel. No cut in any band except what the tone caps give, and maximum available gain.
It gives the truest picture of the amp's max available headroom as well.

I suppose for the same reason they couldn't design a functioning reverb on the first try. ALL of this started with my discussion (as the late "Chaingun") on the FDP with Bill about the wretched reverb misdesign on the Greenboard, and other mods came later.

I'd be interested in checking out those discussions.

 

[bongolation]

the parts for completely replacing the whole tone stack can't be more than $5 or so.

Yeah, especially if you forego using Orange Drops, which are very expensive through normal retail stores and give little - if any - tonal advantages at the frequencies involved over less pricey capacitors.

I'd be interested in checking out those discussions [about the reverb defects].

There's nothing much to say that he didn't cover on that site's reverb section. That's a distillation of many months of rambling discussions of little individual worth.

 

[boingoman]

There's nothing much to say that he didn't cover on that site's reverb section. That's a distillation of many months of rambling discussions of little individual worth.

Thanks- I'll check it out.

 

[KKM1]

They may also have different sounds because they are different amps, if one is a greenboard and one is a whiteboard.

my black tolex BJr is a 2004 so it has the same exact electronics as the 2005 tweed.