PlayJazzGuitar.com Forum

[Jazzy]

Hey

I bought a Fender Blues Jr. amp today, it sounds fantastic. Worked perfectly with my pedals and my strat.
I was so sick of carrying my big fender amps everywhere hehe
I plan to use it mainly for country and rock ( I almost only use Polytone for jazz now ).

I have 6 gigs the next 10 days, so my question is:

For you who own a blues jr., have you used in bigger settings? Like blues/country rock bands... I`m playing at some country festivals, and I guess some of the venues are quite big. Do the amp have enough headroom for this kinda gigs?

Thanks,
Michael

[Jake Hanlon]

no it won't handle it I'm pretty sure man. These are odd amps and sound decent enough in certain situations. I have played through them a lot and generally think they are crap but sometimes one comes off the line that is worth playing through.

Any sort of outdoor or big club type venue, you're going to get out of luck pretty fast with just a 15w amp, with those crapy speakers.
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[Jazzy]

Do you really think they`re crap? For a jazz setting?
I think it has a fantastic "twangy" sound for that price and size. Kinda the Knopfler meets Hank Marvin meets Luther Perkins sound

But yeah, I guess I`ll bring my super reverb instead to these gigs....

[voodobop]

I like that amp, in large because you dont have to crank it up to get tone out of it. I wouldn't call it crap. I dont think it will be big enough for a many gigs though. I have a friend who has to have that amp miked at most club gigs.

[JakeJew]

at a big setting wouldn't you be using a PA anyway?
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[Jazzy]

Voodobop, exactly my point I`m going to use it in studio today by the way, exciting

Jake, yeah, we`re using a PA. Maybe I`ll just bring both, just to test it, hehe...

later

[Secret2goodtoneispractice]

[jokron]

[Jazzy]

I`ve done these kinda gigs for over 10 years now, so yeah, I have a couple of 57`s

I just came home from studio, where I tested the blues jr. Sounded great, we recorded 9 outlaw songs. The perfect sound for that

[JakeJew]

[greentone]

I've used, repaired, and sent guys out on the road with the Blues Jr. It is a good sounding amp. If you are going to use it a lot--three to five nights a week with travel--it is going to show its design limitations soon enough.

The amplifier was designed to give a younger player the very best sound for under $400. It certainly does that. A pro can get buckets of sound out of a Blues Jr, too, and be very happy with the amplifier in a travel situation. However, the input jacks are card mounted, as are the tube sockets. If you use the amplifier nearly nightly, the constant motion of plugging and unplugging guitars places a great deal of perpendicular stress against the solder joints on the circuit card where the input jack is soldered. (This is a weakness of the Blues and Hot Rod DeVille amps, too.) Sooner or later, these card mounted jacks fail at the solder joints and need to be resoldered. Get someone who is comfortable doing board-level work to do the repair. I think the certified Fender repair is just to replace _all_ boards at once, which is not inexpensive. The repair is really no big deal, but you cannot put much heat to those thin-trace boards or the board will fail. Same thing with the tube sockets. Replacing output tubes regularly, or having a pedal rattle around in the back of the amp--just don't store stuff in there, okay--will cause the board mounted tube sockets to fail at the solder lugs, too. Same thin traces apply there, too. A Fender tech will replace _all_ boards--that's three in a Blues Jr--for a single failure of one solder lug.

An old-school 15-watt Deluxe with point-to-point solder wiring can hit the road for 50 years without this sort of thing happening. The difference is that they aren't $375 anymore.

Moral of the story: take the Blues Jr out on the road, mike it and enjoy it. Just be reasonably careful every time you plug in and unplug a guitar and every time you swap EL-84 power tubes. The 12AX7 pream tubes shouldn't need replacement for years, unless you get a defective one right out of the store, nobody what anyone tells you. They just aren't that stressed under typical use.
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Soul Jazz & Blues

[Jazzy]

Jake, sorry if I was a bit unclear. I guess my main concern was; does it play "clean" enough? But as I said, I played the amp for many hours today ( quite loud ), and it worked great

Greentone, thanks a lot for the info. I know what you mean, both the
inputs on my Blues Deville are broken.

[greentone]

Jazzy,

The broken inputs on the Deville is a common problem. I have had quite a few people bring me Devilles, Juniors, and other Fender amps to fix with this one recurring problem. The inputs are sealed units with legs that insert through the circuit board and solder on the other side. Repeated upward/downward pressure when plugging and unplugging the guitar eventually works loose one or more of the legs. Resoldering the legs puts the input jacks back into working order. The trick: apply just enough heat with a soldering tool designed for working with circuit boards so that the solder melts and you get a good joint, but not enough heat so as to actually lift the circuit traces. I've seen this happen with too much heat application.

The kind of soldering iron/station that is ideal for discrete component soldering of resistors/chokes/capacitors/tube sockets on point-to-point wiring of all-tube amplifiers of older design, e.g., the coveted Bassman, is inappropriate for working on circuit boards of modern design such as those used in contemporary Fender amplifiers.

The fix on your Deville is about a 30-45 minute job. Most of that time is just disassembling the chassis and putting it back together.

NEVER ATTEMPT THIS YOURSELF IF YOU DO NOT UNDERSTAND HIGH VOLTAGE ELECTRONICS. THE ENERGY STORED EVEN AFTER QUITE SOME TIME IN THE CAPACITORS IN A TUBE AMPLIFIER IS ENOUGH TO KILL.
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Soul Jazz & Blues

[sunflower]

you are a wise man GT

I'm interested you didn't mention the bias setting being too hot as stock
or have fender addressed this by now ?

mine's an old green cct board one and its bias was way too hot

Glad you're diggin it Jazzy

[Phrygian Dominant]

Last year I saw a really good local CHristain rock group playing at a fairly large sized venue. The guitar sounded great and to my shock all the lead guitarist was using was a miked Blues Jr. and a bunch of stompboxes. He had some clean sections that sounded really good too. I imagine he probably had changed the speaker though?

My past experience with that amp is that if you want to play a venue of any size and have headroom you have to mike it or it just won't cut through. It's only 15 watts after all. It can sound really good for clean playing if you don't push it too hard
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