This is the Blackstar St. James EL34 head – an affordable, super lightweight tube amp that should give us shimmery Fender-esque cleans and thick Marshall-esque drive tones in one box!

Get the St. James EL34 Head here: [ Ссылка ]

Blackstar market their St. James range as being the lightest tube/valve amps out there… but I think they’re way more than just that. When I tried higher gain 6L6 combo version (video elsewhere on my channel!) I was blown away at the amp’s sounds and versatility, but also its modern-thinking feature set.

The series is packed with extensive modern connectivity, power attenuation options (you can go from silent playing to the full-on 50 watts at the flick of a switch), and has access to Blackstar’s excellent Cab Rig technology, a next-generation DSP speaker simulator which gives you almost limitless tonal options via software and on the amp itself. The EL34 head is also touted as an amazing pedal platform amp, to which many videos already here on YouTube can attest (as can I!).

But what I wanted to do today was really put the amp through its paces with four different guitars and pickup types, and really see how the St. James’s two channels could handle it. So, I picked four of my favorite guitars for the job:

Fender Tele (you can’t get my 2014 model any more, but this is pretty close): [ Ссылка ]
Harley Benton JA-60CC: [ Ссылка ]
Yamaha Revstar Standard P90: [ Ссылка ]
Epiphone Les Paul Traditional Pro (also no longer made, but this one is similar!): [ Ссылка ]

Would we really get authentic Fendery cleans and thick, Marshall-type crunches? It’s time to find out! In the video, I play the amp in as many different styles as I can, from pop, funk and country through to indie, rock and punk, and we’ll even tune down to Drop D and see if we can do metal as well!

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Hello!
00:26 Introduction to the St. James range and the EL34 head
01:59 Front panel features on the amp
02:49 Back panel features
04:08 Today’s rig and plan

Channel I/Clean Sounds
05:55 Reference tones on all guitars/channels
06:54 Poppy barre chords
07:53 Country strummed chords
08:12 Funky rhythms
08:39 Blues progression
09:24 Southern rock picked arpeggios
09:44 Surf sound w/extra reverb
10:16 Indie pop picked arpeggios w/extra reverb

Channel II/Overdriven Sounds
10:55 Upbeat indie barre chords
11:19 Garage rock riff
11:49 Indie rock octaves
12:15 Droning indie riff
12:37 Indie rock barre chords
13:00 Edgy indie barre chords
13:14 Fat indie rhythm chords
13:44 Groovy classic rock riff
14:10 Hendrix inspired rock riff
14:26 Airbourne inspired rock riff
15:10 AC/DC inspired classic rock riff
15:29 Driving classic rock riff
15:43 Classic rock riff
16:15 Hard rock melodic lead
16:58 80s stadium rock riff
17:18 Classic hard rock riff
17:35 Glam rock riff
17:55 Hard rock riff
18:27 Alternative rock riff
18:51 Pop punk riff
19:41 Melodic pop punk lead
19:57 Green Day inspired punk rock riff
20:50 Drop D metal chugging attempt on all guitars

22:14 My thoughts and which guitar sounded best
23:55 Sounds discussion
25:34 The EQ section
26:21 Advantages of the St. James range
26:47 Price
26:07 Cab Rig
27:37 It sounds great with real cabs too!
28:09 Headphones out
28:23 Perfect from silent practice to live use
29:08 Should you get the head or the combo?
30:03 Should you get the St. James EL34 or 6L6 model?
31:30 Thanks and goodbye

You can see my dedicated video on the St. James 6L6 Combo here: [ Ссылка ]

My setup was as follows: I ran the St. James straight into my Mac, and recorded in Logic Pro X. That's it! No post-processing on the sounds was done.

Enjoy!


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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Duck In The Alley – TrackTribe.

#Blackstar #BlackstarAmps #BlackstarStJames

*Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much!*

@Blackstaramps
@SoundServiceGmbH

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