Ceriatone Forum

Anybody have or play the Bluesmaster model? please tell me about it.

Come on -No ones owns a Bluesmaster  ??? I would like to know how it compares to the S&M OTS?

Mine will be here in a week or so... but it will be in a kit form with no trannies.
It will take a while to built it but I promise... clips are coming.  ;)

I already own an OTS and if I borrow a HRM, I could perhaps record all three.

I have a Bluesmaster 100 that I was told would ship last thursday. I'll keep you posted when I receive it. Although, since I've never played through any of the others I have nothing to base a comparison on.

If I would have waited 4 hours to post, I could've written that I had received the Bluesmaster 100 instead of just expecting it. I'll need a few days to get it tubed and in the cabinet, then I'll post my opinion.

Give it a good burn in. At least 24 hours, by all means play it but don't judge it until you have.

I am curious too. What is it supposed to sound like?


marin

Thanks guys! I am looking forward to your comments!

First off, this will probably be useless to you guys who have played through these kind of amps before because most of what I'm going to say is probably more about the kind of amp in general as apposed to the Bluesmaster 100 specifically.

I tubed it with ei ax7's and JJ 6v6's. I wanted to tame the 100 watts a bit so I went with the JJ's.

My first impression of the clean channel is "Wow, this is the sound I've been looking for my whole life." It just has that sound that seems like you can only get from small wattage amps like a champ or a princeton but it's way better and you can get it at any volume.

As far as the overdrive channel...there is literal thousands of distinct flavors of tone here. It is really going to be difficult to figure which flavor I want to use for a whole night of playing.

As far summing up the Bluesmaster specifically... it has the mid boost switch added, the bright switch moves to a push-pull on the volume and the internal OD trimmer is moved to the back panel with a regular pot so it can be adjusted on the fly. You get new features without losing anything. Again, I can't make a comparison since I've never tried the others but I LOVE this amp!!!

I had the impression that the Bluesmaster should be less refined than a standard OTS, rawer, is that the case ?

I've never played through any of the others so i can't say first hand, but after listening to the clips it would seem to be the case. It does seem to have more grit and not quite as smooth but that could be more my style than the amp.

You sure you got 6V6's in there?

Yes, I do have 6v6's. I had read that the JJ 6v6's could take the higher plate voltages so I ran ran it by Nik and he gave me the go ahead.

I did get to use the amp on a gig over the weekend. Wow! I'm sure many have been in the same situation where you play an amp at the store and love the sound, you bring it home and love the sound, you take it out on the job and in the the band setting all that great tone seems to disappear. Not so with this amp...the sound was exactly the same sound I heard on all the demos online and the same sound I heard when I first set it up at home.

The cleans are bright and dimensional without being harsh, the od is smooth, full and creamy while still being able to cut through the mix. This is the stage sound I've been looking for 30 years.

I LOVE this amp!!!

I didn't know you could do a direct swap like that to be honest.  That's an interesting development because you are putting out less watts overall.  I know my 44 watt OTS is still LOUD!

Thx,
Jim

Hi

The overtones put at 440-460 on the plates.

Modern 6v6s from EH or JJ can take this, and so would some other brands I guess altho I dont know.

With rebias, you can easily do the swap.

Thanks!

Nik

I just finished a Bluesmaster kit from Nik.

To answer a post from above, yes it is a bit rawer sounding than an ODS. (I know an industry rep that has 3 real Dumbles) I removed the teble cap across the OD level control on mine to tame a bit of high end harshness.

I'll need to gig with it to make a real critical analysis of how it sounds, but so far so good. Mine is the 100 watter, to the half power switch is a must for small venues. Maybe I'll try the 6V6 option mentioned here.

Any chance for a clip perhaps.

 ;)

Bringing that topic back to life...so the Bluesmaster HRM would actually be rawer, some seems to say more harsh, than standard HRM ?
It's not what I understtood from Nik's description on this board, could someone confirm ? I am seriously looking at a 100W HRM Bluesmaster, but if the OD is really on the harsh side, I'm not sure that's what I really need.

I'm really keen to hear one myself. I would have thought that any rawness could have been tamed with the HRM trimmers, but I'd like to know if its not. My OTS won't do that verrrryy smooth RF tones, but I'm not really looking for that. I use it with trimmer and level low for a much cleaner OD, then use pedals to juice it up more.

What I'd be looking for in a Bluesmaster is a little more edgy clean tone, a bit brighter with more harmonic content ( a bit like my DC-30 12ax7 channel) and an OD is the same as my OTS, but with the added TMB capability.

Check my clips...
http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=1160.msg8569#msg8569 (http://ceriatoneforum.com/index.php?topic=1160.msg8569#msg8569)
Bluesmaster does not sound harsh to me at all in fact, it sounds smoother than my OTS.
At least to me.

 ;)

Hi mcinku.
Thnaks for your clips, that's useful.
They actually both sound good. I think that I would need to hear a gainier tone to know if the BM HRM suits me or not, yours is barely overdriven here.

I hope you’ve seen this clip already.
If not this is D’lite bluesmaster HRM amp demo with clean, drive and loads of drive.
Ceriatone can sound exactly like this with proper inner trimmer settings.
Also please pay attention when Billy talks about changing 6L6s to 6V6s and tube- transformer primary impedance mismatch – NO GOOD!
For 6V6’s you need matched trany to get proper tone!!!


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KV9ZO7CJvY

Not as smooth as OTS but more SRV, Mayer territory.

Like it a lot. SRV cleans would be nice indeed, y'know a little breakup, chimey.

Perhaps we all need to pester Nik about a dual primary for the OT so we can swap to 6v6's and lose the impedance mismatch issues. (I have already mentioned it to him only a couple of days ago!)