I'm very keen depending in the price. Would be great to have the BM for a band situation and the Mini OTS for practice. Noticed no jazz/rock settings... Can't have it all in a small package I guess

Congrats on the purchase Mike and welcome to the forum!

Do tell us more about the mods!

You'll love the amp!

Might be a tad difficult to lug around for gigs... Haha

Seeing sducks settings, can you ask people post theirs as well?

- Preamp volume =7 with humbuckers and 9 with strat
- deep and mid switches off, rock switch on
- treble = 8
- mids = 5
- bass = 3
- tonestack bypassed
- gain = 6 with strat and 4.5 with humbuckers
- level 3 or 4
- master = 4 or 5
- OD trim = 10 to 11

Clater
- drive = 11 o'clock
- bright 1 = on
- input = max
- bright 2 = off
- output = set to taste for overall volume

I've noticed without the bright switch on, the neck humbucker sounds muddy. Anyone know have ideas on how I can improve my settings?

Argh, I typed up a massive deep, detailed meaningful response on the iPad, and lost it when I minimized the browser!

50w BM with clator built into the head with the following mods done by Ceriatone
- LNFB
- Tone stack lift mod
- tone stack lift adjustment pot
- PAB volume adjustment pot

Tubes
- v1 Tung sol reissue
- v2 Tung sol reissue
- v3 Sovtek
Stock JJ's for the 6l6 and a Low gain TAD in the clator

All of the above played through a Ceriatone made cab with a EVM12L.

Guitars used is a fender strat with lollar blondes and a Gibson les Paul R9.

Pedals used are keeley katana, lovepedal eternity roadhouse, OCD, Zendrive 2 (waiting delivery) and a carbon copy delay and TC hall of fame reverb in the loop. This amp takes pedals extremly well, but a reminder that you'll need to tweak your pedal's settings based on how youve set up your amp....and you will be changing the settings on your amp a lot...more on this later...

Impressions are.....

Cleans... As a few above have mentioned, certainly voiced similar to a fender. Articulate, raw and aggressive which can cut through the mix with no issues. I've owned and played a few fenders and have always had to use reverb to add a little more dimension to the tone, but on the BM, this can be achieved with no effects at all. The cleans on it's own has almost a 3 dimensional tone to it...astounding really..... The amp is naturally a dark, however in conjunction with a clator, by having the drive at 11 o'clock and the output adjusted to compensate for volume and the left bright switch on, it can sound nice and chimey. Sustain on the clean channel is abundant, and all the nuances of your playing come through on this amp. To be frank, the cleans are the best I've ever played, and it will get you the John Mayer type tones with ease.

OD..... Certainly not your typical sounding D style OD. Definitely rooted within the Marshall family, but not as aggressive as a JCM. To me, it sounds more of a classic OD that is thick and articulate. For those looking for the D style OD, you'll be disappointed. Go for a HRM or OTS instead...but you'll miss out on the amazing cleans! I've found that this amp needs to be cranked quite loud for the OD to shine. At lower volumes, the OD doesn't appear to sustain and sing as it does when cranked, but this is typical of tube amps. The OD on this amp has by far been the most difficult to dial in, and I did and still do encounter issues with a fizzy OD...still working on it. I know I haven't got the settings at it's best by far and this opinion may change after some further time with it. For those that can't be bothered dialing in the OD side of the amp, this amp will also serve as a great clean base platform for pedals.

Now, if there are those that have found this thread by researching on the Internet as I did, let me tell you that this amp will frustrate you and the initial "discovery" period will probably have you with tones that are less than average... Well in my experience anyways. I had never owned a d style amp before and have only owned the more traditional fender amps which are by far easier to dial in. This monster on the other hand, prefers subtle tweaks on the controls, and are extremely interactive with each other which can lead to frustrations, but when you have it right, it's well worth the effort and you are rewarded with tones far more complex and articulate than your normal off the shelf amps. I will never again be buying a new fender or Marshall at the local music shops again. I've had this amp for about 6 months now, and am only starting to feel like I understand this amp a little more, but at the start it was quite overwhelming. Be prepared for a love/hate relationship if you are not familiar with d style amps, or not have a good understanding of how a tube amp works, but again.... Get it right, and you'll be grinning from ear to ear...

I changed the 12ax7 in my Clator with a TAD and that seems to work pretty well. Only drives when the the drive is at about 3...

Has it always been like that?

Thats odd, because the bluesmaster dont react that way with the clator. Try Back off the drive even more and add more output to compensate for the volume.

Interested to see your thoughts on the differences between the BM and the FM

Hi guys,

Just an update on the amp.

Nothings been changed with the exception of some tweaking and a few emails back and forth with Nik.

Turns out the volume adjustment I had for the tone stack bypass was actually a pot for the lift to adjut how much I wanted it to actually bypass. I've since had this cranked up and the OTS OD tones are there. At the moment, having this pot and the PAB adjustment pot cranked seems to be where the OD channel sounds at its best. I've tested the bypass pot by havin it cranked to full, which completely bypasses the HRM stack and have tried adjusting the internal trim pots to check, and yep, it is completely unresponsive when engaged. And all this time I thought it was to just level the volume out!

Must say, the amp certainly had the John Mayer cleans and has a very smooth d*type OD now. Need more time to tweak it further (and I suspect I'll forever will be) but the amp no longer has me scratching my head. Very pleased with it and the mods that Nik did on it for me.

This amp is going no where...

Noticed your eBay add was ended really quickly! Hope you got a good price for the BM. Now it's the waiting game for the new FM eagle

Hey guys,

Had the amp opened up to play with the trimmers again and noticed the mids trimpot is at 25k instead of 20k, the bass at 250k instead of 220k and the same for the treble. Is this likely to be an issue?

Thanks Gregg,

I had my BM modded to have a 100k pot to adjust the PAB volume, so in theory if I crank it up at about 80%, that should get enough signal and produce the same sort of result? The boost in volume I'd imagine would be quite big.

I'll be tweaking the HRM trimmers this weekend a little more and I've made note to bump the mids and turn the treble down as silly me, I did all my sound checks only on the jazz setting. Sounds a little too trebly on rock.

The tonestack bypass mod I have on the amp too, but from the sounds of it, you're partially lifting the tonestack, where as I'm completely bypassing it. I might try put in either a 250k pot or 100k pot where the existing switch is, to try get it to partially lift and get it to middle grounds.

Okay, another update... Trying to keep my tone chasing progress in this single thread as I started wondering into other people's threads

In addition to the change of tubes, speakers as previously mentioned, know now done the following;

- adjusted the internal HRM trim pots
- placed a mxr 6 band EQ in the FX loop
- tested the LNFB switch which I actually forgot about!

Of all of the above, I must say that the HRM tonestack adjustment was the most affective. The change was rather big as I tested it with the PAB and OD channel on from time to time to listen for the changes. The EQ in the loop and in the front obviously changed the amps tone, but I found myself preferring the OD channel without it. Just sounded more "fat" as opposed to the EQ, it sounded either thin or too muddy because of the boost in mids. Just didn't sound natural to me, and it also messed around with them amazing cleans on the BM.

Played with the LNFB switch a little today, but the change was very subtle. Not sure if i need to retweak everything again to get the most out of it, but I might have more time this weekend to do so. As mentioned in another thread, I've found that tweaking this amp requires very small adjustments and some controls are very subtle. A good example is the presence and pull bright switch on the volume control. Winding the presence from nil to max doesn't immediately sound different on the clean, but you notice a certain brightness on the OD which can make it sound harsh.....

Not quite sure where to go from here in search of those dumble OD tones...

Managed to play around with the LNFB today and it definitely does change the characteristics if the amp. The OD seems to smoothen out a little but the difference is very subtle. Gosh... It's a common trend with this amp... Every change made is subtle to eventually build that final tone.

Actually I've got the LNFB on my BM, but to be honest I haven't used it yet. Guess because it's concealed at the back where the preamp tubes are. Guess its out of site, out of mind! Will try when it out later tonight!

Before I give you my feedback, I'd like for you to know that my advice is based purely on my own experience and observation alone with my BM. My experience might be the result of unlearned tweaking of my BM or takings of a wrong approach to setting it up.

In a short, I would go for a OTS or HRM but probably the OTS if you're looking for that typical dumble sound. I'm not saying that that those sounds can't be had out of a BM, but boy it's hard work. I've had my amp for about 2 months now, and I'm still looking for those tones out of my amp. I've changed tubes, speakers had additional mods added to the amp, Clator built in and have extensively tweaked the amp on both the external controls and internal trim pots. The result has been great now, and the OD is sounding great and is certainly getting me closer to those dumble tones I was originally wanting. I do plan on adding an EQ pedal into the loop in which another BM owner on the forum has had some success with, and I should find out today if this gets me sonically there when I pick up the pedal later today.

As you can see, the journey has been a big one, but in saying that, the tones I'm getting out of the amp is nothing short of amazing. The cleans on the BM are immaculate and is by far the best that I've heard out of an amp, but that those tones were easy to setup. The OD on the other hand has been where the journey been. The OD today is to me definitely Marshall flavored now and sounds great after adjusting the internal hrm trims, and this is where the OD has improved the most. Previously, the OD was either too little or too much where it began to get fizzy, but now it I'm able to get some very nice tones out of the channel with PAB engaged. As a matter of fact, these tones are excellent on their own right.

So in saying that, the BM is amazing in its own right and I think the dumble tones can be had out of it, but it's hard work, well for me anyways. The OTS I think, will be easier to get those tones you're after. The BM is probably a better amp or those looking for their own tones, where as the OTS is probably a good amp for those looking for that typical dumble tones.