Blackstar Ht STAGE 60

[matt86ie]

First off hello to all Blackstar users and musicians, bought the stage 60 about 4 weeks ago and loved it playing at home in my studio
and used it on 3 occassions with my band, it has been a head wreck for me these last few years and costly trying to get only just two sounds
that is a great country rhythm sound and an overdrive, I have my own 3 piece band on the road playing mostly social and wedding functions
the guitar i use is a usa tele ( not the vintage) bought it new about 6 years ago, and strings used are Ernie ball regular slinky gauge 10 to 46, i place an sm 57 in front of the amp on stage and use only foot switch board supplied, i find my sound very cutting especially on the first string when playing rhythm, and as for overdrive i`m looking for that status quo sound which i can`t seem to find with the stage 60, it`s either too overdriven or not there at all, i`m tring to explain as best i can, i hope someone out there can pick up on where i`m coming from, my band just consists of guitar live drums and keyboards doubling on bass, so what settings should i be using to find that happy medium or is it the fact i`m using the wrong strings on my guitar, should i change out the pickups? just two sounds! nice warm rhythm clean sound and distortion for the rock`n roll , not heavy metaly or trashy
can anyone help me out here ?

[Barreldog]

Hi Matt, I just received my HT 60 two days ago & am trying to get some good sounds out of it too. I found the clean channel too dark & muddy & the OD channels too fizzy or buzzy sounding. I put a 31 band graphic EQ in the effects loop & boosted the mid to higher freq's alittle bit. The clean channel now sounds incredible. I can get just about any clean sound I want out of it now. It helped with the Od channels a little but I'm still not happy with them. The best sound so far for them is with the gain on about 1 & the volume up around 6 or 7. The gain knob seems to bring on the fizzy sound. I think I'm going to try swapping out the pre amp tubes & see if I can get what I'm looking for. Hope this helps a little. Let me know if you come up with anything else.

[toneseeker]

yes look at changing preamp tubes as the stock are probably not so good,if their sovtek's? or tad?,may i also add sovteks sound good in some amp's,but try jj's first,ge,nos are nice,but jj's i have found they smooth out the gain with much nicer tone and does wonders for power tubes!

[gt_jumper]

First off hello to all Blackstar users and musicians, bought the stage 60 about 4 weeks ago and loved it playing at home in my studio
and used it on 3 occassions with my band, it has been a head wreck for me these last few years and costly trying to get only just two sounds
that is a great country rhythm sound and an overdrive, I have my own 3 piece band on the road playing mostly social and wedding functions
the guitar i use is a usa tele ( not the vintage) bought it new about 6 years ago, and strings used are Ernie ball regular slinky gauge 10 to 46, i place an sm 57 in front of the amp on stage and use only foot switch board supplied, i find my sound very cutting especially on the first string when playing rhythm, and as for overdrive i`m looking for that status quo sound which i can`t seem to find with the stage 60, it`s either too overdriven or not there at all, i`m tring to explain as best i can, i hope someone out there can pick up on where i`m coming from, my band just consists of guitar live drums and keyboards doubling on bass, so what settings should i be using to find that happy medium or is it the fact i`m using the wrong strings on my guitar, should i change out the pickups? just two sounds! nice warm rhythm clean sound and distortion for the rock`n roll , not heavy metaly or trashy
can anyone help me out here ?

Something isn't right if you cant clean up a mild gain signal with a single coil/lipstick pickup . You didn't mention channel 2 though, seeing there is a high gain channel (no#3) and a supposedly milder gain channel 2. There are also voicing switches that you can try to get the preferred sound you want. I really hope you get the amp sorted for yourself, nothing worse then having a useless drive channel.

[matt86ie]

yes look at changing preamp tubes as the stock are probably not so good,if their sovtek's? or tad?,may i also add sovteks sound good in some amp's,but try jj's first,ge,nos are nice,but jj's i have found they smooth out the gain with much nicer tone and does wonders for power tubes!

thanks for the reply , the whole purpuse of me getting this amp was to get rid of pedals and graphics, to have two simple sounds
clean and od , now your saying the two tubes on the back need to be changed out, your getting very technical here for me
but and i say it again but if what your saying will work then i`m all for it, one of my replies mentioned the clean sound to be muddy a little and the od very fizzy very well described, the reviews this amp got are very very good, i have mentioned the type band i have and no way is it heavy metal
which i say this amp is more suited to corrcet me if i`m wrong anyone, but now that you have mentioned change the tubes, is this a big job to do and
what exactly do you think i should go for ? one guy there also said he added a 31 band graphic to his and it worked out for him, cant see myself going down that road, so anyway thanks for the replys lads keep the ideas coming in

[matt86ie]

yes look at changing preamp tubes as the stock are probably not so good,if their sovtek's? or tad?,may i also add sovteks sound good in some amp's,but try jj's first,ge,nos are nice,but jj's i have found they smooth out the gain with much nicer tone and does wonders for power tubes!

hi there ! having fun with your stage 60, you have described exactly what i was trying to say , that fizzy sound altough the clean is not that bad yes a little muddy , but changing out the tubes may do the trick, let me know

[matt86ie]

yes look at changing preamp tubes as the stock are probably not so good,if their sovtek's? or tad?,may i also add sovteks sound good in some amp's,but try jj's first,ge,nos are nice,but jj's i have found they smooth out the gain with much nicer tone and does wonders for power tubes!

hi again just looking at me amp manual, I see that the ht 60 is fitted with 2 EL34 valves said to be the most sought after by all musician enthusiasts
and then we have 2 ECC83 valves said to be used in every hi-fi guitar amplifier worldwide and finally we have 1 ECC82 valve said to be used in tv`s
why would they put a valve that is used in televisions into a guitar amp ? anyway where do i go from here, what valves would i go for and also changing out valves is their any possibility this would do damage to my amp other than change the sound of it

[Barreldog]

Today is the third day with this amp & I was starting to get a little frustrated with the sound. I figured I would start from scratch so I took the EQ out of the effects loop, put all knobs back to center & started trying it again. After a little while I started getting some very decent sounds out of this.

First - This is a very loud amp. I have a 100 watt marshall JCM 800 & this is at least as loud & maybe louder.
With the master volume low the sound comes out sounding muffled & somewhat fizzy on the OD channels.
After turning it up a little bit it cleared up & started sounding more the way I thought it should.

Clean channel - Voice button pushed in, volume at about 1/4(first line) bass middle, treble almost 3/4 & reverb a little more than 1/4 I'm getting a very good Fenderish clean sound. Tried on guitars with single & humbuckers, both treble & neck p/u's sounds good on all . Master is: resonance & presence a little more than 1/2, master volume at 1/4. Turn up the clean volume & it adds some dirt but in a good way ,breaks up a little with agressive picking. I've been playing on this for about an hour now & I can't believe how good it sounds. (it sounds good without the reverb too)

The OD channels have a lot more knobs to adjust so it took longer to start getting a sound I liked. Again, as the master volume goes up the sound opened up & the fizzy sound got less fizzy.
OD1 - Voice button in, Gain at 1/4, Volume alittle more than 1/4. Bass, middle & treble all a little more than 1/2, ISF at 1/4, master set the same as above. Getting a real nice crunchy rhythm not overly distorted sound. If it's too crunchy turn the gain almost all the way down & its similar to the clean channel but with a little fuzz. turn up the gain a little & I'm getting a real good rock rhythm sound. Sounds a little like early AC/DC.
OD2 is heavy. Voice button out, Gain between 1/4 & 1/2. everything else tha same as OD1. Real heavy rhythm tone, really nice & articulate on leads with good sustain when holding a note.

This is what I've found so far. I'm starting to have a real good time playing through this & starting to get the sounds I wanted.

[gt_jumper]

Barreldog, You're not helping my G.A.S at all

[DrKarnivore]

yes look at changing preamp tubes as the stock are probably not so good,if their sovtek's? or tad?,may i also add sovteks sound good in some amp's,but try jj's first,ge,nos are nice,but jj's i have found they smooth out the gain with much nicer tone and does wonders for power tubes!

hi again just looking at me amp manual, I see that the ht 60 is fitted with 2 EL34 valves said to be the most sought after by all musician enthusiasts
and then we have 2 ECC83 valves said to be used in every hi-fi guitar amplifier worldwide and finally we have 1 ECC82 valve said to be used in tv`s
why would they put a valve that is used in televisions into a guitar amp ? anyway where do i go from here, what valves would i go for and also changing out valves is their any possibility this would do damage to my amp other than change the sound of it

Hi mate, the ECC82 will be the phase inverter, it doesn`t colour tone as such, don`t worry.

Barreldog, thanks for your experimentation. I ordered a HT60 today as my main gigging amp, so I`ll start with your settings as a baseline. In terms of it getting better the more you crank, well, these are EL34`s baby, thats what they love!

Anymore settings to share? Have you found any settings that sound similar to your JCM800, I used to own 2 800`s and wouldn`t mind using a similar sound as my main gigging crunch tone.