 Yeah, all good Good evening everybody Welcome to tonight's webcast. Sorry about that at the beginning there. We didn't know if we were running live or not I was just jamming away Thank you for tuning in as always If you're watching on YouTube at a later point, thank you for tuning in as well here So tonight is really about looking at some of our valve amplifiers The last couple of webcasts that I've done have really concentrated on our digital side of things. So let's get back to Tonality valve the tradition of amplifiers and tonight the main focus is the ht5 combo that we have here ready to go I have ht1 Valve combo here next to it the little baby brother and then we have a club 40 One by 12 and then a stage 62 by 12 as part of the venue range Ht5 and one sit under that umbrella as well and tonight is about recreating classic tones from anything from the likes of some Jazzy blues cleans right through to some classic crunches and onto the high gain side of things and What's interesting for me when I travel around the world And I've just recently come back from a very successful trip to New Zealand and Australia is that people are still Grasping the concept of what black star is all about and really The concept the sound in your head the motto is all about giving you the guitar player Lots of different flavors for your tonal palette if you like so to give you the opportunity in one box To go from more classic tones right through to more modern high gain stuff And everywhere in between hopefully of course features like the ISF our patent allows you to Get that tonal stack moving around from the UK side to the American side as well And that features on all of these amps here this evening So we're gonna do a bit of playing a bit of talking about what you can get so hopefully You know, I won't go on too long with the guitar side of things But hopefully you'll get some really cool information about this this kind of video is very useful for you guys that are working in stores Also, if I haven't been to see you yet wherever you are in the world It's good for you guys to kind of get a reminder about some of our fantastic products that are out there in the market Just to talk about the guitar briefly for a sec This is a music man reflex and the cool thing about this is it allows me to just switch between humbuckers and single coil Series and parallel switching there so I can get roughly around about 10 sands out the guitar So I can get the humbucker thing and the single core thing so if there's anybody out there who's watching and they'd like to hear the single core thing going on with one of the Amps just Message us through on the message board there and we'll try and accomplish that for you live while we're here so Firstly, I'm plugged into the HT5 now the HT5 was really The new sheriff in town and still is if you like in my opinion When I used to work in stores when we used to sell small valve combos There was never anything out there really that would give you a clean and a really high gain It was always generally just clean if anything if you cranked it It would start to break up a little bit, and then it will give you maybe a bit of a crunch sand so Really the HT5 was the first concept that we did as a small amplifier that encompassed that whole High-gain thing and it use it uses some really interesting stuff going on inside the amp to achieve that innovation if you like After winning countless awards. It's still one of our strongest sellers around the world So I recommend that you if you're after a small valve amp. It's definitely the first place to look So I'm just going to run through some tones with you The features if you don't or if you don't know if you're not familiar We have a clean channel which consists of a volume and a tone So the tone allows you to find the sweet spot So all the way off is more of a base response all the way on is more of a treble response, and then the volume Zero to ten We then have an overdrive channel or a crunch channel And that allows us now to have a three-band EQ and the black star ISF feature So we can get anything from the British woody tones right through to the the high gain modern American side of things There's also a digital reverb in all of the amps that are behind me now black star deemed the digital reverb to be more Useful for the the high gain overdrive guy With a spring reverb it usually gets a little messy. I don't know if anybody out there has noticed that But I certainly used to when I used to have a valve amp with Crunch and a true spring reverb. It wasn't very useful. I used to use a pedal on the floor We find that these are very useful. So that's interesting for you to know and we'll come to more details about that with the bigger stuff So let's play through some clean stuff on HT5 are so this is my first sound and we've got the volume pushed around about halfway and The tone we've got around about 10 o'clock to give us more slightly more of a bass response Nice really useful Lovely warm lush clean, but let me take you someplace else within that same channel And this is really kind of unique. So bear with me one second So just a little bit of a tweak on the volume and the EQ pushing that treble and now we're in the realms of that boutique Just on the edge breakup clean Let's take that reverb out the mix So we can hear more of the natural sound of the amp a bit of funk going on there But you can really feel that change we went from that warm luscious clean to that really kind of on the edge Mistakes are free So yeah, I mean two really interesting clean tones there from one channel. It's not often that you can get Many amps to give you that and that's in our five watt and that exists Throughout black star products right to our series one range through to artisan right down towards our digital stuff The versatility is there and I encourage you to find that when you try stuff and you're in the store. Check it out Okay, so if we push that volume all the way We're definitely now in that crunch rhythmic area. So, you know this kind of Into the mix Give it some ambience Really cool. Now if we go over to the overdrive channel, we can start where we left off with that tone So we're just gonna change channel there with me So this is More of a lower gain setting on the second channel So we've got I've actually got my gain roughly around about seven o'clock somewhere around there So it's giving me the nice bluesy feel currently. I've got the ISF set to the British side. It's a very muddy kind of Rock rhythm great for blues, you know Really smooth man really cool Push that gain stage So more of a kind of 80s 90s period rock and roll sound hard rock thing Really nice really smooth so Now let's look at something like the the high gain USA style I can see my brother Grant trying to get my attention Sure. Yeah, I mean just for the high gain stuff. I generally switch to Humbucker to give it a bit more grunt But let me show you there's not a lot of difference really I'll switch between Single-core and Humbucker are similar lick if that's gonna work Here we go Firstly Humbucker Single Single Not a massive difference, but it's all in the feel in the moment Of course if you'll know that if you've got different styles of guitars but you know, of course Either one has their own particular beauty, you know, it's cool guitar unique But you know, you can get the fat kind of strapped with the Humbucker on the bridge You can get less pulls these days that are coiled also all sorts of stuff to help you guys out So we've gone from that British woodier kind of high-gain thing 80s 90s rock thing Let's go over to the American kind of mid scoop ISF over to the US to get that change So hopefully you can hear that difference there it's more of a mid scoop sand more grunt to it Pretty cool That's the HT5. There's lots of stuff going on under the hood as well. We've got really cool speaker out options We've got an effects loop on there. We've got an emulated line out Just to name a few things MP3 and all sorts of stuff. So for a small valve amp, it's really great It's unique for a recording you can even gig with it I mean within reason if the PA is really good really pumping you can send an emulated feed from your HT5 into the mixer You can pump it through the front now have some feedback through the wedge You can even put a mic in front of it as well Take up a second channel on the mixer and have a mix of that blender to the possibilities are endless I do it myself with a HT5 when I'm doing some function gigs and stuff like that really cool Of course, it's nice and light So on to the HT1 Let me just briefly move the microphone around so bear with me a second Hopefully we can do this Okay, so now we should get some info and some action on the HT1 now again similar vibe You'll see on this if you look at the front panel There's an overdrive select button that in between outside of that is a gain and a volume So you still have the clean options, but also you can drive that clean as well So I run through this pretty quick We've got a decent amount of reverb on there Overdrive select out. This is clean That's clean warm-ass kind of thing going on if I push the gain stage there in the volume down We're still on the clean channel In that boutique thing that early breakup really cool great for blues and stuff This is a HT1 perfect if you live in a small apartment You know a small house, maybe you've got a young child. Maybe you've got neighbors that are Banging on the wall, you know the HT1's really cool You can get that valve tone that sustain that only a valve can give you in a small one what combo pretty cool On to the overdrive channel now. So if I bring the game back We can now start to look where we left off Jangly indie style just on the edge break Nice and then we can push it harder So currently I've got my ISF on the British side here if I bring it over to the US side Give it more gain and again. We're back in the realms of the Pretty versatile for a little one-watt combo. Hey So I'm to the bigger stuff. It's gonna move this mic stand away Okay, so club 40 One of our most popular combos. So one by 12 We've got two channels We have individual voicing switches in between those channels to give us distinctly different voices as we've already discussed We've got the warm clean for that full bodied modern sand the bright clean for the boutique thing That breakup of a clean sand For the old-school rock and roll stuff and then we've got our crunch channel or overdrive channel with a voicing switch As well, which would give us a classic crunch and then an up-to-date modern high gain Complete with as we looked at on the HT5 Three band EQ for the overdrive channel and ISF for the overdrive channel the clean again has one single tone control Some unique features about the venue stuff is the reverb again. It's a digital circuit But there's two choices Let me try and ask you this is there any amps that you know of apart from this that will give you two choices of reverb Two cleans two crunches within a two-channel product Not many so think about that kind of stuff and black star are very passionate about giving new guitar players all those flavors You know to choose so on here Let's get this out burning so we can look at something which is clean currently my voicing switch is in which is clean So wherever you push that it's generally gonna remain clean um Absolutely awesome if you're sticking pedals through the front there or multi effects really great clean channel black star pride ourselves on the clean What can happen often if you get amplifiers that are concentrated on that high-gain thing is that the clean gets left behind and a Good clean is really useful For the pedal thing for recording for live work So it's great to have that and if you watch a lot of our endorsement videos from all our artists around the world that use Blackstar venue series one eyes on they often mention the clean thing, which is a big deal So let's go from that warm clean to the bright clean things so within a couple of quick turns I'll hopefully take you there. So the clean thing We're still on the clean channel there we can back that volume off to clean it up a little bit Really cool boutique just on the edge We can still roll our volume back and clean up there oil sound very much that cool Stevie Ray Vaughan kind of thing going on there, you know Great really useful And that's bright clean Too gorgeous clean so on to overdrive. I've got the voicing switch out here. So we're more in the old school area. So Nice for that, you know over to the high gain side of things In SFUSA listen to that change Still on a single coil setting there. Let's get the humbucker running Really great Let's look at the reverb's two choices. Let me just feel around the back of the amp. It's all about knowing where to go Hey Clean Demonstrate this is just a really good way of doing it is crank the reverb up to a level where it's kind of bit too much But you can really hear the trails change So at the moment we're more of a dark reverb So the trail is where the change happens light be more shimmering Modern bit dimmer Pretty cool Great option to have that The stage 60 behind us here interestingly If I just turn the amp back on one of the cool things about our venue range is that I can plug The lead in and out and it automatically goes into standby recognizes the amps in standby really cool feature Nasty pops Really quite cool On to the stage 60 this is a bit of a monster 2 by 12 we now have three channels All the usual stuff that you would expect on the reverse effects loop speaker out Emulated out, but now we have some master controls resonance and presence control So they override the EQ so really I'd look at those master controls has been more of a dedicated Sonic control for your sound depending on the room you're playing in so For that sonic purity of playing in a small bar low ceiling you can really kind of push that presence For the the place that's maybe got a high ceiling wooden floors Lots of glass windows you can push that resonance to really work the room, but your EQ can still remain the same So now we have clean channel, but this time we have bass and treble With a voicing switch again for our warm clean and bright clean really useful Overdrive one has its own voicing switch overdrive to has its own voicing switch. So in this instance, let's just Alter the mic for a second Good question. Let's try it So we're just gonna try if the lead So you still get a bit of that click so really the standby switch is needed to move around on that one The way you can tell is that when you plug the lead back in there's a small pause and then it kicks back in But ht stage bigger stuff definitely on it. Okay, so Now we've got this baby running. I'm gonna show you something that you know, you can have your clean So let's just get that right Really nice sound actually I'm just gonna play a little bit of music from one of our endorses Neil Sean Music called 3191 just a little snippet of it, but a nice clean sound It's really well for a luscious reverb Pleasant to play really musical So we can go from something like a clean warm like that on to the overdrive channel We can bring that game back to be more of a kind of classic Overdrive crunch tone and really push things a lot harder on od2 Our ISF on the British side there. So of course we can manipulate that We don't have to go all the way hard right hard left The beauty of black star is that that ISF can be your own sound. Let me put this to you You could have the same Two guitar players in the same band the same axe The same amp and you could stand so different And that's really unique have the same gear and not that it would happen, but not much anyway But you could have the same gear and sound distinctly different depending on how the amp is set up And that's what black star is all about giving you as the guitar player There's a different flavor, you know And everybody's got their own taste their own styling guitar their own playing of course and this should hopefully suit every style Often black star get put into the whole kind of metal genre if you like, but we're everything You know, we do amps that work for the metal guys and the same amp will work for the country guys over in Nashville Really cool. I mean if you look into the the brand it's it's all about that. It's versatility, you know So, I mean that's that's really it for this evening I mean we've gone over a little bit, but I've got a few things to discuss some really exciting things in fact So I'm just gonna put the guitar down for a moment if you don't mind But yeah, I hope that's been a bit more of an insight for you as regards, you know some some of our HT venue products because you know that that's our that's our heritage if you like and what we do You know valve amps the digital thing has obviously had a big push recently We've got some really cool products for the beginners and the the the the pro guys that want the digital side of things Things like ID series and ID core for the smaller stuff Really, this is this is where we we began and I encourage you to try the valve stuff because it really gives you so many options Excuse me one second while I grab my iPad. So That's some exciting stuff going on. There's a brand new competition. Whoo Everywhere is a venue the competition starts on Monday the 1st of September So really around the corner and the prizes are Ultra cool. Okay. This is what you can win You can win a HT venue 100 stack full stack. That's a 100 watt head Part of the same range as this. You've got very similar features to this one. We were just discussing On top of two four by 12s You want to be the envy of your friends? This is the competition for you It's a wicked app and a great setup to get you Gigan and play in live with some cool ultra cool tones So that's the first prize a HT venue stage 100 full stack And also there's a prize to win the chance to be in a black star global advertisement Which is pretty cool in all the magazines all around the world Pretty cool for your band. You know some notoriety for you. You can say yeah, that's me and the black star There are also some cool prizes for the runners-up as well. So to enter all we need is a picture of you You with your black star amp in a venue. That's it. So you need to already have a black star amp We just need you to send a picture through to us with the amp in a venue and obviously The more wacky it might be you never know you might win But of course if you want to be deadly serious With your gear as most musos are So be it so you can enter through the website blackstaramps.com or You can tag us through Instagram and Facebook that kind of thing So you can enter there as well and it runs from obviously Monday the 1st of September until the 31st of October Halloween So get to it. It's a really really great competition and it's available to anyone around the world as well Which is really cool. So if you're watching elsewhere get on it get some pictures to us with your Black star doesn't matter what amplifier is from black star, but it needs to be in the picture with you at a venue pretty cool Also some really good news about our black star potential website This is a website that actually hosts a ton of lessons free online lessons from the likes of myself Gus G. Ozzy Osbourne and firewind knows variety Jamie Humphries some other really cool in Dorsey's around the world And there's loads of beginner lessons on there right through to kind of intermediate through to pro-end High high energy stuff. So this was normally only available for the ID guys If you had an ID amp you had access to the potential website, but now it's open to everyone So, you know, if you're maybe looking for some basic lessons, you know Things like the difference between digital and valve amps how to get a good tone in a little bit more detail We want to encourage people to learn to play guitar And if you've ever thought about learning, this is the perfect opportunity for you to achieve the goal With some self-belief and our help we can get you there. That's what it's all about We want to see rock and roll. We want to see new bands new guitar players making noise and using black star You know, it's pretty cool Also, there's an insider update coming very soon, which is a huge one If you're an owner of an ID amp There's big news coming your way. It's pretty cool So I can't tell you much more than that right now, but keep an eye out And if you haven't already downloaded insider, it's free to download You don't necessarily need an amplifier to use one section of it, which is a phrase trainer The phrase train is really fun. You can import an mp3 file You can slow it down and it'll still stay in the same pitch You can select an a and a b marker to loop one section Let's say for example, if you're learning a lead lick or a you know The intro to a song and of course you can put your backing tracks in there and jam along slow them down Perfect for students perfect for teachers that kind of thing So that one feature you can use without the without owning an amplifier. You just need some sort of output from your computer But it's free to download so get on it. It's a freebie from us. Of course, if you do own an ID amplifier Watch this space. There's some really cool stuff coming Also, we'd like to mention our current cashback offer Which is a pretty cool deal It's currently in the UK only But we're offering 45 pounds cashback on any amplifier over 45 watts But also we're doing a 25 pound cashback offer on cabs as well on a 4x12 so 70 pounds off to get you playing if you're looking for an amp 70 pound off like that Great deal. So getting to see your local black star stuckest wherever you are around the British Isles and Try some gear and if you're in the market, man, you got 70 pound off straight away All the details are on the website and in store as well Globally our distributors are looking into incentives as well. So To get you guys playing black star and there will be like a rebate in the USA shortly Our American partners will be announcing some information about that very soon So, I mean, that's it for this evening folks All that information at the end there. I hope you got it obviously for on YouTube pressure wind And you know get to it as our own torch neg would say get to it now do it come on Get on it Win yourself some black star, but lesson. Thanks for watching as always I've been Steve product trainer here at black star and I'll see you out on the road Hopefully and keep it lad get into your stores support your local dealers Keep rocking. Thank you