 Today we're looking at Blackstar's Artist 30 and Artist 15 amplifiers. And what you can see is that they kind of harken back to the Artisan series amplifiers, which were award-winning hand-wired Blackstar amps that were their introduction into the amplifier market. So they have a classic look to them, but the Artist series have been upgraded with a handful of player-centric features. For starters, there's two channels on the Artist series. The Artist series has a channel one with a volume and a tone. And that's meant to be a straightforward way to get to these amazing clean and crunch tones. If you move over to channel two, you have a full complement of EQ, but also Blackstar's patented ISF tone shaping circuit. Now what that does is it unilaterally changes the way the tone stack works. So your EQ still works, but that's the way to completely shape your sound for something that feels distinctly like you and it feels like your home. The other thing it has is an onboard digital reverb. It has an effects loop, and it has an emulated line out. Now that's just the stuff on the outside of the amp. The things that you can't see, the stuff under the hood, also is made to make you feel like you're playing an amp that was made for you. For instance, the cabinet is made out of birch plywood, which is its classic looks, but it also means that it's a solid cabinet with a really great resonance to it as well. So the amp itself sounds great in the room when you're right next to it. It also is a full tube circuit, so 12AX7's in the preamp section, 6L6's in the power amp section. Now 6L6's are unique because they have an American sound. We normally say it's an American sound in power amp tube. What that means is they have this nice blossomy bloom tight low end and a really pristine chimie top end, and we would say that's more of an American EQ curve. But they've configured these in something called an open loop circuit, and it does a couple of things. First of all, it moves the sound towards British Class A, but it also pushes this amp naturally into some really pleasing power amp drive. And if you've been around tube amps long enough, you'll know that power amp sounds and power amp drive are really where the magic happens. That open loop configuration pushes you towards that more easily and in a more pleasing way. The thing about the artist series is it's really made for all kinds of players. Some players like to grab a guitar and plug straight into an amplifier, and if that's the case, the artist is going to suit you really well. With the two channels, you can set them both to clean, both to crunchy, or one clean and one dirty. But you can also use your pedal boards. The thing with the artist series, the 6L6 configuration, the pristine cleans and the full nuanced resonance is it accepts your pedal boards really, really well. So the amp itself sounds great, but it can be shaped in such a way that your pedals complement your sound so perfectly and effectively. The artist series is really meant to be the player's amplifier with a ton of player centric features. It can be your one stop shop for a guitar amplifier. It's tube, it's versatile, it's channel switching, it sounds awesome, and it's Blackstar. For more information on the Artist 30 and the Artist 15, check out BlackstarAmp.com.