 Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential. My name is Lee Fuge and I'm here with MGMusic.com and in this video today we're going to look at how you guys can start dialing in a good tone that you can start to tweak to your own needs. For the video today I'm going to be using the Blackstar Silverline Deluxe but all the concepts and principles that we talk about in this video you guys can apply to any of your Blackstar apps. Tone is a very subjective topic and when you first start playing it's quite hard to know what a good tone is. So in this video what we're going to do is we're going to look at a bunch of different tones that cover a bunch of different genres and we're going to use some classic players for a reference point. With the tones we create from these reference points you guys can then tweak them to your own need. So if there are any players in this list that you're very interested in you can use that tone as a basis to craft that into your own thing. So the first thing we're going to look at today is an American clean tone. This is a very high headroom style tone reminiscent of players like Stevie Ray Vaughan. So for this tone we're using the clean warm voice of the amp. I've got the gain set to halfway but the channel volume is pushed quite high. The bass and treble are pushed to about seven and eight and the mid is just above midnight. We're using the ISF all the way over at the American side and the 6L6 response. Over here we've got a bit of reverb on. The reverb level is set to halfway. The resonance and presence are set at halfway too. These are going to be left the same for the whole video. This tone works particularly well with single coils and particularly strat star guitars. So I'm using my sheer gold masquerader for this because it's got the same pickup configuration as a strat. I'm using the neck pickup for that tone. If you like those big high headroom American clean tones and you're also a fan of players like John Mayer you can flip your strat star guitar into the fourth position which is the neck and the middle pickup together. Using that same tone we get that John Mayer-esque slightly hollow slightly scooped clean tone. Next up we're going to look at another classic single coil tone. This is going to be a 1960s British style clean tone similar to that of Jimmy Hendricks. So for this we're sticking on the clean warm channel. The gain and the volume are going to stay the same but now I want to put some of those mids back in. So I'm going to bring the treble down to just above halfway but I'm going to put the mids to about seven. Now this is a British tone so the ISF needs to go all the way over to the British position. For the amps that Hendricks used they were primarily EL34 or KT66 style amps so we'll start with EL34. For this tone I'm going to use the neck pickup. Now we're going to flip to the KT66 response. KT66 tubes have a little more headroom and they're less compressed than EL34s so what we're actually going to hear is the slight boost in volume but because the channel volume is also pushed all the way up we're going to also introduce a slight bit of break up. This is very similar to what a real KT66 amp would do if it was pushed hard. Next up we're going to dial in a great blues sound so we're going to use the clean bright channel for this and the gain and the volume on the channel section are going all the way to 10. We're going to push the mids for this but bring the ISF over to the American side and start with a 6v6 style response. This is reminiscent of a Rolling Stones kind of American blues sound on those little pushed tweed style combos. This small American combo style tone using the 6v6 response is brilliant for blues playing so if we've pushed that to the crunch channel and bring the gain back to halfway we've got a really great blues lead tone. Next up we're going for a big British classic rock tone so I've got a humbucker loaded guitar and we're going to think late 1960s to mid 1970s so I'm going to keep on the crunch channel. The gain is good on halfway and I quite like the EQ settings as they are. I might dial the mid back just a little bit and add a little more top end. I'm going to push the ISF all the way to the British side and I'm going to start with some EL34s. Using those same settings we can actually move over now to the KT88 response. This is going to boost the headroom even further so we're going to get a big big open sound but with a bit of drive pushed in this is great for those ACDC style riffs. If you want the clarity in the chords the headroom really helps. Because KT88s have the highest headroom of all the responses on the silver line you would have noticed that quite a jump in volume there. This is great for those big ringing chords. Now as we transition from the 1970s into the 1980s we've got the birth of the British heavy metal scene so we're going to look at a new wave of British heavy metal style tone kind of similar to that of the band Iron Maiden. So we want to go to the super crunch or the OD1 mode for this so I'm going to go with the OD1. I'm going to keep the gain fairly low so I'm just on the halfway and I'm going to bring the channel volume back to three quarters of the way up. For this kind of tone I want quite a bit of mid and quite a bit of treble so I'm going to keep those on about eight and the bass on seven and I'm going to go for the EL34 style response. The ISF is once again in the British side. And now we're going to dial in an American metal style tone. For this tone I'm going to go to the OD2 channel but I'm going to keep the gain quite low. I'm going to bring the mids back to about halfway. The ISF is going back to the American side and we're going to the 6R6 response. This American metal tone is great for those early thrash metal riffs. It's perfect for playing along with those early Metallica records. So there you go guys there are some basic tones you can use right now on your Blackstar amps. I used the Silverline Deluxe for this like I said but you can apply this logic to any amp that you might own from the Blackstar range. I didn't go into the effects this time because obviously the effects are something you can add to taste. The only thing I had there was a little bit of reverb so with the ISF the gain control and the EQ section you guys can get pretty close to dialing in all these tones. Each of these tones was inspired by various artists that you can use as a reference for getting that sound in your head. Using all the features on your Blackstar amps you can dial in these tones and tweak them to your own taste. So maybe you want a tone a bit like Metallica but with a bit more mid or maybe a cleaner version of the Iron Maiden tone you've got the template there to tweak this to exactly what you need. So please go away and do that use these tones as your starting point and craft the sound in your head. Thank you guys so much for watching I hope you've enjoyed this video please let us know down below in the comments how you found these tone templates and what you guys have done with them. Don't forget to check out Blackstar amps on YouTube for more videos just like this and if you're looking for a guitar teacher in your local area please check out MGRmusic.com. I've got a network of great teachers all over the country just waiting to help you guys out. Thanks so much for watching and we'll see you soon.