 Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential, my name is Lee Fuge and I'm here today with MusicTeacher.com and in this video we're going to be looking at the St James Amp Plugin and talking about the differences between the EL34 Amp and the 6R6 Amp. Now both of these amps have very different sounds and very different applications, so if you're trying to figure out which one is best for you, in this video we're going to try and answer that question. So everything you hear is going to come from the St James Plugin Suite. So in the pre-effects I do have the default setting for the compressor which is switched on, this is just the default sound as you load up the plug-in and in the post effects I have some reverb on, not going to be touching the EQ and I'm not going to be touching cab rig all in this video. Only thing we will be tweaking is in this amp panel view, we're going to be going from the EL34 Amp which is this one to the 6R6 Amp which is this one. Both amps have clean and overdrive channels so I'll be going between those two and the overdrive channels on both amps also have a voice switch which adds an additional gain stage so we'll also be using that as well. Not really going to make many other tweaks to the amps because we're really just talking about the key differences between the two tube types and why you might choose one of each. So we're going to start with the EL34 Amp. EL34 tubes are predominantly more of a British sounding amp so if you think of the EQ sound we're going to have more of a pronounced mid-range not as much emphasis on the lows or the highs the emphasis sits in that mid-range so all of the great classic British amps are usually based around EL34 tubes or a similar variant of that something like an EL84 which is in a very similar total ballpark so what the EL34 will offer you as I said is a very mid-range focused tone this is great for classic rock blues and more British sounding heavier styles of music so think 80s and the way the British heavy metal tones those are in the wheelhouse of the EL34 sound now this particular EL34 amp is not really a high gain amp it's got plenty of gains to classic rock and others rock styles but this isn't really designed as a metal amp if you wanted more gain out of this you could go into the pre-section and add the overdrive pedal to give it a little bit more of a kick. So when we hear a clean EL34 amp what we're expecting is a full-bodied clean with lots of mid-range focus it's going to be a very warm and balanced sound. When you kick on the overdrive channel of an EL34 amp this is going to push you more into a kind of blues rock classic rock territory then if you want to go even further into more high gain classic rock sounds go to the second voice and that will add another gain stage. So the EL34 is great for some of those rootsy more classically voiced British sounds and if you go over to the 6L6 amp what we're now going to get is more of a focus on the lows and highs and less so on the mids. The typical American sound is known as more of a mid-scooped sound so you've actually got less mids it's kind of the opposite to a British sound a British sound would actually have a lower low and a lower high but a boost to the mids American sound would have the opposite they have higher highs and lows and less of the mid-range so it's sort of the EQ spectrum opposite. So clean this is going to be great for tight percussive funky stuff so this works great with single coil sounds but then also in humbucker positions it's a great tiny clean sound for strumming. Now the gain side of the St. James 6L6 is much more far-reaching than the EL34 so what I'm going to do is I'm actually going to adjust the gain control slightly here so if I go to the overdrive channel and I bring the gain down to about here so it's very very low what this is going to give us is a nice bluesy American crunch tone but then as we increase the gain it actually gets a lot more saturated very very quickly so even on the halfway point there's quite a lot of gain here. So that means the 6L6 amp is actually great if you want to play heavier styles of music if you're playing metal or real hard rock this is the gain range that you're going to be needing. Now if we go to the second gain voice we're actually going to take this to another level so there's even more gain here and as you can see the gain control is only on halfway so as you can imagine that would be great for real high gain styles now just for contrast I'm going to completely crank the gain so as you can imagine that would be the perfect amp for anyone playing higher gain styles of music. So to summarize EL34 is going to be warmer more mid-focused great for classic rock and bluesy styles of music. 6L6 is great for pristine cleans but also those high gain sounds if you want some real crushing high gain sounds 6L6 all the way but the 6L6 does also have some really cool low gain sounds on tap as well. So there you go there are some of the key differences between an EL34 and a 6L6 amp sound so when you're crafting your ideal guitar sound this is a good jumping off point in terms of picking an amp and having a good starting point. If you're thinking more classic you're probably going to be happy with the EL34 if you want modern tight and especially if you want high gain the 6L6 is the way to go. Let me know down below in the comments what your favorite is between the 6L6 and the EL34 amps in the St. James plugin suite. I'd love to hear which ones you guys are using for your own sounds at home. Don't forget to check out Blackstar Amplification on YouTube for more videos just like this and if there's anything you'd like to see us talking about with the St. James plugin let us know down below in the comments. Don't forget to check out MusicTeacher.com if you're looking for a great guitar teacher in your local area. They've got a huge network of teachers waiting to help you guys out. Thank you so much for watching as always and I'll see you soon.