 guitar in Voodoo Vegas. What black star amp do I use? Well I use a black star Artisan 30. I absolutely love this amp. I use it for many reasons. Firstly because it cuts through the sound amazingly live on stage, works amazing in the studio, it's got a really clear tone, lots of clarity, punch to it. The clean channel is very nice and chimey and pretty I think when you're on the channel too. It's a lot more gruff, it's that typical classic rock sound. It's nice and thick and meaty, fat sounding and what's cool about it is you can flip between the choice of using it on 10 watts or 30 watts but I tend to use it on the 30. Well a couple of years ago I was playing a gig in my hometown in Bournemouth and I was playing with the choir boys and backstage I got talking to them and also the guys from Bad Company because they were there too backstage and they recommended that I started using a black star because I was having lots of kinds of troubles getting the tone I wanted with my amp I was using at that time but at that time I was already using a black star product I was using the black star HT Jewel pedal which was amazing but the amp I was using at that time wasn't quite right so I thought that product was amazing I'm sure their amps will be and I trusted their opinions so I went and tried a few out and got one straight away. What I love about this is it's got a fantastic build quality it's got nine valves in it so it's nice and juicy four of them are nice EL84s I run this with a 2x12 cab class A selection speakers it's an open back cab so you're going to get a nice full sound also it's all hand wired point-to-point stuff so it's just all I need really it works fantastic in the studio fantastic live it's just it ticks all my boxes and it's the tone and style I've always wanted so there's no need to explore any other options I'm happy with what I've got so. The black star handles the live situation incredibly well it's never let me down it's completely reliable and I always get the sound I want no matter what type of venue I'm playing. My live setup basically it could be a bit more unusual compared to some other people their amps because I channel blend because basically I love channel one because it really cuts through and it's so charming and pretty but I love channel two as well because that's where the gain is and it's gruff and it's got that fat sound so I blend between the two channels hence this patch lead here and then I come out the high output of channel one into my black star HT dual pedal and also I set my EQs like I have my treble just before halfway my middle and bass and my gain just over halfway and so I really like the mid tones the most I'm not I like the scoop sound as well but it's not really what are you doing my band and then I have the bass shape up to max and in the volumes tend to be on about two because it's such a loud amp even though it's on 30 watts it's insanely loud and that's even with playing big places it's only on about two usually yeah and then because I've got my HD dual pedal I've got two extra stages of gain on top of this as well and that also has a valve in it so really I'm playing around 10 valves so it's sounding really warm and really good I also put the voicing on warm as well because you can have it on bright but I like it on warm and in the studio and we did our album called the Rise of Jimmy Silver and that was out just over a year ago and I used my black star amp on pretty much every single track I used it on all the rhythm tracks and some of the lead tracks but I use this most of the time good at least 90 percent of the time and yeah I absolutely love it and my relationship with black star it's really positive actually of anyone I've ever been endorsed by black star I've been the most helpful with giving me advice or any help I need whether it's over the phone or through email if I phone someone and they're not there to take the call they'll win me back as soon as they can emails quick as they can they're just really they're just really positive for me even with if I need to borrow equipment abroad they'll loan it to me as well so yeah they're really there for me and it's a really positive relationship well at the moment we're writing for our second album and I think it's going to be great it's gonna have a bit more of a matured sound but while still sounding like you know Voodoo Vegas and we're gonna use the same producer we used last time for the album which was Pedro forever who produced Permission to Land by the Darkness so he was amazing for us last time so we could use him again and also we're touring with Y&T they're coming over from America we're gonna do a European tour of them Belgium Holland Spain and one in the UK as well in Southampton and all that's in October so that should be really good and we'll be playing Paris our own show there in December and yeah we've got loads of UK dates as well to look forward to oh including headline in the bar fly in October so yeah lots of exciting stuff in the pipeline so thanks for watching everyone and if you want to keep up to date with all my going zones with me and my band Voodoo Vegas then just check out www.voodoovegas.com and also Voodoo Vegas is on Facebook and Twitter and you can find me on Facebook and Twitter just search Meryl Hamilton