 Hello everyone and welcome to Blackstar Potential. My name is Lee Fuge and in this video today, we're gonna be looking at how to dial in a blues tone using the Amped 2. So the whole idea here is we're going for a cranked amp sound to replicate all those classic touch sensitive blues tones. You can use this tone as a great jumping off point. If you're dialing in your own blues tones, you can use this and then tweak it to suit your own needs. All the tones you hear in this video are coming from the Amped 2 which is running straight into my audio interface out of the capric output. And the guitar I'm using is this Chapman Guitars ML3 Pro X. Throughout this whole video, you're gonna be hearing the spring reverb of the Amped 2 switched on at all times. A lot of vintage amps with built-in reverb would have had a real spring reverb because really what we're going for here is a 50s and 60s cranked amp sound. So that's gonna be on at all times. So the amplifier sound that we're using for this uses the 6x6 response. So we've got a very American sound here. We've got a scooped mid range with a really tight low end and some pronounced highs and the USA voice. Now to replicate a cranked amp because this is still quite a clean sound. I've got the gain and the master completely dimmed. So this is really as if we're running the amp on full. For the bass at about one o'clock, the mid on about two o'clock and the treble around midnight. Now obviously you can change that EQ slightly to suit your own tastes, but this is a pretty good starting point. So the amp sound on its own will react differently to how I play and what pickups I choose. So if I go in with my bridge humbucker, I'm gonna get a bit more crunch and then when I go to my next single coil, I'm gonna get a much cleaner sound. So with the amp circuit set this way, we have a very touch sensitive and dynamic sound to start with. If I dig in, I get some of those 60s British blues type sounds. And then as I go softer, I venture more into traditional blues. So once you've got a great basic cranked amp tone dial in, you can then add some drive to take your leads to that next level. So I'm using the overdrive setting here with everything set to around about 11 o'clock. It's just gonna give a nice front end kick. So the drive not only gives you a lift, which is great for guitar solos, but it also shapes the amp tone slightly because we're using a vintage overdrive here that's quite mid-pushed. What it actually does is it shaves off some of the low end from the amp circuit. So in this cranked setup, the amp circuit starts to break up in the low end like a real cranked small combo would. We almost get this fuzzy low end. If you turn the drive on, it removes that. Now you can set the drive level to taste there. I like a little bit more drive because a lot of my favorite blues-based players are from the 60s British scene. But if you really want to go traditional, you can really bring that drive down or even use the boost circuit. You can also use a tremolo sound. Now a lot of vintage amps have tremolo built in and this is really great for some rhythm stuff. So I've got the time set halfway, but again, you can set this to taste. The depth is very, very low because I don't want a really big, obvious tremolo sound and the level is just blended into taste. The tremolo sits really nice with the boosted lead tones as well. Then I'm also using a analog delay which is set very, very short like this. Pretty much one repeat there. So a low time, which means the time is very fast, a low feedback and the level just blended into taste. This kind of slapback is great if you're playing some kind of more rock and roll style bluesy legs. But you can also combine that with some drive and that's great for some slow blues. So there you go, there are some tips on how to dial in a great blues tone with your Blackstar Amped II. You can use that as a starting point to create your own blues sounds. Tweak that and let me know what you guys come up with down below in the comments. If there are any other genres or even artists you'd like to see us make these kind of videos about, please let us know down below in the comments as well and we'll check those out. Don't forget to check out Blackstar Amplification on YouTube for more free videos just like this. And if you're looking for a guitar teacher in your local area, please head over to musicteacher.com. There's a music teacher database over there just filled full of teachers all over the country waiting to help you guys out. Thanks so much for watching and I'll see you soon.