BluGuitar Amp X

SKU said:
Although I fully expect it to sound amazing but still not hit like a 100W TUBE AMP
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I actually thought the Kat 100 head felt pretty good as a power amp (used it with my FM9 and Recto 2x12 for a while). Maybe hyped in the lows and highs, though.
 
Boudoir Guitar said:
To be clear, this thing IS super cool. And I dig the "we're selling enough of our other stuff to stay afloat; this is my pet project and it'll be done when it's done" approach. But I will be surprised if it gets released this year.
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Everything I’ve heard so far sounded good to my ears. Curious to see what BlugPrints are released.
 
-BOOGIEMAN- said:
I kinda dig what he’s doing. I could see picking up a mercury edition…
Season 2 Agree GIF by Paramount+
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I'm always telling people to give the Amp 1 Mercury or Iridium Edition a try. I don't like the Iridium quite as much, but love the Mercury.

The Mercury has its quirks:
  • The fiddly side knobs, even though they are set and forget. They are just hard to see and turn. Nowadays I only adjust these to make the channels work with whatever cab I am using. If you use the same cab all the time, truly set and forget once you find the settings that work for you.
  • The analog cab sim cannot be disabled on the recording out on the Mercury, it can be on the Iridium. It sounds alright, but is no IR. It's the kind of thing you run into a PA and it will work just fine in a live situation, but you probably don't want to record your album with it.
  • The reverb is just an ok spring reverb. It doesn't hold a candle to a good digital spring reverb pedal, but it is also not obnoxiously splashy or long so it's still tuned nicely.
  • To use MIDI you need the MIDI adapter which is an extra expense. It is literally a MIDI controller built inside the adapter cable 5-pin DIN housing, so the cost is not some scam.
  • The bright cap on the OD channel. It's a classic Marshall style aggressive value and will be a bit of an issue on humbuckers due to the sheer amount of gain the Amp 1 has (a freakin' ton even on the Vintage channel!). It can sound harsh if you try to get your preferred gain level with the gain at under 5/10. There's a couple of ways to work around this:
    1. Set the gain to around 6 or 7 to make the bright cap less effective, then roll down your guitar volume and tone until you have the sound you like.
    2. Use the low gain powerup mode. This will unfortunately also reduce gain on the clean channel so it will not distort.
    3. Use MIDI to adjust the gain range of each channel. This sets the max gain on each channel, I reduce them on all but the clean channel by about 30%. Unfortunately these don't get saved on the Amp 1 itself so you have to do channel switching via MIDI to keep this stuff. I'm using MIDI anyway so it's not a problem for me.
Then the good stuff:
  • The 4 channels can do a freakin' ton. You will find a bunch of videos of Thomas Blug dialing it to sound like various amps and it's no joke, it can get very close to those tones. Obviously one at a time due to the shared EQ.
    • The Clean does a variety of Fender tones.
    • The Vintage does old school Marshall.
    • The Classic goes from Superlead to JCM800 to more modern.
    • The modern starts from a Soldano SLO-ish sound and then gets brighter and more aggressive from there. So you can either use it more like a nice high gain lead channel or more towards modern metal.
  • The shared EQ works well across the channels and while you can't dial each channel to perfection, you won't hate switching from Vintage to Modern for example. I tend to use my Amp 1 more like a 1-2 channel amp, most often I have it parked on the Vintage channel.
  • The EQ is more like a post EQ with low/high shelf filters and 600 Hz midrange filter. Small changes do a lot and they don't interact like normal amp tone stacks.
  • The boost works well and sounds good. Goes from a clean boost to somewhat Tube Screamerish. I tend to leave it on with the clean channel all the time as that gives it a kick I like where it gets a bit gritty, but cleans up with guitar volume or softer picking.
  • Fx loop works great. There's a switch on the bottom for instrument vs line level, but you need to use something like a pencil or stick to press it. Another set and forget feature.
  • Fx loop can also be toggled on/off via MIDI.
  • The built in powersoak can be accessed via MIDI so if you want to crank the Amp 1 into powertube distortion, you can. I generally like it just fine without it tho.
  • Makes for a good poweramp for modelers. I put it against my Fryette PS-100 and they were not as far off as you'd think and at lower volume the Amp 1 was much less noisy.
  • For my needs, I could easily go with nothing but a tuner, delay, Amp 1 and a cab. Smallest version of my rig atm is Turbo Tuner ST-300 + Amp 1 ME + SA Collider for delay/reverb + BluGuitar Nanocab 1x12.
  • It's so ridiculously small and light that you can just throw it into a bag and not think about it when you need to move it.
Sorry for the bullet point novel. I just really like the Amp 1 and that's why my only concerns for the Amp X have been effects and usability. Effects from what has been so far are shaping up to sound great as the H&K Replex and the reverbs Blug has demoed have sounded fantastic.
 
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Getting back to Amp X, I think there's still a lot of things Blug says that are kinda "I want to do them, when I have the time" type stuff and realistically, it might be years at his perfectionist pace. So if this launches this year (and I hope it does!) I expect the variety of amps and fx will not impress anyone with a current modeler.

We tend to forget that those modelers are often many years of development work for launch, and now the current gen Fractal and Line6 have been on the market for 6+ years, with both having several iterations of their fx. Both Fractal and Line6 have overhauled their delays and reverbs at least once for this gen on top of adding a bunch of new fx.

But lucky for me, my sound preferences align with Blug's in a big way. Instead of Strats I tend to use Les Pauls but otherwise do live a good bit in that Gary Moore-ish blues/rock territory with forays to hard rock and metal. So I would probably be pretty alright with nothing but the things Blug demoed in that Studio Rats video.

Similarly we can't expect a computer editor for this anytime soon. It remains to be seen how much of a pain in the ass that will be, but probably not too bad if you don't treat this like a modeler but more like a multi-channel amp with fx.

I'm already dreaming a bit of building a wet/dry rig by using my Amp 1 + Nanocab 1x12 for effects and Amp X + Bluetone 4x10 for the dry tone.
 
Sascha Franck said:
Maaaan, no endless encoders, not even for the digital FX. Why don't people just get it that on a programmable device, endless encoders are a vastly better idea?
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I don't get it either. I tried asking about this in BluGuitar's last livestream but my comment got ignored.

My 600 euro ASM Hydrasynth Explorer has 4 non-notched endless encoders with a similar small display to what the Amp X uses on the four "X-Controls" and it works just fantastic. That's how I'd do it.
 
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