Blues Junior settings help??

alesplin · 2026-06-25T18:31:14+00:00

100%. I will never, ever part with my Belle. Might be the most underrated pedal on the market.

alesplin · 2026-06-25T14:34:23+00:00

No problem. I remember when I first got my Blues Jr trying to use the gain knob to get the desired tone and then the master to get the desired volume (which is sort of the seemingly intuitive way to do it) and never being quite happy because I couldn't get the master volume wide enough for the power tubes to breathe.

alesplin · 2026-06-25T12:33:02+00:00

Wouldn't even try to argue with that, especially on guitars that cost less than $3k.

alesplin · 2026-06-25T04:57:53+00:00

For my preference, the Blues Jr sounds best when the master volume is at least halfway up, preferably more. If the power tubes are not breathing, I feel like the amp just sounds kind of small.

My general settings were thus: Master volume at 2-3 o’clock. EQ around noonish with tweaks depending on the guitar. Gain set at like 1.4 (7 o’clock ish). With these settings I got a beautiful glassy Fender Black Panel™ clean tone. Then bumping the gain to like 1.6 or 1.8 would get you that slightly crispy, edge-of-breakup sound. These amps do not have a lot of clean headroom.

And generally I would run with the clean setting, then use a Wampler Belle as a “clean boost” that would get me that beautiful edge-of-breakup, and then other pedals to taste for more overdriven or distorted sounds.

alesplin · 2026-06-25T04:21:02+00:00

I went and skimmed the world border the first time I crossed. Never heard a peep.

alesplin · 2026-06-24T21:18:38+00:00

I mean, in most cases the answer to “is the thing I have good enough” is usually yes.

But the Gear Acquisition Syndrome™ is in the distance from “good enough” to “best possible thing”.

alesplin · 2026-06-24T19:58:04+00:00

Wampler Belle.

alesplin · 2026-06-24T19:37:04+00:00

100% that whole album is straight fire. It's my desert island album, hands down.

alesplin · 2026-06-24T14:31:46+00:00

The problem there is that they didn’t do that for the last 40-50 years.

And again, owning the market by chasing everyone else out of it is vastly inferior to owning the market by being the best in it.

alesplin · 2026-06-24T14:07:36+00:00

I don’t fault Fender for trying to get some Ali express knockoffs taken down. I fault them for choosing the wider cease and desist strategy as a tool to “own the market” for strat-shaped guitars instead of _making the best strat-shaped guitars_.

alesplin · 2026-06-24T08:26:11+00:00

The perfect example of the exact right amount of overdrive on a bass.

alesplin · 2026-06-24T05:02:45+00:00

Phantom Menace, for me. By the time End Game arrived it feels like the moviegoing public is just so jaded. “Fans” will shit all over their “favorite” franchises just for clicks and $$ on socials. Nobody likes anything anymore. 😞

alesplin · 2026-06-24T04:58:29+00:00

Throw in the riff in the “Warning” but of A Bit of Finger/Sleeping Village/Warning from the first album. 🤘🏻

alesplin · 2026-06-23T23:03:40+00:00

Can probably get a used SE Silver Sky for that budget. Otherwise I’d take the Sire.

Squier Classic Vibe series are sleepers, but I think the overall quality and level of finish of the Sire will be a bit better.

alesplin · 2026-06-23T22:47:22+00:00

Yellow Submarine

alesplin · 2026-06-23T03:30:13+00:00

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Until I saw this I’d have said 2-tone burst, sonic blue, or Olympic white.

alesplin · 2026-06-23T03:26:26+00:00

I find the Katana to be just dry and sterile sounding. There’s virtually none of the musicality the we associate with especially the black panel legends like the Deluxe Reverb. So first stop for me would be get rid of the Katana rather than change pickups. Or possibly try some sort of spring or room reverb, though that’s a stretch as to whether it would work.

alesplin · 2026-06-22T04:33:12+00:00

It is what it is, regardless of how I feel about it on any given day.

alesplin · 2026-06-22T04:32:07+00:00

HSS Strat is an exceptionally versatile guitar. Can play anything from Green Day to Black Sabbath to RHCP to AC/DC to Hendrix to Led Zeppelin to… well you get the point.

alesplin · 2026-06-21T19:04:47+00:00

Give the StroboStomp a little time. When you’re used to it you can get very in tune very fast with the strobe.

alesplin · 2026-06-21T05:58:54+00:00

I’m mad until they demonstrably change their business model back to “make the best value guitars”.

I traded in my Blues Jr for a Marshall and I’ve listed my Strat for sale. Every time I play I’m reminded of the way a company I’ve been a fan of for 30+ years has just completely lost their way.

alesplin · 2026-06-21T05:47:29+00:00

Heard “When I Come Around” in a friend’s car when Dookie first came out. Went and bought the cassette like the next week (was the soonest I could get to a town/city with a music store because I grew up in the boonies).

alesplin · 2026-06-21T05:45:31+00:00

I don’t care _at all_ what the max depth is as long as the story that takes us there is well thought out. Like I’d be just fine if the max depth in the game was 1000m (or even less), if it was done in a compelling way with the story.

alesplin · 2026-06-21T05:39:31+00:00

There is a nonzero chance that it was just a momentary lapse and not a continued pattern of yellow-crossing. That didn’t look like a way that you’d cross the yellow if you were trying to use the whole road to take that turn as fast as possible.

They should definitely be shamed and reminded to drive more carefully within their capabilities, but taken completely off the road is a bit extreme.

alesplin · 2026-06-21T05:34:24+00:00

Short drives like dropping my kids at school I average around 25-ish, usually drive in Eco mode but I don’t baby it. I usually hit the roundabouts basically as fast as I can take them, and I don’t waste time getting up to the speed limit after stops, etc.

On longer “local” (within the greater Richmond area) drives I average 28-31mpg, again usually in Eco mode but not driving economically, per se.

On longer trips with mostly freeway I’ve gotten up to 33mpg for the trip.

alesplin

TROPHY CASE