Blues Defined

"Blues, to me, comes from when a person can feel other peopl

"A guy will promise you the world and give you nothin', and that's the blues. "

--Otis Rush
e's pain and is able to articulate it." --Carlos Santana

Monday, January 16, 2012

VOX AC4TV played through a VHT Special 6 Speaker Cabinet


I was setting up to jam with friends the other day and I found out how useful my new VOX AC4TV10 amplifier is when playing with a band.  We were just practicing, but my son was playing a full set of drums and my friend was playing a keyboard and/or guitar along with my vocal and guitar.  I set up my VHT Special 6 head and VHT speaker cabinet.  I was mixing my guitar amplification before the guys arrived and I realized that I wasn't getting enough break up for a true overdrive sound at a low enough volume.  The VHT is an amazingly great sounding, low watt tube amp, but it is best clean.  It breaks up beautifully but must get loud to do so.  Not a bad thing, but best if performing in a medium to larger venue for that purpose if you are going to utilize tube distortion.




The VOX AC4TV was purchased for individual practice and distortion at low volume levels.  I decided to stack my VOX AC4TV on top of the VHT Special 6 closed back speaker cab with the 12 speaker and run the VOX through this larger speaker output.  The AC4TV has an output jack to plug into a 16 ohm speaker, which is exactly what the VHT Special 6 Speaker Cabinet requires.  Perfect match, and, wow, what a difference. 

With this set up, I was able to put the VOX AC4TV on the 1/4 Watt setting, turn the volume and tone levels up to the half-way point, and was getting great overdrive sounds through my VHT Speaker cabinet.  It was plenty loud-- as a matter of fact it was almost too loud, so I had my Strat on 7 or 8 and any louder would have overwhelmed the band and been too loud for the neighbors.  I loved this combination of the VHT Special 6 Speaker Cab paired with my VOX AC4TV 4 Watt tube amplifier.  The tones were great and we played everything from rock covers to old time blues and it was a great guitar sound that I was able to produce without being much too loud for everyone concerned.  -- Guitar Man

Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Fender '63 Reverb FRV-1 Pedal Review

After using the Fender '65 Deluxe Reverb Pedal for a week, I realized that it was having one serious issue.  The reverb setting had a random crashing and sometimes pinging noise that kept popping up.  It was very distracting and I would be concerned that it would be present if I ever were to play in public using this BOSS Fender Reverb pedal.  I read of others having this same problem in online postings and reviews.  I took this pedal back and exchanged it for the BOSS Fender '63 Reverb Pedal, which is a clean reverb and has no gain knob or vibrato.  The vibrato was a nice option, but I didn't buy a reverb pedal to get that effect.  The gain knob on the '65 pedal was probably causing the crashing  noise in the reverb.  The gain was there for the purpose of getting overdrive sound; the AC4TV produces a great tube overdrive and you do not need to add an overdrive pedal to that set up. 

The BOSS Fender '63 Reverb pedal produces a quality, vintage Reverb sound without causing the problems that the '65 pedal is known to bring about.  I recommend the '63 pedal for those of you who are looking for a pure reverb sound to add to a Class  A Blues type amp.  -- Guitar Man