What's Wrong with My Blues Junior?!?

OK, I should probably come clean here for a minute. I have just started this blog by professing how great the blues junior is, goddamn I actually named the blog after it, but all is not well...no in fact my blues jr hasn't actually been working for the last 2 months and I have only got round to leaving it in to get fixed now (mainly due to being skint) and so I have been using my fender pro junior as my main amp in the meantime.

Basically, I was setting up for a sound check for a gig (supporting the excellent Richmond Fontaine, if you havn't heard these guys check them out) when my guitar tone just went. I mean it started to sound really bad, like a series of farts and the volume kept cutting. I knew it was the amp and I wasnt worried and I'll tell you why in a mo...So it was a quick grab of the amp, stick it it in the car boot, fly home, grab the pro junior, throw it in the boot, get back and get playing.

Now the reason I wasn't worried is cause I knew it was gonna happen. It happened before..to the pro junior. Now, my pro junior is older than the blues, by maybe a year or so. It was my first amp. I spent most of my life until 2 years ago as a solo acoustic player/singer-songwriter or whatever you wanna call it, I was never a lead player. I played in a few bands when I was a kid but that was usually as a bass player, back when bass was pretty much my main instrument - apart from acoustic guitar...and piano, but I was never really an electric player.

So when I decided I wanted to rock it up a bit I went out and got myself a telecaster and a pro junior. I decided on the pro junior cos it was cheap, it was small and it was valve. Now, some people my scoff at 15 watts but this baby is loud and sounds great, and I figured if a 15 or 18 watt Fender Deluxe was good enough for Neil Young then a 15 watt pro jr would do the job for me.

But I digress...one day at rehearsal my pro junior starts farting and the volume is cutting in and out and I'm freaking out, so I leave it to a reliable amp technician I know. I don't see it for a few weeks but thats OK as luckily I had just saved the money to buy myself a lovely shiny new Blues jr (why have 1 amp when you can have 2?)

Now I'm definitely no expert on amps or electronics but I'll try to describe as best I can in lay man's terms what was wrong.
Now valve amps, have valves obviously, and a current runs through theses valves at a certain voltage. If the voltage is too high or too low it will alter the sound and performance and probably kill the valve. So therefore the amp needs to be 'biased' properly, don't ask me what this means I dont know, I just play. Here is a link at wikipedia which might explain it better. But anyway it turns out the pro junior has a fixed bias. Some amps have an adjustable bias that has to be adjusted when the valves are changed, but the pro junior has a fixed bias, and the valves are running HOT! Too hot to handle it seems. The current running through them is set way too high, Fender apparently does this on purpose, don't ask me why either. But this seriously shortens the lifespan of the valves.

Well I got my pro junior back with a new set of valves and my genius amp tech also modified the amp so it now has an adjustable bias.
And here is the hidden bonus, with the valves biased properly the pro junior sounds better, not just a bit, but seriously better, I mean I couldnt believe the difference when I got it home and plugged it in.

So, I think this is whats wrong with my Blues jr. The Blues jr also has a fixed bias. My amp guy said that it was likely in the future that the Blues jr would go the same way. I have left it in with the same guy who is gonna mod it in the same way and I am looking forward to getting it back and hopefully I'll see the same improvement as I did with the pro jr.

Ok, the pots seem to be a bit messed up too and a bit loose so I think it must have maybe taken a knock in the boot of a car, but we'll find out when I get it back.
I'll keep you posted...

Welcome to the Blues Junior blog

Hi guys, this blog is dedicated to all things music related and in particular GEAR. If like me you are a gigging musician you probably get a healthy dose of gear lust now and again, well this is gonna be the site where I vent my frustations and hopefully present some good ideas or advice that other people may find useful.

Even if you aren't a gigging musician, maybe you are just a beginner, maybe you are interested in learning to play guitar, or piano or whatever, or even just looking for some guidance on what you may need to get yourself set up so you can play in a band, hopefully I will be able to help you out also.

I'm also gonna talk about whatever I feel like, hopefully mostly music related, anyway to begin...

You might be wondering why the blog is called blues junior (you may not be too) but if you are here's why, I have a Fender Blues Junior amp and I think it is great, so here is some info on it:

The basics:

Specifications:

15 watts into 8 Ohms
Two EL-84 Groove Tube output tubes
Three 12AX7 preamp tubes
1 x 12” 8 Ohm Fender Special Design Eminence speaker
Master, Preamp Volume, Bass, Middle and Treble
FAT switch - which gives a volume and slight bass boost
Fender Reverb
Footswitch jack for remote FAT on/off
Chrome panel
Vintage pointer knobs
Black textured vinyl with silver grille cloth
16” H x 18” W x 9.18” D
31 lbs.

Here's a photo:




Practicalites
If you are looking for a small, portable and great sounding gigable valve (tube) amp then this may be the answer to your quest. The Blues Junior is small and light enough to be carried in one hand while your guitar is in the other. This is particularly helpful if you don't have a car or you like to have a few drinks when you are out playing. Just throw it in the back of a taxi or hop on the bus and away you go. Some people seem to worry if this wee amp is loud enough to play alongside a whole band and I can tell you from experience it is. I have used this amp on many gigs (or quite often its younger brother the pro junior, but thats a story for another time) both mic'ed up for big venues and unmic'ed for smaller ones. I have never had to crank this amp past half way, in fact I'm lucky if I ever get it past 4, and I play in 6 piece group, but it always sounds great. Now if you play loud hard crazy rock, punk or metal this amp isn't probably what you are looking for. Don't get me wrong, it's a loud wee thing but it is not a high gain amp. If you play more classic rock, blues or country then this will be right up your street. We play a blend of country rock and folk (and we do tend to get a bit rocky on occasion) and this amp hits the nail on the head, if I want a bit of boost the odd time I stick a Marshall Blues Breaker II pedal (on the clean boost setting) in front and this drives the amp a bit harder and gives a nice creamy distortion. If this sounds like your style I can highly reccommend the blues junior.

Sounds

I will hopefully be uploading a few home recorded sounds samples in the near future, but if you can't wait that long then you can head on over to my bands website http://www.jacksoncage.com/ or myspace and listen to the tracks there. Most of the electric rhythm guitar and some of the lead on the tracks was recorded with a 52 Telecaster and a Blues Junior. The majority of the lead was recorded by our other guitarist on Gibson GA15, which is another superb small amp, using telecasters, strats, reverends and more. A good example would be the opening bars of White Line where the Blues Junior can be heard quite distinctly on the rhythm track, or on I Don't Wanna Waste My Time on the sections which just have vocals and rhythm guitar.

Links
Thanks for reading and I hope you have found this info helpful if you are thinking of investing in a Blues Junior, I will hopefully have the site updated with more info and sound samples in the near future so remember to check back. In the mean time here are some other links which you may find helpful:

Bill's Blues Junior Modification Pages - this is a fantastic site which lists lots of modifications for the Blues Junior

Fender product page - details of the Blues Junior at Fender.com

Fender Amp field guide - site with info on loads of Fender amps


If you have got this far, well thanks for reading, catch you back soon...