Does anyone use the Blues channel on the 5:50+ ?

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tremolo arm

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Whilst I think the Crunch channel is really musical and bouncy, the Blues channel feels really odd "under my fingers" - it's almost as if there is some sort of latency between when I hit the strings and when I get a response. Also I can't really get a setting which offers anything different or better than any of the other channels.

I play mainly single coil guitars - PRS 305 and Fender Strat and Tele...

Has anyone found a useful sound out of the Blues channel?
 
Ive only had my 5:50+ a couple of weeks and have got nice tones from the blues channel. Ive gigged it over the last few weekends and I am really pleased with the tone. I only use PRS - A McCarty and a Custom 22
 
tremolo arm said:
Whilst I think the Crunch channel is really musical and bouncy, the Blues channel feels really odd "under my fingers" - it's almost as if there is some sort of latency between when I hit the strings and when I get a response. Also I can't really get a setting which offers anything different or better than any of the other channels.

I play mainly single coil guitars - PRS 305 and Fender Strat and Tele...

Has anyone found a useful sound out of the Blues channel?

The blues channel on both the old 5:50 and the new Plus are almost the same and both are quite excellent imo.
I've used it extensively at home, practice & gigging with many types of guitars & pedals.
It's great with single coils, humbuckers, filtertrons & P90's imo.
The blues channel is very versatile and can be used on low gain as a clean tone right thru to mid gain overdrive.
Also sounds fantastic as a booster for fuzz and distortion pedals also.
But like all voices on the 5:50 you need to keep the bass dial under 11 oclock
Great on most EQ settings the blues channel has always been a winner imo :mrgreen:
 
I use the Blues channel on my 5:25 as my normal channel with the gain at the point you just hear it start to warm up a little. Then I have channel 1 on Crunch with gain at about 1 oclock which is the max gain I ever use, even pedals through the clean don't get much dirtier. On a couple of songs I need absolutely clean and just flipping the switch on channel one to Clean does the trick.
 
Stinger22 said:
I use the Blues channel on my 5:25 as my normal channel with the gain at the point you just hear it start to warm up a little. Then I have channel 1 on Crunch with gain at about 1 oclock which is the max gain I ever use, even pedals through the clean don't get much dirtier. On a couple of songs I need absolutely clean and just flipping the switch on channel one to Clean does the trick.

I use mine much the same way.
 
Stinger22 said:
I use the Blues channel on my 5:25 as my normal channel with the gain at the point you just hear it start to warm up a little. Then I have channel 1 on Crunch with gain at about 1 oclock which is the max gain I ever use, even pedals through the clean don't get much dirtier. On a couple of songs I need absolutely clean and just flipping the switch on channel one to Clean does the trick.

I flip between using the Blues as my clean and crunch as my OD, or Clean as my clean and Blues as my OD. I like them both ways. Add a Fluxdrive, Zendrive, and Mythical Overdrive and I'm pretty much covered for everything. :mrgreen:

Al
 
I use the clean channel as super clean (50w) and channel 2 on blues with the gain set to about 2 o'clock on 5w at home and 25w for gigs. I use a boost/low gain overdrive to take it into Hard rock territory and that seems to work well.
 
I run a VP in the loop to act as a Global MV, and set both channel's MVs at about halfway up. Using the VP to lower the volume to what I need at the moment for teaching to late-night practicing, at low to whisper-quiet volume levels, the Blues mode with the gain at 1 o'clock in the 50W setting lets my myriad of both overdrive and fuzz pedals think that they are pushing a cranked high-wattage amp, both sound and feel-wise. Caveat: I haven't had as much luck, though, trying to apply the same concept to my Keely DS-1, though it works great for my Guv'nor and new issue Budda Zenman.

Without pedals, I think the Blues mode does a decent cranked Tweed impersonation, if you set the gain a little higher.
 
I like the blues mode, I use it for a light overdrive at home, but usually have to tweak the Treb/Mid/Bass and preset EQ when compared to Burn because there is a certain frequency that is too mid-heavy to me that I EQ out. Once that's out, I like Blues mode quite a bit. Really enjoy the light overdrive you can get with it. When playing live, however, I don't really use blues because of the volume change between blues and burn - it causes me to have to adjust the master on the fly for Ch. 2, which I don't want to have to do. When I need slightly overdriven tone live, I'll turn the gain down on crunch mode to about 10 or 10:30 (down usually from about 11:30 or 12) and roll back the volume a bit to get a nice light break-up. That has less effect on overall volume than switching between blues and burn.
 
My experience of the Blues channel on a 5:25+ is at low volumes it can be middy / nasal with a Strat, even with the mid all the way down, but once you go past 11 o'clock with the master the mids back off.
 
I use only humbucker guitars, but have also found that the Blues channel has this nasal midrange that is difficult to correct even with the 5-band. I also like a bit more drive/gain for blues solos and don't really like the break-up in Blues mode. However, the 5:50+ is my favorite amp overall. What works well for me is to switch between Crunch and Burn. On the Crunch channel I dial the Gain to around 12:00 to 1:00 so that it cleans up nicely when I roll off the volume pot on the guitar. For medium gain solos I leave it in Crunch and crank the guitar volume, juse like we did in the old days with the Marshall Plexi's. The Burn channel is only when I need a lot of sustain or playing fast passages for which I want a more fluid sound.

For a real genuine Blues sound, I use the TA-15. Channel 1 in master volume mode and Channel 2 in Hi1 mode both have the balance between clean and break-up that I need.
 

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