Over the past few years, you’d be forgiven for thinking that using a valve amp was a bit like owning a classic car. Yes, you get all the charm and charisma of the ‘real thing’ but also some less desirable old-fashioned attributes, including heavy weight, limited compatibility with digital recording setups and a fraction of the variety of tones achievable with digital modelling devices.
Ever the innovator, Blackstar has taken a fresh look at some of those basic assumptions and tried to make an amp that looks and sounds completely classic and yet, under the bonnet, is both significantly lighter, more tonally flexible and tech-compatible than any the company has made to date. For example, if you’re into recording nuanced valve amp tones, you won’t need to mic these up – they come with a reactive load box and cab sim built in, obviating the need to drop another few hundred quid on standalone devices from another maker.
Intrigued, we joined Blackstar senior product developer Alex Gee to find out how the saints came marching in…
You’re stressing light weight as one of the biggest selling points of the new amps. Why is that such an important part of the St James design?
“Well, that’s been the number one asked-for thing from our distributors, from the artists that we work
