Blackstar St. James Plugin vs the real amps with Mendel bij de Leij and designer Alex at #42GSFive!

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Today I’m joined by producer and all-round metal guitar expert Mendel bij de Leij and Blackstar Amplification’s Head Of Products, Alex Gee, as we check out the new St. James Plugin and compare it against the ‘real’ St. James EL34 and 6L6 tube amps at 42 Gear Street Five!

More on the St. James Plugin:
St. James EL34 head:
St. James 6L6 head:

The recently released St. James Plugin – developed by Blackstar themselves in-house – has been a great surprise for many guitar players thanks to its tone, dynamics and playing feel, as well as its versatility. It includes digital versions of both Blackstar St. James amps (that’s the classic British-voiced EL34 version and the more high gain, USA-inspired 6L6 model) plus a digital pedalboard with all the essential FX pedals you’ll need, a bunch of mixing and EQing options for when you’re recording in your DAW, AND Blackstar’s CabRig DSP speaker simulator.

In short, for the $99/€99 asking price, you get a lot! But naturally, the main question many have been asking is: how does the plugin compare to the real amps? And, in particular, how well does it do modern metal? And that’s exactly what we try to answer in this video!

With Alex and me covering the clean and lower gain overdrive sounds, and Mendel going deep with his high gain A/B comparisons, we show just how well the St. James Plugin reacts to different playing styles and guitars, and we also demonstrate the FX pedals and some of the plugin’s intuitive mixing and EQing options.

Do you prefer the tones of the plugin or the real amps? Let me know in the comments!

Here are some links to the various playing samples and info bits:

00:00 Hello
00:24 Introduction and what we’re doing today
01:23 Why did Blackstar make the St. James plugin?
02:39 The plugin has a pedalboard too!
05:37 Could the plugin be used live too?
07:10 Clean tones with the Ibanez ICHI (Plugin)
09:37 Clean tones (EL34 Amp)
10:50 The built-in FX pedals (Plugin)
13:07 Classic rock tones with the Ibanez AM93ME-NT (Plugin)
14:56 Classic rock tones (EL34 Amp)
16:29 Clean tones with the Ibanez RG550-DY (Plugin)
18:04 Clean tones (6L6 Amp)
19:07 High gain tones with the Ibanez RG550-DY (6L6 Amp)
21:29 High gain tones – plugin and amp comparisons
25:58 Delay and reverb with high gain (Plugin)
29:46 Mixing and EQing options in the plugin
31:43 Our final thoughts

These are the guitars we play in the video:

Alex’s Ibanez ICHI00-VWH (Ichika Nito Signature model):
Rich’s Ibanez AM93ME-NT:
Mendel’s Ibanez RG550-DY:

Be sure to check out Mendel’s channel here:

Enjoy!


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Backing music from the YouTube Audio Library: Controlled Distress – Biz Baz Studio.

#Blackstar #BlackstarAmplification #Ibanez #IbanezGuitars #IbanezRG550 #RG550 #42GearStreet

*Note: certain links in the description are affiliate links. If you click said links and purchase anything as a result, I will receive a small commission. This doesn’t cost you anything extra, but it does help to support the channel. So, if you do that, thank you very much!*


@Blackstaramps
@Mendelian
@EytschPi42