the debut at 50r is the brand new budget-friendly amp from BlackStar is it the perfect beginner’s amp is it a great pedal platform is it loud enough to gig with let’s find out [Music] [Music] before we go further a disclaimer Blackstar sent me the amp and also they’re paying for my time they are not paying for the words that come out of my mouth this lovely little thing is a 50 watt 2 channel amp we’ve got clean and overdrive and those two channels share the same three-band EQ there’s also an ISF knob which we’ll go over in a little bit that’s a black star thing the amp has two reverbs Hall and plates and then finally on the top panel we’ve got the on off switch and we’ve got a 5 watt or 50 watt mode so the intention there is that you keep the same sound but you make it quieter when you put it on 5 watt mode or louder when you put it on 50. we’ll test that in a bit right round on the back we’ve got headphone slash line out socket this is for headphones for silent practice or plugging in a jack cable and sending the signal directly from your amp to an audio interface or to a mixing desk if you do this it’s worth noting that it does mute the internal speaker so there’ll be no sound coming out of the amp if you plug something into that socket there’s also a foot switch socket which is optional this does not come with the amp but I have one from this and James I have and you can change the channels with your foot pretty useful what else uh yeah there’s an AUX in on the back so you can plug in your phone or media player and jam along to backing tracks and it’s got an effects Loop for time-based effects it comes in two colors this is the cream one and there’s also a black one and it costs around 230 Euros affiliate links below for accurate pricing in your region if you’ve come here just to hear what the amp sounds like then don’t worry in this video I will play it with a variety of different guitars and variety of different pedals I’ll also be checking out the line out to make sure that sounds good but for now let’s focus on the features now this is not a bells and whistles amp it is not jam-packed full of effects it focuses more on the basic requirements of your beginner player and your more experienced gigging guitar artist that uses pedals to achieve their tones firstly beginner guitar players new guitarists hello welcome to guitar it’s brilliant it’s very rewarding and I hope that you stick with it hello also parents of budding new guitar players I made a list of things that I think a beginner amp should be or have so I’m going to run through this list and see if the Black Star debut 50r takes all these boxes number one the amp should be affordable you don’t want to spend too much cash on a first amp in case guitar is not for you so I think the Black Star fits that category number two it should be easy to move around this is only as big as it needs to be and it weighs just under nine kilos which I’m told is the same weight as your average watermelon number three it should be simple to use if you’re brand new to the world of guitar amplifiers then too many knobs too many options can be a bad thing this has everything you need and nothing more it’s got two channels it’s got Reverb there’s no USB there’s no software to upload or firmware to update it’s just a guitar amp number four every good practice amp should have a quiet or silent mode this has got headphones and a 5 watt mode so it ticks both those boxes number five it should Inspire the player to play it’s pretty simple and I think that comes down to two things first one is looks and this looks cool it looks like an amp it looks like something that is rock and roll and number two is of course the sounds and we’ll check those out in a little bit and finally ideally a first amp would last you from your first ever practice session with a guitar through to your first practice session with a band and possibly a first show which means it needs to be loud how loud is it I took this amp to my band practice a few weeks ago and we tested it with my very loud drummer [Music] foreign [Music] I recorded that on this the zoom h4n recorder it was placed a few meters away from the front of the stage where the rest of the band was standing and I told HP not to hold back on the drums and you could definitely hear my guitar at gig volume but that was the overdrive Channel what about the clean [Music] so that was the first song that came to mind that we could play quite simply without any practice so apologies if that’s too far dad Rock for you or even further back than Dad Brock whatever that is Grandad Rock I guess great grandfather Rock anyway it did stay clean but that was the maximum volume that it would stay clean at anymore and that clean Channel started to drive which was actually quite pleasant but not what I was trying to achieve at the time so yes it does clean but not super clean there’s there’s a dare I say tube-like drive on the clean Channel yeah so in short yes the Black Star debut 50r is ready for stage it’s suitable for most geek situations and we were not holding back we were not trying to play quiet so the amp could be heard we were playing at gig volume which is pretty loud but pretty loud isn’t everything it also needs to sound good [Music] all right [Music] in case you don’t know by now this is not a tube amp but neither is it a digital modeling amp it’s an all analog amp and Blackstar are leaning quite heavily into this it’s probably their main marketing thing they even said it’s a no fuss all analog alternative to entry-level digital modeling amplifiers pretty much putting themselves directly up against the katana 50 from boss which I’m not going to test in this video but I will do in the future so subscribe and you’ll see that video Blackstar also say that the debut 50s mosfet preamp design creates an authentic accurate valve-like tone now if all that meant nothing to you it doesn’t matter because it’s mostly marketing there’s only one thing to talk about and that is does it sound good [Music] foreign [Applause] [Music] I think that’s a great lead tone and don’t forget this amp is just over 200 Euros so that’s basically a great overdrive pedal with an amp it’s brilliant um right the gain let’s sweep the game and find out if we can get some low gain stuff some mid game stuff and some really chuggy chuggy high gain stuff right let’s do a little Loop down here [Music] foreign [Music] there’s a lot of game that’s really hot rodded British amp [Music] thank you foreign it’s rather gritty I think this amp excels on the overdrive when it’s in the seriously hot rodded game stuff I think this game level is a little bit weak so if I was going to do low gain or mid gain uh Drive I would have to use a pedal on the clean Channel brings us to the clean Channel let’s try the clean Channel [Music] it’s Dynamic it’s touch sensitive [Music] I’ve played a few solid state cleanish amps recent now played the Vox Super Beetle and the jc40 from Roland which is another level of both price and just standards but I think the jc40 is probably four times almost as expensive as this and that that comes close foreign [Music] but you hear it’s not quite clean um that’s on the walk it’s not quite clean it’s a grip there [Music] let’s um let’s try a strat and then we’ll put some pedals through it [Music] that might be a big ice pick either so I’m going to turn that that clean uh what’s it called bright Channel off [Music] I prefer it on but let’s take that treble down a bit [Music] thank you foreign I like that that’s a great stretchy sound um let’s try the fourth position [Music] there’s some great sounds in that um all right clean I’m convinced by the clean sounding great with the Strat I’m convinced by the overdrive sounding great with a Les Paul humbucker guitar now let’s try some pedals with it first up the motherload from crazy tube circuits [Music] thank you that’s brilliant that’s I mean from that from that clean [Music] thank you that is a fantastic sound that takes that pedal superbly however the motherload is more expensive than the amp currently so that pedal as great as it is is going to set you back more money than an amp that makes it loud so let’s try some more affordable pedals with the Davey 50r let’s go with this the Moscow horse Silver Horse which is about 20 bucks foreign [Music] so a low gain clone style pedal sounds great let’s try something a bit more chuggy chuggy let’s do the Magus Pro from TC electronic [Music] [Music] um I can’t find it [Music] [Music] okay so if you need more again you’re going to need pedals but you shouldn’t have to spend much more money on pedals that TC is under a hundred I don’t know how much exactly but you could put it as this way it’s almost the half the price of the amp I think links in the description one more I wasn’t happy with the low Gainey bluesbreakery overdrive of this so let’s try and get a marshall Plexi tone let’s try this overdrive from k-line which is a king of tone clone [Music] let’s turn the bright switch off a little bit that’s more it that’s kind of low again but still driving [Music] that’s what I was looking for that that pushed clean tone well just you know overdriven a kind of almost Tweedy Blues breakery kind of Plexi thing that style that doesn’t do it on its own but it does do it with cheap pedals so yeah I also didn’t notice that I kind of forgot I was just playing with pedals I forgot that I was playing through such a cheap amp um cheap sounds nasty affordable low priced budget friendly yeah that takes pedals extremely well black style well done let’s put something in the effects loop I haven’t tested the effects Loop keeping it cheap let’s put this K line delay Reverb thing through it see what that sounds like let’s turn that Reverb off on the amp and I’m playing The Squire bullet Mustang which I modded slightly but it cost about 120 euros so about half the price of the amp because I’ve been playing um really well not really expensive but expensive uh guitars so far so that’s clean [Music] little bitey though this amp is quite bitey on that clean channel uh let’s put some delay on [Music] [Music] okay it does delay I mean it’s in the effects return effects return effects Loop which means that it’s coming after the preamp so I can change between the clean Channel and the overdrive Channel and the delays will be after the overdrive hello hello [Music] thank you so that’s a cheap delay I don’t know in fact how much this costs but it’s it’s affordable and then we’ve got an affordable Reverb [Music] I wonder how good the emulated speaker out is Let’s test it I’ll record something directly into my audio interface with a guitar and then I’ll reamp that through the black star and the first sound sample you’ll hear will be the sm57 and then I’ll reamp it again with exactly the same guitar playing and you’ll hear it through the emulated speaker out so this is what it would sound like if you sent a line out to your PA system or audio interface or if you plug headphones in to the debut 50r [Music] okay [Music] so I had a listen back to that and I didn’t really expect a 230 Euro amp to have a high quality line out like it was a quad cortex or a helix or something like that or Kemper it has a line out with some sort of EQ on it that makes it sound a bit like a speaker and I think if you further push that EQ in the base area maybe cut some of those brittle trebles it would sound even more usable 230 euros and it has a line out with a speaker emulation it’s better that it’s there than it isn’t there I think it’s usable the final thing I want to test is the 5 watt mode we’ve had it in 50 watt mode so far how does it sound on the quiet setting so I’ve pushed this up to a volume that is Extremely Loud in the room it’s almost unbearable and then I’m gonna hit the 5 watt switch and see how that sounds [Music] foreign [Music] so there’s no compression or anything on this there’s no eq’ing that’s straight out the sm57 into the audio recorder and into your ears via the Internet uh clean let’s do clean [Music] firefight let’s try 50 Watts foreign [Music] yeah so it’s still driving at that point so I’m about I don’t know 11 o’clock on the volume no for the volume knob of the clean with humbuckers it was really loud in 50 Watts I couldn’t stick that for very much longer but um in the name of science there you are you’re welcome all right I think I should review this thing finally should you buy it or not oh so would I recommend the debut 50r well yes I would if you are interested in buying the amp and you’ve made it this far and you’re on the fence definitely buy it it is for 220 Euros a great amp it’s even a great amp for a bit more than that the reason it’s not more expensive than it is is because the katana 50 from boss exists and Blackstar have definitely placed this underneath the katana 50 in the price range and quite rightly so because the katana 50 comes with more features like a USB socket that you can record to your computer with and update things and it’s got loads and loads of effects in it however it’s quite complicated and the tone Studio software is rubbish the Blackstar debut 50r has none of that it’s just an amp that sounds great and gets you good good loud sounds or quiet ones or silent ones if you need them it’s taken every pedal good well even it’s taken every guitar well I prefer the overdrive Channel with humbuckers I like the queen Channel with both humbuckers and single coils it sounded great with the Strat um the effects Loop being there is is amazing I don’t use effects Loop that often even though I often ask for them it’s great that it’s there because if you’re using this for pedals you’re gonna want one in my band I play ace James el34 from Blackstar I’ve gone through several amps and I’ve ended up with thats and James it is killer the overdrive channel from this debut 50r comes from the St James 6l6 I’ve only played the six star six once I don’t remember if it sounds like that all you need to know is that that sounds good ignore the marketing they’re just trying to get you to trust them by saying it sounds like a more expensive amp it doesn’t matter it sounds in my opinion good to great the clean Channel likewise is also based upon the Blackstar ht20 Mark II doesn’t mean anything it just means they’re trying to get you to trust them because they haven’t just created a clean channel from somewhere I mean I’m not saying they haven’t put the work in but from our perspective from the purchases perspective you don’t mind it just it just has to sound good and be reliable right and it does and it probably is I’m not going to keep you any longer I’ve spent more time with this amp than I have with most amps because I was just so surprised at how good it sounded and I wanted to try a bunch of pedals and a bunch of guitars through it to give you a kind of definitive not guide but a definitive opinion because at 230 euros and whatever that is in your local currency there’s going to be a lot of you wondering if this is the amp for you so I’ll say it once more if you’re a beginner that’s one of the best apps you can get if you’re a pedal platform kind of person player one of the best apps you can get if you’re in a band it’s just going to be loud enough it will be loud enough but only just so you know take that with a pinch of salt and maybe try it out that’s it you’ve reached the end of the video which means you’re in the end of the video club and to prove that you are a member of this prestigious Elite when you leave a comment telling me what you think of the Blackstar debut 50r please also include the phrase Black start me up and that let me know that you watch this part and it will make me giggle because I love reading your comments and YouTube will thank me because you know you’ve commented on the video and that pushes the video to more people so they get to see it and it’s fun and you know there’s a reason for it all right it’s a reason an evil reason behind it anyway there are videos over there that you can watch there’s a subscribe button down there and there are links in the video description if you want to purchase that app for anything that you saw in the video because they’re all down there written for you ready to click I’ve been handy you’ve been wonderful thank you bye-bye
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