In seach of Claptons Bluesbreaker

    That sound is THE holly grail for men of a certain age! :rolleyes:
    After many years of searching my conclusion is that the Beano tone is all in the fingers. The actual amp tone is not so important. Not too hot, not too clean and not too modern with a lot of mids and dynamics. How it feels and the effect on your playing style is more important than the actual tone. The best profile I have found for that feel is the 63 Vibrolux in Andy's vintage and rare pack.
    Hideaway cover - Amp Factory 63 Vibrolux
    Thanks for the tip. I will give it a go.

    IMHO the Ballantine profiles are the only Bluesbreakers we currently have. There is another Bluesbreaker in Andy's "Rock Pack" but that is more about the recording chain than the actual amp. It doesn't sound anything like Beano.


    Maybe Andy can get his hands on that Bluesbreaker and do a "Beano" profile set.


    I also don't think that there is only one "Beano" tone. Clapton did vary his setup a bit between the songs, sometimes more gain, sometimes less, sometimes considerably more treble and on some songs it's a darker sound. So a good profile set for Beano would have to cover the whole range of the amp. It is also pretty hard to get an original Bluesbreaker at all. Music Ground faked so many of them over the years that you can't be sure if you have a original BB or a good fake.


    It is also an ongoing debate about what was actually in that Clapton amp. It was a one off Marshall did for him and it could have been either a JTM45, an early JMP, it could have Celestion alnicos or early Greenbacks 25 Watt.


    There was a discussion over at the Les Paul forum where a Marshall affinicado said he never saw a Bluesbreaker Style II (which is what Clapton had) with a JTM 45 chassis that looked to be original and not faked by Music Ground. He was sure that if it was a Series II combo it had to be a 50 Watt JMP. There was also a guy who did measurements at the existing pics from that session and believed it wasn't even a Style II combo but an 18Watter ;)


    So I go with djdyer, the key is to get in the ballpark and use a profile with the same feel and work from there.


    But I still would like to have a profile of a Bluesbreaker amp ;) And if possible even one from a Style I combo which would have a JTM45 chassis and Alnico speakers for sure. I think Clapton used a Style 1 combo also just not on that famous record.

    i am far from being an expert here, but remember a few things


    • there was no distortion available back in 1965. if there was, jim marshall got his amps returned 8| 8| 8| !!! it was the days of beatles clones all over the world
    • what you hear is overdrive from a) the KT66 valves and b) a (jensen??) speaker of a combo at its absolute limit
    • because eric turned it all to eleven :D

    i do not know how to genuinely reproduce that sound without cranking up a marshall (preferably one with KT66s) to INSANE levels of loudness
    to this very day ian paice and ian gillan complain to have been deaf for days after one of those early purple sessions!!!
    That kept in mind, i am sure you can reach satisfying results with one of those plexis availabe in the DL section or maybe tweak my original
    marshall from the sixities. the cream45. (some guy of northern germany has the original plans and let them build in china. they are amazing.
    but still, the gain the KPA crates here is not close, sorry.)

    My occupation: showing teenagers the many hidden secrets of the A-minor chord on the guitar.

    Great feedback. Thanks guys.
    Dave, your playing is bang on.
    I have Andy's vint pak w the 63 Vibrolux , use it alot , but am trying to get closer to the Bluesbreaker for the early Clapton L.P. tone.
    Last nite I tried various cab's w the Bluesbreaker amp and like you said, some of the alnico cabs get close too.
    btw what is the VAB ? the 1x12" alnico cab from that profile sounds pretty good.

    What we need is a 2 x 12" open back cab. with early 60's alnico Celestions.
    I've tried a few available open back cabs like 62 Electro, 61 Twin, some AC 30's and the 2 x 12 blackback from the Blackbass crunch, which is darn close,but they all carry along a partial imprint of the "mother" amp.

    Edited once, last by old crow ().

    Say, I've noticed some of the rock and blues tones I like from the 60's had serious good tube compression on them.


    Could that be also the case here? Getting the amp is one thing, but how much was that signal compressed to keep the boards from blowing up?

    Quote from db9091

    Say, I've noticed some of the rock and blues tones I like from the 60's had serious good tube compression on them.


    Could that be also the case here? Getting the amp is one thing, but how much was that signal compressed to keep the boards from blowing up?


    If you,re referring to the recording consoles , yes that was a huge part of the sound and we,ll never get the exact sound on those albums because of that, but a ll I want is a profile of an early Blusebreaker w. the G12 alnico speakers.

    Quote from db9091

    Say, I've noticed some of the rock and blues tones I like from the 60's had serious good tube compression on them.


    Could that be also the case here? Getting the amp is one thing, but how much was that signal compressed to keep the boards from blowing up?


    Judging from the pictures it is a fairly close mic setup and I don't think it was a condenser as that would be so big it would show on the pics. Condensers weren't used on "loud" signals back then anyway since they were considered too sensitive. Geoff Emerick would prove those rules wrong around that time, but that was for the Beatles and nobody outside of Abbey Road would know.


    So I think it was either a 545SD (the predecessor of the SM 57) or a Beyer M 250 (a popular ribbon used often for micing Hendrix). Both mics wouldn't blow a preamp when in front of a Bluesbreaker combo. The amp would have something around 30 Watt if it was a JTM45 and the speakers were not very efficient. So basically, I don't think they needed compression to not hit the board or the tape too hard.


    Compression as a real sound tool wasn't used until the late 60s in England and even then it would only be used very gentle.


    But what probably would play a role is the sound of the preamp and also the tape. I'Ve got no idea what board they would have in that studio back then. There is surprisingly little information about that session, given it's enormous popularity back then and even now.


    To sum it up:
    I don't think there was much done to the production other than just set up the mics and hit "record".


    I think to actually capture that sound a profile should be done pretty much the same way: One mic, no thrills. The Beyer and the Sure are both mics that are a bit brighter than todays typical SM57 so that is to be taken into account.

    Quote from old crow

    If you,re referring to the recording consoles , yes that was a huge part of the sound and we,ll never get the exact sound on those albums because of that, but a ll I want is a profile of an early Blusebreaker w. the G12 alnico speakers.


    Consoles in the 60s were pretty simple. Many designs used the german design V72 (pre-)amp for all their gainstages (most famous was certainly Abbey Road). I have one of those and mine is from 1954 - still going strong after I replaced the tube and two caps. This is my main preamp for condenser mics with strong output. You'd be surprised how linear and neutral those preamps sound. They don't color very much, it's more like a very subtle thing.


    Todays boards with parametric EQ and compressor in each channel are a different thing though. But back then the fully parametric EQ wasn't even invented ;)

    Beano was recorded at Decca and I haven't looked up if there's info on their gear at that time.


    Abbey Roads had an
    -RS124 Altec compresor
    -RS114 limiter
    -Fairchild 660 limiter
    -Fairchild 666 compressor
    -RS168 zener diode compressor/limiter


    not to mention a whole bunch of EQ units.



    I know a lot of folks who dig The Beatles try and get that AC30 with the Top Boost from "Day Tripper" but what I hear mostly is a whoppingly over-compressed signal which is 50% of that sound to my ears. Paul even backs up that around that time they started getting in there and turning dials to use the equipment AS effects.


    When you hear Hideaway's blues on the E and A, D strings, it's quite even and amazingly loud and to my ears squished, so I suspect it was compressed. If as one guy on a forum I read recently mentioned that the amp was so loud a few techies were mentioning they felt the effects on their ears for 3 days (myth?) you can bet your bottom it was compressed, if for no other reason that to get an even-handed performance. I also read myself that some of the tracks Page worked on as a Producer he kind of took over, or took responsibility for Eric going into the Red on the meters. ANY Engineer at that time would have turned down the faders, but if they felt they had to turn it down enough that you couldn't get the guitar mixed well, I'd think they would have put a compressor on it to tame the high end for the mix.


    Also, you hear every one of Clapton's notes, even passing ones, at a pretty decent even-volume level. That indicates to me compression.


    And if that was a part of the chain, that is a part of the sound, and the KPA would need a compressor to complete at least part of that sound, not a "boost" as some suggest or going to a Plexi.


    My ears and opinion. Just an educated guess. Others say it was just natural compression from the 2 Greenbacks of that 1965 Marshall model 1962. I wonder if speakers can compress like that. Never had the chance to try it.

    Quote from db9091

    Others say it was just natural compression from the 2 Greenbacks of that 1965 Marshall model 1962. I wonder if speakers can compress like that. Never had the chance to try it.


    I think it is pretty simple: It is amp compression ;)
    Driving an amp into distortion/overdrive is technically compression (regarding the dynamics or loudness). From a certain point on an signal wouldn't get any louder but just causing distortion. That decreases the dynamic range and that is compression. The speakers might also compress (due to them clipping as well) but for the most and foremost part it's the amp. It was common for a long time to compress clean guitars but leave distorted guitars alone.


    In todays very dense mixes people do compress overdriven sounds as well just to make them compete with the rest of the mix but the Beano mix is far from dense. And even today the man who uses more compression than anybody else on the planet, Chris Lord-Alge, would often not compress crunch rhythm guitars. He does compress the solo guitar though in many but not all cases.


    The Fairchild in Abbey Road was used in the Mastering Room for cutting and according to a friend of mine who visited Abbey Road twice for a studio report, the Fairchild was rarely used for Beatles records. The used the EMI-Limiters most of the time. But as I already said, that was only the Beatles. I have that great book by Geoff Emmerick about how he recorded the guys and he says he was the first in England to use heavy compression and close micing with condensers years before other studios in England did that. I can't judge if that is correct, but who am I to not trust Geoff Emmerick.


    I know Alan Parsons prefered the uncompressed mix of dark side of the moon and he repeatedly stated he used as little compression as he could get away with.


    I think Page procing parts of Beano is a myth as is the story of pushing the desk in the red. They might have pushed the tape into the red - that wasn't uncommon back then and that adds compression on the tape - but tape-compression has a very distinctive sound I just don't hear in Beano. And a clipping board has an even more distinctive sound (think Revolution by the Beatles, this were two V72 in series going directly on tape) and that is certainly not present on Beano.


    I still think it is just a Bluesbreaker combo close but not too close miced with a single dynamic mic or maybe a ribbon.


    They really ain't that loud. I haven't played an original but the reissues are available for decades and I played many of them. Sure they are loud but certainly not as loud as to shock a sound engineer even in the 60s. They are the kind of amp you could crank at a guitar shop and that's saying something I guess ;)


    Clapton played small club gigs with a JTM45 halfstack (that would've be even louder) and he got away with it.

    Another thing:


    Waves has recently released a plugin emulating the various REDD consoles at Abbey Road and the studio itself has already released plugins under it's own label simulating the various outboard EQs.


    I have those and it's great fun to play around with but it's only so much you can do with them. Basically the EQs used on Beatles records were just presence boxes where you could crank or turn down 3.5k or 5k. And that is a dramatic and very obvious effect even on the first step of the stepped knob. After playing around with those plugins you get a pretty good idea what was done to Beatles recordings/mixes. It's obvious. But they didn't have much else, the EQ on the REDD consoles is pretty much useless and they just couldn't equalize like we use it today.