I’ve had the pleasure of playing many Fender Blues Juniors over the years, and I must say, its a nice little amp. At 15 watts, this amp is loud! If you are playing blues, you can definitely get some nice tones from the Blues Junior. And with the onboard reverb, and fat switch, finding a likable tone is easy. Lets take a closer lookat the Fender Blues Junior, and how you can make this amp sing!
A good thing about this amp is the Master Volume. Being a vintage guy, I really like to crank an amp to get great tone. But since this amp is small enough, the MV makes it very usable in a bedroom setting. If you want some good overdriven tones at lower volume so you don’t piss off the neighbors, this function is extremely useful. As well, sometimes you want great tone, without blowing your own ears off. Very tweakable in this sense.
Now I’ve played a few different kinds of blues juniors. Some versions that had tweed and red tolex. The difference on the inside was the speaker used, and the kinds of tubes. This makes the stock blues junior a great DIY style amp, as you can choose your own speaker/tube preferences to customize the tone to you. Some of the speakers used on these versions are Eminence, Jensen, and Celestion.
Great EQ on this amp with a middle, bass, treble and fat switch. I like using the fat switch with my strat, as it really gets a great blues tone.
I found with the Blues Junior that I was able to get sounds for most genres of music, aside from say metal.
All I can say is that if you are playing small bars, or just playing in your apartment, this is a great amp. View the Blues Junior on Amazon.
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How should I eq my fender blues jr nod for John Mayer clean tone? Treble, Middle, Bass, fat on or off? I use a fulltone full drive 2, sampler dual fusion, keeley compressor, keeley katana, and way huge aquapuss for dirt and tone shaping. I’m only wanting to know how to eq the amp for John Mayer clean tone (overall tone) I would appreciate the advice!
John Mayer’s clean tone is actually pushed a bit. Its on the edge before the amp starts to break up. So only a tube amp would work which you have. So first you want to drive the tubes a little. Set your amp volume (not master volume) to a point right before the amp starts to break up. I call this pushed cleans. Then set your EQ at 12 o’clock for all dials. Then using your ear, subtract or add what is missing. Too much low end? Decrease bass. Not bright enough? Increase treble… etc. etc. If you feel the tone is really thin, then sure turn on the fat switch. Finally to really get John’s tone, you gotta play like him. Learn his songs, techniques and things he does on the guitar. You’ll get the sound in no time.