Electric Guitar Teacher in Miami reviews Fender Billm Amplifier

Electric Guitar Teacher in MiamiHi I am an electric guitar teacher in Miami named Dyce Kimura. I am doing a review of the BillM modded Blues Junior. I’ve done a review on this amp before and I got so many emails and questions and comments and I thought I’d do another review with a lot better microphone. So I’m using a sure stereo convention mic. And I’m going from my fender Stevie Ray Vaughan signature strat into blues Junior. And I am also going through an Ibanez tube screamer pedal which is not on at the moment I’ll tell you when I turn it on, but I wanted to put it into the single chain in case I need a little bit extra gain low volume. So right now it’s not on; everything is passive and I am going through my Stevie Ray Vaughn signature strat which I use as an electric guitar teacher in Miami. I’m in the fourth position in the front. You can see the modds that I did to this guitar at this blog here.  Just to give you a better context; I’m going to take my monster and I’m going to go straight in making sure you understand. This is a straight up sound. Later I’ll use the pedal. So this amp sounds absolutely massive at a low volume. I’m pretty loud right now; you can tell by the volume on my voice compared to the guitar, but it sounds amazing. The sparkle is huge.

Okay so let’s talk about the settings. Let me just bring this up so you can see. Everything is customized on this amp which I use as an electric guitar teacher in Miami. I customized the reverb as well, but I’ve got a mod reverb in there; it’s got a little darker tone. I kept the tapering the same on this one. I have another BillM where I modded the taper on the reverb. I also put a standby switch, which is great live, tubes I just pop them on. Amp settings: I got the master straight up 12 O clock. These amps, they actually go to 12, one more than the spinal tap that only goes to 11. The master volume’s at 12. I’ve got the middle pushed a little bit out of 12; it’s going to 8. Base is at 5 and treble is at 5. I’ve got the presence mod which was added – that’s a mod by the way. I’ve got that at about 4 and we’ve got the fat boost off and I’ve got my channel volume at about 6. I guess that’s not channel volume, because there’s only one channel on this amp, but if you’re familiar with the Blues Junior you’ve got a volume and then a master volume and that allows you to dial in more dirt and more gain.

Electric Guitar Teacher in Miami

So this amp with both the master and the volume straight up here’s the sound – just absolutely huge. One of the things that’s really obvious as an electric guitar teacher in Miami – and that’s the reason I did this second recording as I really wanted to show you the bass response. It just sounds incredibly massive. Why is the base so big? Well, there are a few reasons: I obviously modded the amps. So both the output transformer is modded to the TO20 output transformer. And the TP24 transformer was also modded, but on top of that I also changed the speaker and I put in a celestion. This is a heritage green back that’s made in the UK. It has 30Watts, 8 ohms, 12 inches. They don’t make these anymore, I believe. I got it used on eBay. The reason I put the heritage is because it’s 30 watts. With this amp the bass response is so big that in just a few months of playing it while working as an electric guitar teacher in Miami, I actually blew out a 25 Watt chinese green back, so I went for the 30 watts just to give me 5 extra watts so I wouldn’t blow it out. And this magnet on this cone; it’s one of the biggest speaker magnets I’ve seen. So it sounds massive. I actually play this in stereo. I play these at church and I play two of these in stereo and you just won’t believe how big that sound is; its just something out of this world. I’ve got books falling off the book shelf right now from the vibration just now.

Electric Guitar Teacher in MiamiBut anyway, so I’ll just run through my pickups a little bit. This is a strat front pick up which I use as an electric guitar teacher in Miami. This is half tone. Here’s the middle pickup. This is the bridge. I’m actually using a P90 on my bridge. This is the Joe Barden p90; sounds pretty good on this amp. Okay, I’m going to put a little bit of tube screamer on, I hope you don’t mind; some people get really upset when you put distortion on a sound… So if that’s you, please no hatred, but it just rely does give you a more complete review. I do expect you to probably use this amp with some overdrive and I’m using an Ibanez tube screener; its a TS808HW hand wired series which I use for lessons whle working as an electric guitar teacher in Miami.

So again, here’s with it off. In the fourth position on my strat. And I’ve got the tube screamer on just a little bit. If I use it like I like to use it, which is deceptively using a tube screamer sounds kind of clean, actually. I like to use just a tiny bit. That’s even too much gain. So that’s what it sounds like. This is how it is again without the tube screamer. Let me show you the features of this amp; so basically, what were the exact mods that I did? Well, I did the basic kit mod. Bill personally changed these out. He did the TO20 output transformer. He did the presence control mod, which is here. He did the cathode follower, the switch craft input – which is just a reinforce input, not the plastic – the TP24 transformer. And at his suggestion he did the line out, which I never use I always like this sucker live. Like I said, I changed the mod and the reverb to the mod reverb and then I also changed the speaker to the heritage green back 30 watt, selection heritage green back. Also these tubes are different; these are the TAD tubes – also at Bill’s suggestion. And then later I went and exchanged the standby as well. So here’s what it sounds like. And let me give you some more tube screamer drive. I’m going to bring down the volume a little bit to something closer to when I do lessons as an electric guitar teacher in Miami.

Secrets from Electric Guitar Teacher in Miami

Well, that’s enough for that. I’ll tell you what I also wanted to show you this tube on some other guitars, so let me just get my tele caster. I’ll be using a fender standard tele with the N3 bridge pickup and I’ve got an analogue big T in the front which I use during my electric guitar teacher in Miami. If you want to see the reviews just checked my channel for my tele review. Also if you want to see the guitars playing the strat, I did a whole bunch of mods for that. If you want to find out what I’m doing to that and how and why, there’s another video on my channel about my mods on my strat. So here’s the tele with the exact same settings with the tubes coming off. Sounds pretty good. It’s half tone. Front pick up. Let me just dial back these mids, bring up the base, roll up highs and treble. Then I am going to plug straight in; just taking the tubes screamer right out of the single chain into the amp like I do during my electric guitar teacher in Miami. And you’re noticing I’m getting a gain bomb just by doing that, so it’s always good to go straight in. This is the bridge of the tele. Let’s experiment here a little bit with settings like what I use as an electric guitar teacher in Miami.  I’ll bring down the master and I’ll bring up the volume. This is huge. So big; I am going to just roll back the volume here a little bit, bring up the presence and bring up the treble. Actually, let’s just try something crazy; let’s turn the treble and the mids all the way up and the base a little bit down and see what happens like I do during my electric guitar teacher in Miami . That sounds pretty good, actually. I was a fast switch too – I haven’t engaged you yet, but I’ll leave it off at the moment more reverb. So if I clean this sound up. This is half tone. So just going back to when I had everything at noon. Put everything at noon again. Still on the bridge pickup on the tele. The tone is a lot more robust on the bottom end with everything at noon. I actually like that a little better; it’s clear, but it behaves like a tele which is great for my electric guitar teacher in Miami.  If I take that and I give you just a little bit of channel gain. I hear that speaker begging for mercy. I think I’m going to back off a little bit. By the way, this amp is modded it’s 18watts. The volume level is absolutely astonishing. I’ve actually AB this to – one of the guitar players in my band has a Blues Junior that is stock and he also does . He just changed only the tubes and the speaker, but the circuitry is stock. He was thoroughly stunned when we ab it. At 18watts it’s got the volume like I would say like a 35 amp.

So that’s why even half way up I’m pushing a 30watt speaker and I can hear it kind of, like, crackling a little bit; it’s distorting on a level that is being pushed beyond what is comfortable, so that’s why I back off . That comes from blowing a lot of green back from being an electric guitar teacher in Miami, so I know when I hear that song what that means. Let’s try it with a little tube streamer. I’m just going to put that sucker in to the single chain and see how it responds. And it’s interesting, I feel like I lost a lot of signal already and I’m using a mogame and a monster; so go figure. Drive all the way up and the level in the middle. So I’ve owned an actual 66 fender black face delux reverb and a 66 super reverb while working as an electric guitar teacher in Miami. I had to sell the super reverb because they called the cops on me so many times that they were going to take me to court, if you can believe it. I know it’s hard to believe. Now I’m in a sound-proof office so it’s a new room.

Anyway, I AB this amp, and I have a couple other blues junior that are Bill amps modded and I AB them with my actual 66 delux reverb and this was as good or better. When I realized that I actually sold my black faces because I realized that these are not going to break down in the near term and I don’t have to be worried about resell value or anything. I’ve got road cases for them and I use them at the live while working as an electric guitar teacher in Miami. They are great for club and smaller venues where you can’t play a half stack and you still want to sound huge. Because of the mods and a little help with the pedals I get real 50s tweet sound that I can get it to sound like a Marshall. I often stack two tube screamer all the way back with just, like, Stevie Ray Vaughn, so I’ll just go in one and out the other and into one. I am using two TS808 hand wired on one of my rigs. Often live I use this with the king of tone and then for leads I’ll hit an exotic effects EP blues and I’ll just have that dimed out to clean boost while working as an electric guitar teacher in Miami.

But anyway, this is it with the tube streamer again like on the front pickups and blues. I’m overloading the microphone. Let me back it down a little bit. Alright, so teles are very nice fit. I also have the Les Pauls handy. Let’s try that guy. Obviously I’m expecting a lot more output with the Les Paul. So same drill, I go straight in to the Les Paul into the Bill amp [playing guitar]. You know it works better when you plug it in. That’s gorgeous. It sounds big; very, very nice. I’ll show you front tones on the Les Pauls. Front pickup. I’ve got to just dial in this EQ a little bit while being an electric guitar teacher in Miami.

So we’ve got lost of bass; I can roll that down.  Let’s try the – I wonder if I bring up the master and roll down the channel volume. Wow, that’s a lot more head room,, bring up the highs, bridge pickup, pretty harsh now; try this. Man, that is huge and its great for an electric guitar teacher in Miami. I’m going to roll back that presence a little bit. Hope you guys are hearing that over in YouTube land. The base is massive, the highs are sparkling, the mids are ranchy. And this straight in, folks, this is my monster right in there, pickups are just dimed out. Man, it’s sick. Front pickup. That’s crazy. I like that. That’s good.

Make sure you comment on this and let me know what kind of guitar you’re playing and what kind of rev you’re working with while seeking an electric guitar teacher in Miami. How about some woman tone. I’ve got to be careful because the amp is pushing a sound bigger than the speaker can handle. So I can hear it because I’m in the room, but if you hear it out there you just hear that kind of – I hear the speaker separate from the magnet, basically. So hopefully that gives a real comprehensive view. I like it. In terms of amps, I mean, everybody ask me while doing lessons as an electric guitar teacher in Miami, “what is that, is that a fender?”  I say it was a fender, it is no longer a fender. It behaves like everything I would want out of an amp; all the bass, all the mids, all the highs, all the spanking sparkle, all the natural meaty driven speaker driven overdrive 60s kind of break up at minimal volume and I like it as an electric guitar teacher in Miami. I like to play these in stereo; I’ll split my signal with like a delay pedal and I will actually go right and left. In my other Billm I’ll use one with like a vintage 30 speaker or something and then I’ll be pushing… This one is a heritage green back, but actually, live, I’ve been using it inside of an isolation cap with a selection cream back; cream like the band cream, but it’s called a cream back. It’s 65watts and this has been pushing the cream back and the other amp pushes the vintage 30. That’s kind of a nice stereo sound which is perfect for an electric guitar teacher in Miami. The vintage 30 has a little more spank and this one is just really meaty, so together they make a happy marriage, I believe.

Electric Guitar Teacher in Miami Advise

Anyway, that’s what I’ve got for you. Email me or comment. I try to respond to all my comments and this is one of my amps in my studio here that I’m using. So hopefully that help some of you out. I’ve been getting so many emails and comments. I appreciate them all; I read them all, but I felt compelled to make another video because there was just so many questions about this amp and why it sound so good and why it’s modded and what the mod actually does. But if you get it done I think you’ll be thrilled. So let me just wrap it up there and I’ll see you at the next video. Thanks so much for watching.