Byrnesys Blabberings

It’s been a while since I’ve written an electric guitar series post, mostly because I haven’t played in months now. A Very sad state of affairs indeed, but since there is no longer any worship band and no amp so there has been no playing.

There was good prospect recently when a local music forum I keep an eye on had a very affordable combo amp for sale, I looked into it and decided to buy it. Unfortunately I spoke to the guy twice and made arrangements to collect it and he went completely silent and I havent heard from him since. This happened with a bass amp I tried to buy through the same forum, very fustrating.

Less of my woes though and onto the amp itself; Its the Epiphone Valve Jnr. although admittedly I haven’t played it I want to try and review it for use as a worship electric guitarists amp, because I have done quite a bit of research on it and it looks like it could be ‘just the ticket’.

Essentially its a 5W valve combo which makes it, by all standards a very low watted amp, and would be considered a practise amp to most people. It is very difficult to find the combination of low watted amp with a good quality valve amp. Most players would consider a 15w tube amp (such as a Vox AC15) to be sufficient for small gigs and practises, but as many church electric guitarists can attest to, the constant problem of having your amp turned high enough to get some tone whilst keeping it low enough that you don’t drown the fold back monitors for everyone else.

What is so exciting about a 5W valve amp is that the crunch or drive which many modern day effects pedals are trying to emulate turning a valve amp up high enough that the signal begins to break up creating that classic electric guitar sound. Of course I am over simplifying the differences between the drive, distortion, fuzz pedal markets, but in essence most of these sounds have been developed to emulate the overloading of an amp. So when you have a 5W valve amp this crunchier sound will be acheived at a much lower overall volume thus solving the problem of tone vs. volume.

Power: 5 Watts

Class: Class A.

Valves: 12AX7, EL84.

Circuitry: Single-Ended.

Speaker: 8 inch Special Design Speaker. 

The other exciting thing about the Epiphone Valve Junior, apart from the fact that its is so very cheap and from the majority of reviews purports to be very well built is that it is very simple, it only has a volume knob, which for those of you who prefer the modelling side of electric guitar (eg. you have 4 variaxes and everything line6 has ever made) will be a knightmare, but for those who prefer the Class A P2P direction of ‘less is more’ will be a welcome sign. The simplicity of the amp (which before I confuse you too much is not P2P but PCB) means it is extremely easy to modify, and there are tips and tricks all over the internet for.

There are also some comments in review which say the amp leans towards to trebles and mids, in response to that it is important to remember that at the end of the day the amp is still just 5W and has a 8" speaker in it, which is not going to be of the highest calibre at the Retail price, if you really want to mod it, switch out the speaker or simply connect another speaker cabinet.

Do you have any thoughts on this? Have you used an amp that has leant itself well to contemporary worship music? Have you played the EVJ? What did you think?