How to Get a Blues Tone With the St James Suite

When it comes to blues, for most guitar players, analog will always be king. The sound of a small, cranked amp is hard to replicate.

In this lesson we’re going to dial in some blues tones with the St James suite and get as close to that cranked amp feel as possible.

Choosing a Cab and Mic

All the classic blues tones that we’ve heard over the years are mostly from smaller amps, typically combos. It’s not a common occurrence for an artist to opt for 4×12 cabinets to make a blues record.

Sticking with a 1×12 speaker is ideal for this tone.

Mic wise, you want a mic that has plenty of vintage character. A condenser mic will give you a full bodied tone with lots of detail, or if you want more vintage vibe, a Ribbon mic will deliver those classic retro tones.

EL34 or 6L6?

Both EL34 and 6L6 amps are ideal for blues, but both will give a different flavour when it comes to dialling in tones.

The EL34 amp will give you more of a mid-pushed, British blues sound. Think about all the classic tones from the 1960s British blues invasion and you’re in the right ballpark. This is a very dynamic, responsive tone that can go from subtle overdriven blues to aggressive blues rock with your pick dynamics controlling it.

The 6L6 amp will give you a much cleaner overall sound, this is the sound that we associate with American amps. Cleaner, higher headroom, more low and high detail with less midrange. This sound is a great pedal platform tone, or for playing cleaner blues runs.

Gain or Volume?

The essence of a great blues tone lies in a cranked amp. We can replicate this two different ways inside the plugin.

The first is to run either amp on the clean channel and crank the channel volume. This will push the amp to breakup. The EL34 amp will break up more than the 6L6 which retains a slightly cleaner sound even at high volumes

Using the overdrive channels of each amp allow you to set the gain to taste. The EL34 is a much lower gain amp and is perfect for that British blues tone. The 6L6 amp is much higher gain so if you opt to use the overdrive channel, the gain control will need to be set very low.

Boost and Overdrive

Once you’ve dialed in your desired gain levels, you can use the Overdrive pedal in the Pre FX area to hit the front of the amp harder and push it that little bit further. Try setting the gain on 0 to give the front of the amp a clean boost, or add a little gain to lift solos.

EQ Choices

When EQ’ing an amp for blues you don’t want to make any huge, drastic EQ moves. Try to set the amp as natural as possible and EQ the amp to what it’s best at. For the EL34 amp, focus on the midrange rather than pushing the lows and highs too much.

On the 6L6 amp, try pulling some of the midrange out and using the lows and highs to finetune the overall tone.

Emulating a Smaller Speaker

Many classic blues records were also recorded on amps with speakers smaller than 12 inches. You can use the EQ block of the plugin to somewhat emulate this.

Start by rolling off lots of low end with the Low Cut. You can even go as far as 200Hz. With the High Cut, bring that down to about 10 or 11kHz to take off any top end harshness. Smaller speakers typically have more midrange focus. Then, turn the midrange on the amp up.

This won’t sound exactly like an 8 or 10 inch speaker, but it will push your tone slightly in that direction by restricting the range of frequencies you’re sending to the speaker.

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About the Author

This article on how to dial in a blues tone on the St James Suite was written by Leigh Fuge. Leigh is a professional guitarist and content creator and also works alongside musicteacher.com to create guitar focused, educational and entertainment content.

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