Carsten's Amplification Blue Sky

[mustachio]

Here are my initial impressions:

- listing has it described as a "certain late 50's amp," which is a Fender Tweed Deluxe, in my opinion. But, has better cleans and tighter lows and retains the same drive.

-8 watts on paper, but it has a huge Mercury Magnetics transformer which makes it much louder than many Tweed Deluxe clones I have tried (Cox, Tungsten Cortez, Swart STR, '57 Deluxe Reissue, etc.), except the Victoria 20112. Just as loud. I'm going to get an attenuator. This is NOT a home practice amp.

-Tonker speaker (many have compared with a Fane--don't know, never had one) is very loud. Rated at 150 watts, 8 ohm, 101 db sensitivity--very efficient. Doesn't sag. Very tight bottom end and doesn't fizz out on the top end like Deluxes can. I used an Earthquaker Speaker Cranker for using it for solos and it holds together perfectly. And it definitely cleans up with guitar volume and does the "chime" as described. But, the Tonker will break in, and I bet it will soften and even out eventually.

-Controls are very dynamic and usable throughout their travel. The Volume is very gradual and adds the gain the higher you go. The Tone does not add gain, per se, but does what it's supposed to do. The "Boost" seems to be a switch for the types of pickups you might use. Boost off for humbuckers, Boost on for single coils as a general rule of thumb.

-How does it sound? It's a bit dark with my low wound Throbak PAFs so I have to crank the tone almost all the way up. With my Nocaster, I back it off to 3 o'clock. It's meant to be a plug and play amp and use your guitar. Maybe a clean boost or wah. I wouldn't put a delay I front of it though. My Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay gets a little lost in the front end of it.

In summation, it's a tightened 5E3, very loud, simple lay out, very usable controls and giggable combo. Love the speaker. Love the cosmetics. I've always disliked the two channels on Tweed Deluxes so this was exactly what I was wanting. No ghosting. No fiddling with the unused volume pot. Wanting more top end without the gain associated with the tone pot. It's a wide open, light weight refined Tweed Deluxe while retaining the 5E3 overdrive essence.

Home Run, dudes.

 

[Dad love mom]

My impression was the Carstens Blue Sky was more of a Fender Princeton (tweed) than a Deluxe. I love the way it sounds, but most people aren't into the tweed thing. It's a "cool" thing to say one is into the tweed sound, but hilariously, most people, when hearing a true tweed cranked, always say silly things like "it sounds like a bad fuzz pedal." DUH!

Here are my initial impressions:

- listing has it described as a "certain late 50's amp," which is a Fender Tweed Deluxe, in my opinion. But, has better cleans and tighter lows and retains the same drive.

-8 watts on paper, but it has a huge Mercury Magnetics transformer which makes it much louder than many Tweed Deluxe clones I have tried (Cox, Tungsten Cortez, Swart STR, '57 Deluxe Reissue, etc.), except the Victoria 20112. Just as loud. I'm going to get an attenuator. This is NOT a home practice amp.

-Tonker speaker, many have compared with a Fane (don't know, never had one), is very loud. Rated at 150 watts, 8 ohm, 101 db sensitivity--very efficient. Doesn't sag. Very tight bottom end and doesn't fizz out on the top end like Deluxes can. I used an Earthquaker Speaker Cranker for using it for solos and it holds together perfectly. And it definitely cleans up with guitar volume and does the "chime" as described. But, the Tonker will break in, and I bet it will soften and even out eventually.

-Controls are very dynamic and usable throughout their travel. The Volume is very gradual and adds the gain the higher you go. The Tone does not add gain, per se, but does what it's supposed to do. The "Boost" seems to be a switch for the types of pickups you might use. Boost off for humbuckers, Boost on for single coils as a general rule of thumb.

-How does it sound? It's a bit dark with my low wound Throbak PAFs so I have to crank the tone almost all the way up. With my Nocaster, 3 o'clock. It's meant to be a plug and play amp and use your guitar. Maybe a clean boost or wah. I wouldn't put a delay I front of it though. My Mad Professor Deep Blue Delay gets very muddy in the front end of it.

In summation, it's a tightened 5E3, very loud, simple lay out, very usable controls and giggable combo. Love the speaker. Love the cosmetics. I've always disliked the two channels on Tweed Deluxes so this was exactly what I wanting. No ghosting. No fiddling with the unused volume pot. Wanting more top end without the gain associated with the tone pot. It's a wide open, light weight refined Tweed Deluxe while retaining the 5E3 overdrive essence.

Homerun, dudes.

 

[Rypline]

I run mine into a Rivera silent sister for in house recordings and it sounds amazing. The best part of the Blue Sky is with a simple clean volume boost, an octave pedal, and the volume around 3 you can get crisp queen like leads. Turn em off and harmonic rhythm kicks in. Super versatile. I wouldn't say tweed sound, I would say tweed inspired with modern improvements and Vox highlights.

 

[toast487]

Just got myself a Blue Sky and wanted to resurrect this thread to say what an unreal sounding amp it is. There is not a lot of info circulating about the cleans on this amp, so thought it would be worth adding that, while most will want to purchase for the tweed overdrive, in my experience and imo the cleans are 3D magic with the t-type pickups in my SG that I run directly into this amp. Brian was also kind enough to quickly respond when I had a question about the amp!