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I jumped on the henriksen bandwagon for the 3rd time recently after being impressed with the latest generation of Bud amps. From a portability and practicality perspective, the Bud 6" has to be one of the most impressive amps out there. It has tons of volume with clean headroom all the way up the dial. It's probably all that most players need. However, coming from playing really, really good vintage tube amps (like that 1964 Princeton Reverb with a JBL speaker behind the henriksen in the pic above), I'm pretty spoiled when it comes to tone and feel. I've been messing with some options to get my henriksen to sound closer to that Princeton, and after some refinement I landed on a great pedal rig as a companion to the henriksen.
Signal Chain
My signal chain is guitar -> henriksen preamp -> fx send -> buffer -> barber electronics barb eq -> fairfield circuitry barbershop v2 -> empress compressor v2 -> buffer -> amp fx return -> henriksen power amp.
That sounds like a lot but it's actually super compact. The rig fits in two small gig bags (in addition to the guitar gig bag) that I can sling over my shoulder, keeping both hands free. I also managed to streamline setup and tear down with one of these. Instead of having to run two power cable to the wall socket, I just plug my amp into that splitter cable and it gives me an extra outlet at the amp for my pedalboard. Additionally, the whole pedalboard connects to the amp through a single TRS insert cable. Compactness and cleanliness were firm requirements for me in this setup, so I'm happy I was able to get this full-featured rig to be no more cumbersome than a head/cab.
Pedals
(1) Empress Effects Buffer +. This is used not just to preserve the signal quality. This buffer has some pretty useful features like an input attenuator and and output boost. The input attenuator helps to make sure I don't overdrive any of my pedals more than I want to and the output boost is essentially like having a master volume right at my feet.
(2) Barber Electronics Barb E.Q. I have owned much fancier eq pedals, such as the Empress parametric EQ. The Empress EQ is amazingly flexible, but it's almost too flexible for when you need simple, intuitive, quick adjustments. I don't know how to describe the Barb EQ other than "well calibrated". There's a switch on the top that allows you to select between Tweed, Blackface, and Marshall voicings (I only use the first two). The knobs have just the right amount of sensitivity for fine tuning. You're probably wondering why I even need an EQ given that the Henriksen has an EQ. The Henriksen EQ, to me, is powerful but a little too delicate. The EQ doesn't seem to respond to changes in position in the knobs until they're halfway past the midpoint and then suddenly the EQ becomes very sensitive to small changes. The Barb just instantly imprints a tweed or blackface character with no fiddling. I just love how intuitive it is.
(3) Fairfield Electronics Barbershop Overdrive V2. I think of this as my secret weapon pedal. I don't know of any jazz players using this pedal. Mostly we just don't use overdrive, but some of us use overdrive to imprint characteristics on solid state amps. An example is the now well known Nocturne Brain Jr Barnyard, which is pretty transparent with a mild low-mid bump. Well, I have played a good number of OD pedals and have always felt they "cheapen" the tone by messing with the EQ. Things like tube screamers and klons are known for bumping the mids significantly. I, for one, really like my clean tone, and don't want the OD to mess with it. The Barbershop is *by far* the best pedal I've used for just adding a tiny but of harmonic distortion and saturation to the sound without changing its character. Turning up the gain on this pedal produces an effect just like turning up the gain on an amp. No it won't turn your deluxe into an eh-185, but if you have a clean tone you really dig, this just heats it up a bit.
(4) Empress Compressor MKII. I'll start with saying that I'm not crazy about using a compressor. I don't like dynamics squashed much, but it's also true that any tube amp is already naturally compressing your sound a bit. I'm using the compressor just to get that feeling into the Henriksen. I keep the input gain and ratio low so that 90% of the time it's actually not compressing noticeably. I just use it to bring down some of the peaks slightly. This is super helpful when playing something like my L7 with an FHC. I tend to have a heavy right hand technique to get the sound I like, but into a solid state amp it can be a bit much.
The placement of the overdrive between the EQ and the Compressor is pretty important to me. Just like in a fender amp, the EQ is part of the preamp, and power amp distortion ultimately colors the EQ rather than vice versa. Also, having the OD pre-compression allows me to still drive the overdrive into super-mild distortion without having crazy peaks rather than having compression limit the timbral range I can get with the OD pedal.
FX loop vs front of amp
Another option for the signal chain was to run these pedals into the front end of the amp rather than the loop. I tried both options and I felt definitively that things sounded better in the loop. It comes down to whether you want the henriksen coloring your effects or if you want the effects coloring the henriksen. Ultimately, I feel like this pedalboard is a tube-character board and I want it to have the final say on EQ. The downside of using the fx loop is running a line level signal into the overdrive and compression pedals. Fortunately both those pedals have a lot of headroom so it's fine. Also, the Bud (in contrast to the Blu) has a preamp gain control, so I just keep that minimized to prevent overdriving anything too hard and I make up preamp volume using the volume boost available in the pedals. Each pedal on its own has more than enough gain on tap to completely make up for running the henriksen preamp at its minimum gain.
These are just my thoughts and conclusions from a lot of trial and error. I definitely owe readers a demo, which hopefully I can get around to soon. It's been hard to make time during the holidays.
Also notice the 9x9 sheet of plexiglass under the bud. I use this when the amp's on a carpet to help distribute the bass frequencies.
Added recorded some audio, see below.
I recorded the following demo into a loop, just some blowing on the first A of misty on my 1957 Gibson ES 175. There are 7 clips so please watch to the end (1 for the Fender 3 for each Henriksen).
Clip 1: Princeton Reverb
Clip 2: Henriksen Bud 6, all EQ controls flat. (Some people will prefer this sound. I don't)
Clip 3: Henriksen Bud 6, EQ scooped to remove upper mids and try to approximate the Fender sound.
Clip 4: Henriksen Bud 6, EQ on the Bud is flat but the signal is passing through the pedal board to add some EQ and tube warmth. The compressor is barely doing anything at all.
Clip 6: Henriksen Bud 10, all EQ controls flat. (Some people will prefer this sound. I don't)
Clip 6: Henriksen Bud 10, EQ scooped to remove upper mids and try to approximate the Fender sound.
Clip 7: Henriksen Bud 10, EQ on the Bud is flat but the signal is passing through the board to add some EQ and tube warmth. The compressor is barely doing anything at all.
The Henriksens have a really nice sound, especially with the EQ tweaked to my liking. What I couldn't possibly cover in this demo is the difference in feel to the player between having the board engaged and not. The other thing that was tricky to cover is the sound in the room. This was recorded with the mics about a foot from the speakers.
Last edited by omphalopsychos; 12-31-2022 at 04:51 PM.
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12-30-2022 08:49 PM
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Solid!! So... how much to put one of those together and mail it up to BC? You could call it the Juan-a-Maker :) :) :)
Not really... I have a similar Nano thing with some of the same functions that I haven't used in 3 years. Been thinking about putting it back in the game. Thanks for the tip on the cord! I like that.
Sincerely,
chas.
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Anachronistic is right. The thought of my guitar signal being converted to discrete data and back into physical energy in real time makes me vomit in my mouth.
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I think you covered it with the attribution of anachronism. I’m content with analog processing and haven’t heard any examples of dsp sounding any better, mostly worse. I dislike the idea of editing sounds through digital interfaces and the endless customizability gives me nausea. Moreover all of the dsp stuff I’ve seen is geared toward rock players, so maybe I disdain it inherently and pre-rationally. Everything I’ve encountered feels like an overload of features I don’t care about.
I’m all ears if you believe there’s a dsp amp worth checking out. By your post I’m assuming you run an all modeling rig? No pedals at all? No tube amps?
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I used to do that with small amps, but it kind of beats the purpose for me. Meaning, once you start carrying a pedalboard, you might as well carry the Princeton.
But of course the rig looks fine, and I bet it sounds fine too!
I'm kind of in the same boat with digital. Recently got a helix stomp, and it is a world apart from cheaper ones (like the Boss Gt-1 I was using before). But still a compromise sonically if you compare it to good tube amps (I also have a vintage Princeton among others). An analog amp sim and pedals feels better to me, closer to what I'm used to.
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You can’t put a Princeton in a gig bag. You also can’t get a Princeton to sound the same at all volumes.
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I use a similar setup with a Sarno tube buffer and always on cranked output/low gain OD. Brad modded my buffer with an internal US/Euro switch, so it's a nice little go-anywhere analog rig to warm up my Heniksens or touring amps-
du-jour.
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All I can say is that I am sure glad that the guitar to cable to Henriksen works for me. These days I am glad to carry as little as possible. I haven't carried a guitar case to a gig in years. It is the guitar in a gig bag on one shoulder and the Henriksen in it's gig bag on the other shoulder.
Oomph,
I am glad you found a way to like the Henriksen. I love my 64 Princeton with it's JBL, but it is an old amp. I want my modern, reliable Henriksen on the gig in any case.
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Wouldn’t a UA Dream 65 plus power amp take just as much pedalboard space? Are you using an IR speaker cabinet sim or are you playing into a guitar cabinet?
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Marc, the henriksen by itself definitely is 90% of the way there for me. A 6lb gig bag for that extra 10% is still worth it for me.
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Very interesting. I sold my Princeton reissue because I couldn’t get sounds at the volumes I wanted, because the reverb introduced hum, and because the tremolo didn’t have much control over slower speed and deeper depth. I‘m currently down to a tweed champ clone and some pedals, which sounds awesome but doesn’t provide much power or bass response.
I’ve been considering a Bud for awhile and have seen a few videos with tone I like, but many sound a bit too “cold,” like the amp needs more preamp gain to push the signal (not overdrive, just more signal).
I recently played a Tech 21 blonde and was pretty blown away by the tone and how reactive/responsive the controls are, giving you tons of range at any volume level. But then you essentially RELY on a pedal along with the amp to get the sound you want, which puts me off, especially at this price.
That said, it WOULD be nice to have a very wide range of tweed/BF tones, with studio quality spring reverb and tremolo (Source Audio True Spring), to cover nearly all Fender amp sounds at any volume, with the size of a Bud and a Pedaltrain Nano.
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Also, PLEASE add a video to this thread A/B’ing the Bud and Princeton after you’ve dialed them in!!!
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I used to have the first generation Henriksen amp head and cab (don’t’ think they make em any more). The reverb sucked and it needed a separate tweeter. Bobby Broom used to gig with that amp around town. It was a good amp, more of a Polytone vein. That whole vibe-Evans-Polytone, etc.
What’s wrong with Fender Princeton ToneMaster in terms of tone and sound? I noticed that Rodney Jones really digs it. It’s a damn fine amp, more or less sounds a Princeton Reverb.
I guess it’s down to loudness. When these amps get that loud, they lose that wonderful quality that makes the tone great. Then, we are entering the “electric guitar sounds like an electric guitar” territory.
I’m curious how much different the Henriksen sound has changed since the first generation head and cab I used to have.
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...then do not think about it so much... Simple.
Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
btw, this physical energy thing seems to be overkill. Have you thought about that physical energy what analog way amplifies your picking energy to the speakers energy originated by in a power plant probably hundreds miles far away by burning things? Pretty pervert too, if we give our brain enough time to develop it to absurd. So dont.
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"Get that piece of shit off my lawn before I blow it to Kingdom Come!!"...digital modeling devices?
- old dude been playin string nigh on 60 year (me)
:-) :-)
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Sorta similar again…
into tuner (good kill switch as well) -> victory duchess v1 -> EHX freeze -> EHX dispatch master -> [sometimes Moore trelicopter] -> Blackstar tube boost -> bam200 -> toob 12S
the duchess gives me a nice brownface fenderish/ Marshall clean with opportunity for some breakup in picking dynamics. The tube boost gives me warmth with a hint of compression. The DM is there ‘cause the Bam has no ‘verb
cheers
Emike
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This question answers itself. Originally Posted by InsufferableRhythm
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Some people like the Joyo American Sound, but I’ve gone through two of these units, they are not pro gigging gear (mind you I also ruined a tech 21 FlyRig so maybe I’m just death to gear). However it might be useful as a proof of concept for little financial risk.
No doubt it worked for me - made my AER sound much more like a fender .
a lot of people seem to prefer the way these units respond to the SansAmps - less compressed.
there are plenty of “warmer upper” amp sim type pedals on the market. It may be necessary to audition a few till you find what works best with the Henricksen. Many pedals claim to work equally well with any amp or DI, but I’ll be the judge of that lol.
i like analog, personally. Many of these units you can run on a 9v battery, which is actually pretty useful. I don’t like to be a two plug guy for various reasons of practicality.
But i think it’s mostly an interface thing. If it has screens I worry that I’ll have to burn loads of time learning to use it. So I like knobs. Otoh I don’t need the features of an Axe FX, Line 6 Helix etc. but there are digital units like the strymon iridium that have an old school interface…
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That's an interesting rig. I also use a Barb EQ, but in a different setup - I've found that "jazz amps" like the Henriksen, even with pedals beyond them, are limited by the small ported cab and bass speaker. I use mine in "blackface mode" with a zoom ms50g (graphic eq and tuner) and a Logidy EPSI (for impulse responses) trough a 10 inch PA cab. Everytime you change the IR, it's like you get a "new amp" Originally Posted by omphalopsychos
I jumped on the henriksen bandwagon for the 3rd time recently after being impressed with the latest generation of Bud amps. From a portability and practicality perspective, the Bud 6" has to be one of the most impressive amps out there. It has tons of volume with clean headroom all the way up the dial. It's probably all that most players need. However, coming from playing really, really good vintage tube amps (like that 1964 Princeton Reverb with a JBL speaker behind the henriksen in the pic above), I'm pretty spoiled when it comes to tone and feel. I've been messing with some options to get my henriksen to sound closer to that Princeton, and after some refinement I landed on a great pedal rig as a companion to the henriksen.
Signal Chain
My signal chain is guitar -> henriksen preamp -> fx send -> buffer -> barber electronics barb eq -> fairfield circuitry barbershop v2 -> empress compressor v2 -> buffer -> amp fx return -> henriksen power amp.
That sounds like a lot but it's actually super compact. The rig fits in two small gig bags (in addition to the guitar gig bag) that I can sling over my shoulder, keeping both hands free. I also managed to streamline setup and tear down with one of these. Instead of having to run two power cable to the wall socket, I just plug my amp into that splitter cable and it gives me an extra outlet at the amp for my pedalboard. Additionally, the whole pedalboard connects to the amp through a single TRS insert cable. Compactness and cleanliness were firm requirements for me in this setup, so I'm happy I was able to get this full-featured rig to be no more cumbersome than a head/cab.
Pedals
(1) Empress Effects Buffer +. This is used not just to preserve the signal quality. This buffer has some pretty useful features like an input attenuator and and output boost. The input attenuator helps to make sure I don't overdrive any of my pedals more than I want to and the output boost is essentially like having a master volume right at my feet.
(2) Barber Electronics Barb E.Q. I have owned much fancier eq pedals, such as the Empress parametric EQ. The Empress EQ is amazingly flexible, but it's almost too flexible for when you need simple, intuitive, quick adjustments. I don't know how to describe the Barb EQ other than "well calibrated". There's a switch on the top that allows you to select between Tweed, Blackface, and Marshall voicings (I only use the first two). The knobs have just the right amount of sensitivity for fine tuning. You're probably wondering why I even need an EQ given that the Henriksen has an EQ. The Henriksen EQ, to me, is powerful but a little too delicate. The EQ doesn't seem to respond to changes in position in the knobs until they're halfway past the midpoint and then suddenly the EQ becomes very sensitive to small changes. The Barb just instantly imprints a tweed or blackface character with no fiddling. I just love how intuitive it is.
(3) Fairfield Electronics Barbershop Overdrive V2. I think of this as my secret weapon pedal. I don't know of any jazz players using this pedal. Mostly we just don't use overdrive, but some of us use overdrive to imprint characteristics on solid state amps. An example is the now well known Nocturne Brain Jr Barnyard, which is pretty transparent with a mild low-mid bump. Well, I have played a good number of OD pedals and have always felt they "cheapen" the tone by messing with the EQ. Things like tube screamers and klons are known for bumping the mids significantly. I, for one, really like my clean tone, and don't want the OD to mess with it. The Barbershop is *by far* the best pedal I've used for just adding a tiny but of harmonic distortion and saturation to the sound without changing its character. Turning up the gain on this pedal produces an effect just like turning up the gain on an amp. No it won't turn your deluxe into an eh-185, but if you have a clean tone you really dig, this just heats it up a bit.
(4) Empress Compressor MKII. I'll start with saying that I'm not crazy about using a compressor. I don't like dynamics squashed much, but it's also true that any tube amp is already naturally compressing your sound a bit. I'm using the compressor just to get that feeling into the Henriksen. I keep the input gain and ratio low so that 90% of the time it's actually not compressing noticeably. I just use it to bring down some of the peaks slightly. This is super helpful when playing something like my L7 with an FHC. I tend to have a heavy right hand technique to get the sound I like, but into a solid state amp it can be a bit much.
The placement of the overdrive between the EQ and the Compressor is pretty important to me. Just like in a fender amp, the EQ is part of the preamp, and power amp distortion ultimately colors the EQ rather than vice versa. Also, having the OD pre-compression allows me to still drive the overdrive into super-mild distortion without having crazy peaks rather than having compression limit the timbral range I can get with the OD pedal.
FX loop vs front of amp
Another option for the signal chain was to run these pedals into the front end of the amp rather than the loop. I tried both options and I felt definitively that things sounded better in the loop. It comes down to whether you want the henriksen coloring your effects or if you want the effects coloring the henriksen. Ultimately, I feel like this pedalboard is a tube-character board and I want it to have the final say on EQ. The downside of using the fx loop is running a line level signal into the overdrive and compression pedals. Fortunately both those pedals have a lot of headroom so it's fine. Also, the Bud (in contrast to the Blu) has a preamp gain control, so I just keep that minimized to prevent overdriving anything too hard and I make up preamp volume using the volume boost available in the pedals. Each pedal on its own has more than enough gain on tap to completely make up for running the henriksen preamp at its minimum gain.
These are just my thoughts and conclusions from a lot of trial and error. I definitely owe readers a demo, which hopefully I can get around to soon. It's been hard to make time during the holidays.
EDIT: Also notice the 9x9 sheet of plexiglass under the bud. I use this when the amp's on a carpet to help distribute the bass frequencies.
It's interesting how conservative guitarists are - digital (not necessary modelling) pedals have come a long way and can work as well or better than the analog counterparts. But many still don't want to use them!
The UAD Dream 65 makes me curious, would love to try one. With reverb and included loaded IR's, you can run a very simple PA rig with just one pedal.
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You know what’s funny is I tried a bunch of the all-in-one pedals including some blackface in a box and fancy overdrives. I might have said this before but I am very much not a pedal guy, these are a bit of a necessary evil.
I was very disappointed by the joyo American sound and tech 21 blonde compared to this rig. Every parameter felt too flexible, and I could not dial in a sound that felt natural.
Here’s another analog one that I am curious to try. I had ordered one but USPS has misplaced it. It has a “sag knob” which is a built in optical compressor to emulate tube rectifier sag.
Skreddy Twangophile
Christian I’m with you on the “one wall outlet” position. Did you see the part in my original post when I mentioned a custom cable that lets me daisy chain the amp and the pedal board.Last edited by omphalopsychos; 12-31-2022 at 10:56 AM.
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I have not tried the UAD 65, but for the modelling part I too prefer something like the Barb EQ to most modelling I've tried (exluding Fractal and Kemper). But for all the rest - eq, reverb, IRs, tuner, compressor, etc, I enjoy digital a lot.
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Do you use the output of the UA into the input of the icepower directly or is there another preamp stage to bring it to line level for the input? Originally Posted by InsufferableRhythm
That sounds like a cool setup.
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I have a similar rig for my jazz playing, but a bit more elaborate. Still, a small pedalboard for me compared to the old days!
I start with a Sonic Research Turbotuner
Empress Compressor Mk.II
Analogman King of Tone
Boss GE7 modified by Analogman
Keely Halo for some fun echoes
I usually have the Compressor on very subtle like the OP, the KOT is in clean boost mode, slightly tightens the lows and does something nice with the mids, plus a bit of grit when needed (only for certain guitars), GE7 also only used for certain guitars but great to have for fine tuning, the Halo for a tiny bit of delay when desired.
Powered by a Cioks PS underneath the (small Temple) board.
The rig warms things up a bit when I can't turn up the amp enough, which is most of the time. The second channel of the KOT is set for when I want to rock out a bit (heresy).
The rig is small enough for a gig, and I have used it for that pre-Halo, but I don't use mass transit where I live (boonies of Nocal).
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I recorded the following demo into a loop, just some blowing on the first A of misty on my 1957 Gibson ES 175. There are 7 clips so please watch to the end (1 for the Fender 3 for each Henriksen).
Clip 1: Princeton Reverb
Clip 2: Henriksen Bud 6, all EQ controls flat. (Some people will prefer this sound. I don't)
Clip 3: Henriksen Bud 6, EQ scooped to remove upper mids and try to approximate the Fender sound.
Clip 4: Henriksen Bud 6, EQ on the Bud is flat but the signal is passing through the pedal board to add some EQ and tube warmth. The compressor is barely doing anything at all.
Clip 6: Henriksen Bud 10, all EQ controls flat. (Some people will prefer this sound. I don't)
Clip 6: Henriksen Bud 10, EQ scooped to remove upper mids and try to approximate the Fender sound.
Clip 7: Henriksen Bud 10, EQ on the Bud is flat but the signal is passing through the board to add some EQ and tube warmth. The compressor is barely doing anything at all.
The Henriksens have a really nice sound, especially with the EQ tweaked to my liking. What I couldn't possibly cover in this demo is the difference in feel to the player between having the board engaged and not. The other thing that was tricky to cover is the sound in the room. This was recorded with the mics about a foot from the speakers.
Last edited by omphalopsychos; 12-31-2022 at 04:51 PM.
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Thanks for a brilliantly detailed review! The whole setup sounds great!Christian I’m with you on the “one wall outlet” position. Did you see the part in my original post when I mentioned a custom cable that lets me daisy chain the amp and the pedal board.
Just an fyi...I'm in Japan. I wanted to peek at the cable you described in your original post, but www.sfcable.com rather annoyingly blocks the link with an "access denied" message presumably based on country code. Maybe Christian encounters something similar. No matter. I'm pretty sure I can visualize such a cable. Or run a VirtualVPN if I get desperate. It does seem weird they would block simple viewing access. Cheers.
[Error code: 1020
Ray ID: 782633dffe7319e1
Country: JP
Data center: kix04
IP: 2400:4151:91e3:c700:d83b:997c:e461:a8b
Timestamp: 2022-12-31 21:45:30 UTC]
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