This the best value Blackstar pedal, because of the breadth of tones and parameters on offer. Here, the ISF function proves genuinely useful.
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Blackstar is a relatively new British company, launching in 2007, that boasts an R&D and engineering team that cut its teeth with perhaps the biggest amp name of all time: Marshall. Breaking out on their own in this new venture, Blackstar has its own range of range of amps as well as various valve-driven pedals. They're all devoted to that most satisfying of pursuits: distortion and drive.
No.1 Blackstar Ht Dual エフェクター
The pedals share various features. Each is loaded with a single Russian-made ECC83 dual-triode preamp valve, backlit to glow red. More interestingly, that valve runs off a full 300-volt circuit, (hence HT in the name: HT for 'high-tension' meaning high voltage). This is thought by many to offer better tone, gain and overload characteristics than low-voltage valve pedals. After that, all except the HT-Boost offer a speaker-emulated out alongside the regular output for a direct-to-desk recording option, and finally, three of the quintet are loaded with what's called an ISF (Infinite Shape Feature) control. Unlike more familiar contour circuits, this enables you to move the entire EQ section voicing between what you'd expect of two classic amplifier tone circuits: Fender at one end and Marshall at the other.
The ISF came about because we were looking for a way to voice testbed amplifiers for artists, explains Blackstar's technical director, Bruce Keir. We needed a way to continuously vary the tone beyond what was available from existing amplifiers. This would enable the player to create their signature sound before we 'locked it off' in their preferred setting. The method we came up with gave the ability to not only get the standard reference tones, but also the 'in-between' never-before-attainable voicings as well. It worked so effectively and so simply that we decided to make it a feature available for all guitarists to use. Indeed, the ISF control broadly apes the tonal response of classic 6L6- or EL34-powered amps, plus many points in between. You'll find the other pedals reviewed on , but on test here is the HT-Dual DS-2
As its name suggests, this unit offers a pair of distortion pedals in a single chassis that are available via two channels, each with its own footswitch. The three tone controls plus the ISF pot are all master controls, while channel one has both clean and crunch modes, against channel two's single mode. Independent gain and volume regulators mean you can balance the two channels precisely to your needs.
Blackstar Ht Dual Valve Guitar Pedal
Channel two offers a smooth, fluid drive that spans a meaty rock rhythm tone to a full-on searing lead. The overall frequency response is wide, so this is no nasal, mid-heavy screamer. The drives clean up well as you roll your guitar's volume back too. Channel one has a much wider range of gain thanks to its dual modes; a near-clean boost, through to a fuller, smooth drive.
The ISF pot is also a winner. It's relatively more punchy and cutting at one end, or thicker and more loose at the other - and everything between. The only downside is that it isn't obvious how to bypass the pedal; in fact, you press the activated switch a second time.
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Blackstar Ht Series
Why David Rhodes is using a Helix for most of his live guitar tones with Peter Gabriel – with the exception of two pedalsThe technology behind a tube-powered distortion/overdrive/preamp pedal is not new, but ideas about how to optimize it for guitar-playing tone hounds have begun to take some unexpected twists and
The technology behind a tube-powered distortion/overdrive/preamp pedal is not new, but ideas about how to optimize it for guitar-playing tone hounds have begun to take some unexpected twists and turns. The HT series of “pure valve distortion” pedals from the UK’s Blackstar Amplification offers a number of new twists on the basic idea. Among them are a dual valve, true high voltage circuit, a unique tone shaping feature, and an additional, speaker emulated output.
Presumably, the HT-Dual is so named because it has two footswitchable channels rather than one, like the rest of the HT series, making it somewhat more versatile. In reality, it’s effectively a 3-channel preamp, since channel 1 offers an additional clean/crunch option. This option is not footswitchable, so if you’re going to use the HT-Dual on your pedalboard, you’ll have to settle for two out of three (but that ain’t bad). You can set it to “clean” and use channel 1 as a boost for more volume or to push a tube amp into overdrive, or you can set it to “crunch” for a lower gain distortion flavor than channel 2.
Blackstar Lt Dual
As with all of the pedals in the HT series, Dual’s twin valve preamp design comes from Blackstar’s idea is that using two cascaded ECC83 (12AX7) triode stages for gain instead of one, and running the tubes at appropriate amp voltages (300V) instead of ‘starving’ them, will give the preamp pedal the same touch sensitivity and playing dynamics that you get when you plug straight into an all tube amp. I have to say that it doesn’t. I don’t mean that it’s not good, just that it’s not the same. The hybrid amps I’ve played smoke the solid-state modeling gear when it comes to achieving real tube amp feeling, but pedals still seem a bit further behind. So, while I haven’t played them all, I generally suspect such claims of being slightly exaggerated.
Tone-wise it’s not much of a shortfall. Both of the HT-Dual’s overdrive channels have really great grind, and rich, “tubey” harmonic distortion. They don’t have exactly the same glassy-smooth compression, and they don’t bark the same way a tube amp does. Even though it sounds very close – and this makes the HT-Dual a real contender in my mind – it doesn’t feel exactly the same, and that affects the way I play. I know that other manufacturers of similar devices have made similar claims about different designs, and while I’m sure that somewhere right now a fierce controversy rages over which method best brings real tube texture to life, I have to believe a discussion of something as subjective as tone should always recognize that different players want different things. And what the HT-Dual lacks in dynamic sensitivity, it seems to make up for in the tonal quality of its distortion and the precision of its tone shaping.
Download Clip 1*: (564KB) Pedal Off (for reference), Channel 1 Clean, gain at noon (acting as a boost), first ISF UK voicing, then USvoicing Download Clip 2*: (564KB) Channel 1 Crunch, gain at 9 O''clock, first ISF UK voicing, then US voicing Download Clip 3*: (567KB) Channel 2, gain at 8 O''clock, first UK voicing, then US voicing Download Clip 4**: (1.95MB) Multi-track demo made entirely with softer HT Dual voicings
Blackstar Ht Distx Tube High Gain Distortion Guitar Effects Pedal
The new twist there is Blackstar’s patent-applied-for “Infinite Shape Feature, ” or ISF, tone contour. The name seems somewhat rhetorical, but the feature sure is “cracking, ” as they say: it allows you to dial in the precise tonal characteristics you want from a range of possibilities, expressed as the distance between classic American and British voicings. Though the ISF is, as I suspected, not literally infinite, it is quite good at giving your tone a particular color. The UK side of the control knob (turned fully CW) is much more genuinely convincing than the US side (fully CCW); set this way, channel 1 produced an outstanding Marshall-like sound – crisp top end, woody mids, and tight crunch; channel 2 had much more gain, but still retained all the harmonic subtlety and nuance of a dimed Vox – a huge treat for anybody who’s as taken as I am by Queen’s early recordings.
The American setting of the ISF is said to have vintage Fender/Boogie type of sound. It is as aggressive as they say, but the mids sounded more open rather than fat to me. It’s a wonderful sound, but not as instantly recognizable as the UK voicing.
The HT-Dual also features silent switching and a High Integrity buffered bypass, which is good news if you’re pushing a lot of cable, but also means it’s gotta have power if it’s in your signal chain (16V AC). Like the other members of the HT series, the Dual provides an additional speaker emulated output, if you want to go directly
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