The M50-JR is the result of many discussions with my friend Mike Abercrombie, who has been playing on my M50L every Saturday for a couple of years now. As much as he loves the M50L, he wanted an amp with that tone and feel, but not the size and weight.
When the maker of my LS30 transformers, Musical Power Supplies, informed me that he now makes 50 watt transformers also, the M50-JR was born. It is a 50 watt 6L6 powered amp built on the LS30 chassis. The voicing and gain structure is that of the M50L, but the functionality (channel switching and controls) are like the LS30.
And it weighs only about 27 lbs!
CLEAN CHANNEL
Goes from beautiful clean to moderately over driven. Switchable bright cap works with gain control.
DISTORTION CHANNEL
Two levels of gain (accessible by footswitch) for rhythm and lead. Two way bright switch
PLUS
Tube buffered transparent effects loop and digital reverb.
The LS30 design came from the idea of taking the red channel of my LS100G3 (the lower gain section of the distortion
channel) and make a one channel, lower wattage, EL34 powered amp out of it. With the help of Musical Power Supply’s
custom transformers, I went to work on the project.
Once the prototype was built (always having versatility in mind) I couldn't resist dividing the “one channel” into two
channels with a shared tone stack....just to see how it would work. As it turned out, it worked better than I expected!
Together with the bright switches, separate gain controls and master volumes on both channels, they work together
very nicely.
So here is the LS30 that was developed from that original idea...30 watts of EL34 goodness:
CLEAN CHANNEL
Goes from beautiful clean to moderately overdriven. Switchable bright cap that works with the gain control.
DISTORTION CHANNEL
This has two levels of gain (accessible by a foot switch) for rhythm and lead. Plus, a three-way bright switch.
PLUS
Tube buffered transparent effects loop and a digital reverb.
This is a great little amp for just about any gig. At only 26.6 lbs - you can carry it anywhere!
...........................
30 watts
two channels: clean & distortion
a separate gain & master volume control for each channel
EL34 power tubes
2-way bright switch for the clean channel
3-way bright switch for the distortion channel
tube-buffered effects loop
digital reverb
master volume on each channel
depth control