Van Laeck Bluesmeister 100 Watt Head Suede Tolex

The Van Laeck Bluesmeister takes the Overdrive Special to the next level!

Dumble’s Overdrive Special is one of the most illustrious amps in the world! Incredibly scarce, highly sought after and commanding prices that could buy you a house. Overdrive Specials were tailor made for the artist using it, though there were generational changes to the circuit Dumble used. This Meistersinger is mostly based on the early ’90’s Bluesmaster amps.

And then there’s this: The Van Laeck Bluesmeister 100WR, full option Bluesmaster with a twist.

Only some Overdrive Special amps had reverb. These became known as the Overdrive Reverb amplifiers. Santana is one of the most notable users of these amps. The Bluesmeister combines the ideas of the Overdrive Reverb amps with the preamp of the Dumble Bluesmaster, leading to a one-of-a-kind amplifier. And what an amp this is!

The reverb in the Bluesmaster shares much of its DNA with Overdrive Reverb #60. Circuit wise the reverb is technically in the effects loop, giving a clean, very controllable reverb that never gets in the way of your base sound. The reverb send control and separate reverb return control for clean and overdrive makes setting the reverb a breeze.

The preamp is of the cascading type: the clean channel feeds the overdrive channel. This makes the overdrive more of an extension of the clean channel than in non-cascading amps. Out of all Overdrive Specials, the Bluesmaster has the biggest clean sound and sounds very Fendery indeed. The overdrive is not your typical Overdrive Special fare. It comes with an extra tone stack under the hood. This makes tweaking the final overdrive sound possible. The Bluesmeister has got more of that raw Marshall growl in overdrive, without losing the typical Dumble character. Both the clean and overdrive channel have separate volume controls, on the back there is an overall master volume control. This amp does anything from bedroom volume to stadium volume, never sounding weak and thin!

The Bluesmeister is about 100 Watts of clean power. It comes standard with JJ 4x6L6 power tubes. The preamp tube complement consists of one 12at7 and four 12ax7’s. There are switches for rock/jazz, bright, mid boost, FET boost, preamp boost (PAB) and overdrive (OD). FET, PAB and OD are also foot switchable. This Bluesmeister comes in a gorgeous brown suede head shell.

• The BluesMeister is Van Laeck’s own proprietary recipe (!) of the infamous 2-channel Overdrive Special with Reverb

• It‘s available with either a 4x6V6, 4x6L6 or 2x6L6/EL34 output stage

• The amps are housed in Headshell or Combo and upholstered in Tolex or Suede (additional charge)

• Contact Guitarking to find out which exact model is available in the store; custom builds have a 3 months lead time.

• Each Van Laeck amp is meticulously handcrafted in the Netherlands and only superior components are used. It comes with a lifelong warranty on manufacturing defects