Battle of the Tweeds

[Gunny47]

I know there are a lot of Tweed fiends in the forum and I got a question about Tweed amps. As you might know, Im considering a Fender 57 Tweed Twin-Amp to get but now Im having second thoughts. Ive been looking at Victoria Amps for the last month and a half or so after someone suggested them and I have to say, I am into them now. Never played them before. Seen them once in a shop but that was before I knew anything about them. What Im really looking for in a new amp is more of an overdrive than a crunch and big vintage clean sounds that will accept pedals well. Sounds like tweed to me.

So I was considering the Victoria 45410 (the Bassman clone) or the 50212 (the Twin clone). Leaning mostly towards the Bassman because it has the sag that the Twin doesnt have. Any suggestions? Anyone expierence either of these amps or any Victorias in general? How does the 50212 compare the the Fender Twin-Amp?

I was also going to hook up an attenuator to it, probably the Dr. Z one because it got good reviews that it was the most transparent. And it looks the smallest and seems the easiest to control. What exact cables would I use to hook this up to the Bassman? I know how to hook it up to say a Blackface that has the speakers like wired together and turns into a 1/4" jack. But what about the Bassman? Do I need cables with RCA jacks or something? And also, will the Dr. Z Air Brake work with 2 ohms? Thanks a lot.

 

[Bludave]

Re: Battle of the Tweeds

I would say go play a few before you decide. I can't advise on the attenuator though. These are basically clean amps that get the OD from tube saturation. You have to crank em a little to get them to sound good. I have a SFSR and I keep the volume on about 3 to 4. At that level it is very clean but still has a lot of volume. I use a TS9 to push it for Solos. This works fine. I do basically the same thing in a Deluxe Reverb. I just have the pedal set a lot differently in the smaller amp. Keep in mind SF or BF amps respond quite a bit differently than tweeds do.

 

[BigDaddy]

Re: Battle of the Tweeds

Why would you want to attenuate a tweed amp? I don't get it......those amps are for cranked distorted raw sounds. Tweed fender with Jensen Alnico speakers, that's a classic sound. Early breakup and that alnico compression. All too many people don't use the tubes they were designed for and can't figure out why it doesn't sound right as in too much gain.

But there are a few different tweed type circuits and they do sound different. The best is the Bandmaster with 3-10's, I think it's a 5E7. The twin is very loud and will be cleaner with more clean headroom. The bassman in it's original design is way too bassy for guitar, IMO. It needs mods or have channel jumpers.

But why bother using an attenuator......that's a tone suck if ever I heard one. And that's not true about the sag and the bassman as opposed to the twin.

I would say study some schematics and learn how rectifier tubes and circuits work. It has a lot to do with the tubes, chokes and filter caps, there are many variables and those could be changed very easily.

Why do you want a tweed amp? It sounds like you want some hybrid between a BF and early brown/white amp. I would look into an Allen amp which is just that. Talk to David Allen :
http://www.allenamps.com/

 

[ES350]

Re: Battle of the Tweeds

A 5F6A Bassman will get pretty loud before you get a lot of sag. This is not the amp to get if you want tweed grind without peeling paint or blowing alnico speakers every week. Lots of bottom, best for headroom (esp with P10Q or ceramics) of all the tweeds with the exception of the high power 5F8A Twin. The low power Twin is not quite as loud as the Bassman and doesn't move as much air. With the dual rectifiers, it has less sag, but a little less output and headroom overall (different phase inverter). It distorts differently as well...best bet for a pedal friendly tweed clone might be a 5F6A chassis (maybe with a multitap OT) with a 2x12"---more manageable low end but with the headroom of the Bassman circuit.

The Vicky stuff is nice, but I had some problems with the two I used to have (Bassman and a high power Twin), so I can't recommend them although I know a lot of people like them. I went for the real deal, which actually cost me less money...

 

[Gunny47]

Re: Battle of the Tweeds

What kind of problems did you have with them? Im not really battering them out on road so I wont have reliability to deal with. I played many tweed amps and love them to death. Kinda worded my original post wrong. I wanted more of a natural overdrive than a modern distortion. Thats what I meant, power amp distortion over pre-amp distortion. Sorry about that.

Okay, I pretty much got my hard on drive crank to 10 amp already - thats my Gibson GA-5. If I can crank that thing, as far as Im concerned, I can crank a Bassman halfway or so. Got it to like 4 (out of 10) no problem in the showroom. I played the reissue so many times and cranked that thing in one of those sound proof rooms in GC and loved it. Then I did the same with the Fender '57 Twin and the Twin was so much more smooth and just had such a better sound quality and wasnt all farty like the Bassman RI. Thats why I still like the 57 Twin (Fender or Victoria). But I did like the cleans on the Bassman better.

So I kinda want an amp that I can get good cleans wtih that will accept pedals well. Then I crank it a tiny bit so it is just on the edge of breakup and then either use a booster like my Fulltone OCD or an attenuator to put it into overdrive.

Looked at those Allen amps and they look pretty cool. I liked the Brown Sugar - Id probably get the 30 watt version (6L6s) with the 1 x 15 speaker if I were to get one just by looking real quick. I kinda like the tweed stuff though, I like the very natural tweed cleans and Marshallish overdrives but I still like a good ol blackface style amp. I cant find much about the Allen amps on the web besides that site but Ill check them out. Thanks for the replies to everyone.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: Battle of the Tweeds

I will not get into reccomending you an amp but what i will say is that you shoudl play as many as you can find to get an idea of what you want/need. I am also gonna make a plug for Bruce and Mission Amps (www.missionamps.com). I got my v front Super clone from Bruce and he did a hell of a job...I woudl stack it up against a Victoria any day and i would come out on top...this amp is that good!

I will also say this...if you use an attenuator of any kind on a Tweed of any kind when you bring the overall volume down you are not pushing the speakers as hard and speaker distortion is part of the Tweed Tone more often that not...just keep that in mind.

I will also add that I have tried several attenuators lately (Dr. Z, THD, Ultimate, and the Weber) I ended up with the Weber...

 

[Gunny47]

Re: Battle of the Tweeds

Found a cool website that give some nice sound clips of some of the victoria amps. http://www.musicalcity.com.au/victoriaamps.htm

These plus the sound clips on the actual victoria site + some of the other tweeds I played give me a good idea of what Im dealing with. But you know, once you play something, all of your past research goes to waste and its just on if you like the amp or not, that simple. I do hear on that site that the 80 and 50 watt twins sound cleaner than the Bassmans. And the Double Deluxe is probably a good candidate for me too.

Like I said before, I was really looking for a good clean amp and would probably never crank it fully (never want to really). I might get it, fall in love with the clean sound and say "screw the attenuator." So we'll see. Victoria actually does make a Bandmaster like BigDaddy was talking about. I still like the Bassman after all of this, just my flavor, very fat bassy cleans (I like my tone on the warmer side of things) and if it is too muddy, which I never found to be a problem with any of the tweeds ive played, i can always turn down the bass or go to the bright channel. Thanks again for the replies.

 

[ES350]

Re: Battle of the Tweeds

The Allen amps (Brown Sugar, Old Flame) are very cool---good parts, lots of diehard tweed/BF devotees use them. A 5F6A chassis (with whatever you decide for speakers; 2x12 4x10, 3x10) is probably the best bet for cleans unless you want to go the 5F8A route---high power Twin. You can reduce the low end in a Bassman with a swap in values in the first cap (250 mF stock value). Swap out to 25 mF or smaller---voila.

BTW---the chassis cutout size is the same for the Bassman and the low power Twin (hint hint). A 5F6A chassis with a multitap OT is a nice thing to have around...I run one in a orphaned 2x12 Twin cab or a 4x10" Holland Gibb Droll cab.

 

[jdm61]

Re: Battle of the Tweeds

If you want more sag from a 57 Twin, you can supposedly pull one of the rectifier tubes. If you want lower gain, you replace 3 of the 4 12AX7's with 12AY7's like the original. Mine is a tone monster and i got it barely used for $1500. Fender went all out building this thing, including having Mercury build the trannies and GT building the GE reissue power tubes. I doubt that you will find any of the big Victorias for that price, even used. I am not familiar with their Twin variants. The ones I always heard glowing reports about were the Bandmasters and the Deluxe variants, both the normal one and the Double Deluxe.