Fender Gurus...

[some_dude]

The "I just realized" thread made me realize that I too have never rocked a Fender.

I plan on trying a few out over the next week just to see what I'm missing. The thing is that I know nothing about Fender amps. Here's a list of the ones the local shop has in.....

65 Bandmaster
66 Bassman
66 Super Reverb
65 Tremolux

(all blackface)

....can you tell me anything about these amps? Which are generally considered the most desireable? Do these amps sound best clean, or overdriven?

 

[Benjy_26]

Re: Fender Gurus...

66 Super: think SRV or Robert Cray.

BF Bassman is pretty clean, but when it does OD, its pretty warm and fat.

About the other two, I'm sorry to say that I don't know much.

 

[J Moose]

Re: Fender Gurus...

I know some people can get really into what I call "Fender forklore" and get into super specific differences between various amps...and no doubt they're all kinda different but they all have a vibe that says, feels & sounds "Fender" to me.

I think the Tremolux has more juice, but IIRC all of those amps run dual 6L6's (or some variation thereof) for wattage in the 'hood of about 40-50 RMS and have ZERO preamp gain. If you want drive you gotta run it flat out, and even then it won't ever really saturate. Imagine grindy SRV chords, early Allman Brothers and others. Single colis won't generate much grind, medium hot 'buckers might sorta kinda put you into Zep II land.

Where it gets fun is to add stompboxes to the front end to either push the amp or for ALL 'yer dirt. Genereally they sound big, thick & round yet kinda open on top in a vastly different way then a Marshall. I have a '63 Blonde/Brown Bandmaster that I adore...it's such a great amp and with pedals it can cover LOT's of ground, even metal with something like a Metal Zone in front of it!

Anyway, the coolest thing about all these amps isn't just that they're bullet proof and super easy to fix since it's all point-to-point but they also sound great! Especially when you compare the prices to anything "new" it just makes you wonder why any kid would buy a Line 6 or some other piece of poo...

 

[kmcguitars]

Re: Fender Gurus...

Hmmm. I think the 66' Super reverb would sound the best Mainly cuz' it's a reverb model. The tremolux and bandmaster are cool, But i think you'll find the bassman has more balls. IMO it's best to crank the amp, Then work the volume knob on your guitar. IMO Fender's sound best just at the point they start to overdrive. Especially if it's all original. Those 40 year old speaker's will get a Lil' raspy if you push it to hard.

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Fender Gurus...

Hmmm. I think the 66' Super reverb would sound the best Mainly cuz' it's a reverb model. The tremolux and bandmaster are cool, But i think you'll find the bassman has more balls. IMO it's best to crank the amp, Then work the volume knob on your guitar. IMO Fender's sound best just at the point they start to overdrive. Especially if it's all original. Those 40 year old speaker's will get a Lil' raspy if you push it to hard.

Good post! Also remember that blackface and silverface Fenders with reverb sound better than the same model without reverb. The reverb circuit itself adds some gain and balls to the tone even if the reverb is on zero and you don't use it. So a Deluxe Reverb will usually sound better than a Deluxe...or at least have a fuller tone that overdrives more easily. Of the four amps you mentioned the Super Reverb would be the one I'd recommend spending some time with.

lew

 

[Curly]

Re: Fender Gurus...

a Super Reverb is one of the best gigging amps, IMO

yes, the Bassman sounds best cranked

those vintage amps will likely have some noise or minor problems

the newer Bassman LTD is another nice gigging amp ... it's not as loose as a vintage tweed Bassman in its stock form, but with some tube tweaks, it can sound pretty good

 

[Scott_F]

Re: Fender Gurus...

the ab763 circuit (super reverb) can be a pain to build as there is a lot going on. a lot of older ones you find out there have been modded and often poorly. There are lots of areas to induce noise.

I just got though building something similar for Evan and will be shipping it by Tuesday. There is just something really cool about old Fender clean tones with reverb and vibrato. Very cool.

 

[jdm61]

Re: Fender Gurus...

Scott...i had a transitional Silverface Super in a previous life and i really liked it.....LOUD as a mutha. Does the fact that it is a 2 ohm (?) circuit create some difficulties?

 

[jdm61]

Re: Fender Gurus...

and if you want a good example of blackface super/bucker tone, listen to Derek Trucks

 

[Scott_F]

Re: Fender Gurus...

Nope, I skipped the 2 ohm thing and got a multi tapped OT (4, 8, 16) and have a 4 and 8 ohm outputs on the back instead of the main speaker and extension speaker. Evan's amp is a head so 4 and 8 ohm outputs were what he wanted.

One reaon that SR's are so loud is they use 4 speakers!

The difficulties are keeping everything quiet inside as optical bug tremolo can be kinda noisey. Routing of wires is a bit of a beatch to avoid noise. There's just a lot more tubes in there than most amps, lots more circuit components, more areas to introduce noise.

I did take the normal channel and I put in a 5E3 tone stack, so the "normal" channel has a gain, single tone and master volume for that channel. It's a grindy little bugger. I was hoping for a hot tweed tone and it's there. Very agressive, even with a 12Ay7 in V1. It's just something significanly different to plug into.

If I were gigging with this amp, I'd run an AB box into both channels and set the "Texas Twister" channel (the tweed thing) up for my leads and I'd set up the reveb channel "California Mudslide" up for my rhythm stuff.

Evan is going to use the new SFX-03 on the Mudslide channel prmarily.

 

[jdm61]

Re: Fender Gurus...

I kick myself for not picking up a blackface Bandmaster (or a Showman for that matter)back a few years ago when you could get them for a song compared to the combos:smack:

 

[some_dude]

Re: Fender Gurus...

Good post! Also remember that blackface and silverface Fenders with reverb sound better than the same model without reverb. The reverb circuit itself adds some gain and balls to the tone even if the reverb is on zero and you don't use it. So a Deluxe Reverb will usually sound better than a Deluxe...or at least have a fuller tone that overdrives more easily. Of the four amps you mentioned the Super Reverb would be the one I'd recommend spending some time with.

lew

Cool.

All of the amps minus the Bassman have reverb, but I'll keep that in mind.

I'm kinda inclined towards the Bassman as I like the sound of fat overdrive, but I'm going to try my best to keep an open mind.

 

[ErikH]

Re: Fender Gurus...

I'm not a Fender amp player but I adore the tones that come from them and have played through quite a few just to hear them with my playing style. My absolute favorite one is the Twin Reverb. I saw Neil Schon back in the '90's with a band he and Greg Roley put together called Abraxis. They were playing at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. He played a black LP Custom through a Twin and had two Marshall cabs as well, one cab for the Twin and the other for a Marshall head off to the side. There were a couple pedals on the floor, a BD-2 and a Wah for sure, not sure what else was there. The tone was to die for. I never heard a Twin sound so good.

 

[kmcguitars]

Re: Fender Gurus...

Cool.

All of the amps minus the Bassman have reverb, but I'll keep that in mind.

I'm kinda inclined towards the Bassman as I like the sound of fat overdrive, but I'm going to try my best to keep an open mind.

The Tremolux doesn't have Verb. Some Bandmasters came w/t verb,But fender used a Butt ugly cabinet for them trying to keep the tank from the transformer's.:eek13: I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the Bassman.
A good BF Bassman can enter Marshall territory.

 

[falloutboyroXXX]

Re: Fender Gurus...

its not a vintage black one but one of my friends had a hot rod deluxe. it sounded real good and it was LOUD.

 

[B2D]

Re: Fender Gurus...

I've tried them all, and I keep coming back to the Fender '64 reissue vibroverb with the mods built in. So lush and clean!

 

[some_dude]

Re: Fender Gurus...

The Tremolux doesn't have Verb. Some Bandmasters came w/t verb,But fender used a Butt ugly cabinet for them trying to keep the tank from the transformer's.:eek13: I think you'll be pleasantly surprised with the Bassman.
A good BF Bassman can enter Marshall territory.

True. One further research I've learned that the Bandmaster and Tremolux have tremolo/vibratto, and not reverb.

Does anyone find it funny that Leo always confused tremolo and vibratto?

Does anyone find it even funnier that Leo confused them on the same amp (to get tremolo on a Tremolux you need to plug into the vibratto input).

 

[CapoFirstFret]

Re: Fender Gurus...

I gig with my super reverb and let me tell you the tone is nearly god-like. The bar manager when I played last week at the blues club I play at even noticed! He said it was easily the greatest tone I'd ever gotten. Now when the bar manager notices, you're onto something

 

[J Moose]

Re: Fender Gurus...

True. One further research I've learned that the Bandmaster and Tremolux have tremolo/vibratto, and not reverb.

Does anyone find it funny that Leo always confused tremolo and vibratto?

Does anyone find it even funnier that Leo confused them on the same amp (to get tremolo on a Tremolux you need to plug into the vibratto input).

They're kinda sorta the same thing, but kinda sorta not. There's a technical difference between them that propeller heads could explain better then I can! In theory the difference should be that 'vibrato' modulates the signal up & down in pitch while trem should turn make it go on & off.

In practice sometimes either or both can & will happen!

 

[some_dude]

Re: Fender Gurus...

They're kinda sorta the same thing, but kinda sorta not. There's a technical difference between them that propeller heads could explain better then I can! In theory the difference should be that 'vibrato' modulates the signal up & down in pitch while trem should turn make it go on & off.

In practice sometimes either or both can & will happen!

I know that, but Leo also called the vibratto bar on a Stratocaster a tremolo bar.....