NAD tommorrow! Question......

saladin

Active member
So I scored a Fender "red knob" Dual Showman on my local CL for cheap.

lyewthzzqwiazbxydpwt.jpg
I know these don't get much love but I've scoured enough online reviews
that say they are workable. My question is what pedal would you use to drive
the gain channel even more?
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

I wouldn't drive the drive channel at all...it sounds pretty bad most of the time but the clean channel can be cool and if you add a good drive to that you might have something!

FWIW, Robben Ford uses a red knob Twin now and then with a Zen drive and folks seem to love his tone.
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

Your quite right. Played it for a couple hours today thru a Peavey 4-12 with a quad of WGS 65's.
Cleans were sparkly and lush but the amp is way too loud to get the clean channel to break.
The dirty channel is just that...a dirty channel. I did find however that by using the parallel input,
driving both channels sounded very good and I'll be checking it out more tomorrow.

At this stage though...I'm probably gonna flip it. Too much power for my needs and a nasty drive channel
ain't gonna cut it. I picked it up because at the price I paid, I couldn't pass it up.
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

You won't get a Mesa style singing tone from the lead channel. What I found with my Fender 75 was to use a very low gain setting...around 2-3. That gave me a decent broken up amp tone like SRV. Then I could use a clean boost for a little "more". And then for the singing tones I wanted, I used a Real Tube 901.

And then I found the tones I was looking for I the Mesa Mark Series amps and never looked back.

The red knob Fenders aren't my favorite by any means, but they can get the job done. BTW, some folks experience problems with the wiring connections at the jacks and the pots on these amps.

Good luck. Enjoy!

Bill
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

You can get those pretty cheap... I owned one of these for a while. The cleans were decent but the dirty channel was pretty horrible. At the time I had a Hot Rod Deville and a Pro Junior, both sounded better so I just ended up flipping it. Sorry to hear it's not working out for you though.
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

yeah I steer away from all Red Knob fenders from just bad experience and horror stories about them. Just flip it and save up for a Mesa if that is what you are after
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

The Maxon ST-9 Pro Plus (Super Tube) is a great pedal that I believe you should look into. For me it has two functions. (1) Great blues tone on a clean channel. It really sings! (2) It's also an AWESOME OD/Boost pedal to augment a high gain amp (which is what I use it for)... it gives me deadly definition with my high gain amp channels. I suppose my second point doesn't really pertain to this particular amp. So that was a useless statement. lol

But if you're looking for a straight distortion pedal to go with a clean channel, I'd suggest looking into the Maxon SM-9 Pro Plus (Super Metal). In my humble opinion, it's better than any Boss, Digitech, Jeckle & Hyde, etc. distortion pedal I've ever tried.

Maxon pedals are fairly expensive (especially the newer pedals), but I think they're worth every penny. I got my first one about two months ago, and I'm hella glad that I did. Great products!
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

The amp is growing on me. The clean sounds are rather spectacular!
I fiqured a tubescreamer of some sort would do it although I usually don't care for them.
Any one have an opinion on the MXR Custom Badass OD?
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

Congrats on the amp! I would forget about the OD channel (lost cause) and just run the clean with a boost from a Fulltone OCD pedal. Then that Fender might scream!
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

Just spent a few hours tweaking the drive channel with a DD-3 in the loop.
There are good tones to be had there but like Boogie Bill said, you must treat it more like an OD.
Rather then cranking the gain, I started off low, tweaked the eq and then added more gain.
This amp is growing on me....think it might be a keeper after all!

The clean channel is the true star, way better then the 65 Twin reissue.
I'm about to pick up a Lovepedal clone. Purple Plexi + a COT, dual footswitches,
should do the trick!
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

I pulled the 2 middle power tubes today and reset the ohm setting. Much better!
I think the main problem with this model is that it is so friggin' loud, it's hard to get it to open up.
With 2 power tubes and the lo-power switch engaged, I could open it up some and now I'm definitely
keeping it!!! Best $200 spent on an amp yet!!!!!
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

Now it's got me wondering...why has Fender never built a stripped down Showman.
I've owned 3 Twins and have never used the normal channel. Give us 100 watts,
gain, treble, mids, bass and a good working master volume so you can drive your clean tones better (Peavey does it wonderfully with the Classic 50)
a working effects loop and reverb and thats it. Does any one make such a beast???
 
Re: NAD tommorrow! Question......

Hmmm...just found this..

.page27-1002-full.jpg

SMS Classic Tube PreAmp (Fender Twin Preamp)
 
Back
Top