New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

Monty-Jay

New member
Great cleans so far but I haven't had a chance to turn it up much. Haven't jumpered the channels or used any boosts/ODs on it yet either.

1964 Fender Bandmaster, blackface/AB763 :)
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mJ
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

Chopstherocker's is amazing with a uhh Tubescreamer was it? in front of it.

Hell yeah :D Find a silverface faceplate. Cause silverfaces look cooler :smokin:

JK. I need an amp like that. :)
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

I love mine as well bro. It has top notch cleans. I usually throw a Boss OD in front for some dirty fun. Overall it is a great amp.
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

Bandmaster's rock! :headbang: :headbang: :headbang: :headbang: :headbang:
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

Some of these BF heads can be had for under a grand and if I remember well, some of these circuits are damn close to the blond Bassman or BF twins... Hidden bargains they seem. I want one BAD.
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

I have gassing for a 62/63 bandmaster. Becuase of that I see 64's wherever I look now. If I wanted a 64 I'd see 62s and 63s everywhere.

Cool amp man. Looks nice too.
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

That's a fun amp head. Unlike the reverb models, you can jumper the channels. Not sure what you'll hear. If you get a chance, be careful and pop the little dog house cover on the underside of the chassis near the tubes. Check the ends of those big electrolytic caps for bubbling. If you dont' see any, put the can back on. If they are original, you might want to consider changing them if they show any damage. It's an easy thing to do for a tech. It's like changing the tires on your car. Even a perfect vintage piece has to have good rubber on the road in order to make it handle well.

As far as all the caps on the inside of the amp, leave them alone.
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

Another fun thing would be to make it into a 1x12 or 1x15 combo amp. That way you can just use the chassis and put the head up in the closet somewhere and keep it looking pretty good. Just measure the exact dimensions of the chassis and have another blackface combo made. Pretty straight forward stuff and probably about as expensive as buying a new external speaker cab.
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

Would the channels on the vibrato and normal channel be out of phase too like on other BFs?
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

They shouldn't be as the reverb is what adds the extra stage and causes it to reverse phase.
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

I stuffed a '68 chassis in a 3x10" Rodgers cab and that thing wails...Although I did bump up the OT to a 50 watter and put in a Allen-type 'raw' control...
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

lucky bugger!!! i want one too.... that is the amp Pete Townshend used on the 1965 My Generation era recordings and gigs.... That album now remastered has some serious great 60's guitar tone
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

I guess that was a tweed BM on the Who's Next stuff---a lot more grit than the BF/SF, esp. with the P10R's. This amp eats alnicos for breakfast (blew a couple of Jensens and Emis), so I loaded it with C10Q's. With the raw control (dials out the tone stack insertion loss), you can get a tweed flavor out of it.
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

I'm definitely getting a blackface amp after my Tweed when I raise enough cash after working a few more months and into the summer. I think I'm going to go this route also, the heads and hopefully find a matching cab off ebay. Looks great dude, have fun with it!
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

Great cleans so far but I haven't had a chance to turn it up much. Haven't jumpered the channels or used any boosts/ODs on it yet either.

1964 Fender Bandmaster, blackface/AB763 :)
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mJ

Nice Piece, Tone to the Bone.:smokin:
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

I have a '63 transitional BF/blonde Tremolux, which is pretty similar to the '64 Bandmaster. The channels are in phase, so you can jumper them. For a cool spin on that try running a delay or reverb pedal (or even an OD pedal) in the loop between channels (i.e., gtr > Ch1-in1 > Ch1-in2 > pedal > Ch2-in1. Totally, tonally integrated sonic goodness...
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

It sounds pretty sweet, really great thick/bouncy cleans and pretty responsive to picking dynamics. Jumpered tone is pretty sweet too but still haven't done that and cranked it just yet...too much falalalala and all that right now :)
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mJ
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

I guess that was a tweed BM on the Who's Next stuff---a lot more grit than the BF/SF, esp. with the P10R's. This amp eats alnicos for breakfast (blew a couple of Jensens and Emis), so I loaded it with C10Q's. With the raw control (dials out the tone stack insertion loss), you can get a tweed flavor out of it.

it was the blond version on Who's Next i think... the model with the 3 10's... Jack Dougles said Pete got that Grestch and Bandmaster from Joe Walsh towards the end of the WN sessions... claims that most of the electric tones on that album are a Hiwatt in a booth, and a silver faced Fender Princton out on the band floor... the Princton was mic'd and the main sound on the album is a mix of the Hiwatt and Princton... You can hear the Grestch a lot on the overdubs done on Bargain with the volume pedal swells.. Quadrophenia is one album Pete claims to of used that amp and guitar a hell of a lot... Pete smashed that guitar in 73 on a tv show and had it repaired... he used it a lot after it was repaired, on almost every album he did since, but not on every track... Pete used many Fender's and Gibsons in the studio... a Pair of real 1952 Teles got used in the studio a hell of a lot.... as did a brown sunburst strat Pete got from Clapton, from the same batch of vintage guitars Clapton built Blackie... also used in the studio a lot here and there over the years was a Black RIC... that RIC was one Pete had made out of a bunch of smashed 60's RIC guitar parts lying around his basement. It was various pieces glued back together and sprayed Black. At onetime in the late 70's a friend of Petes named Irish Jack said in Petes Basement was a huge crate full of broken guitars.... He took that custom Black RIC out on the 1993 solo tour he did and played A Quick One with it

In 1965 Pete used Bandmaster heads like this one here.... mostly thru homemade cabnets, or thru early Marshall cabs.
 
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Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

Farkus has my old one....nice amp for sure, CONGRATS !!! :beerchug:

The FD II 10th sounded great with it, but the BIG suprise was how good the Plexitone sounded with it :bigok:

Have fun trying things out...lots of cool tones in that one. :)
 
Re: New amp day: 1964 Fender Bandmaster

very nice man, congrats

but you really need to jump the channels & crank that b****

you'll fall in love
 
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