Silverface Bassman

[PFDarkside]

What can you tell me about this head? My friend had one a long time ago and I remember it was really clean until we used a serious boost on it and cranked it way up. At that point I remember it being full, still crisp and had a nice distortion character.

I'm just wondering if these are desirable at all, how much they have in common with the infamous 1959 Bassman, and the Marshalls that were spun off of these, etc. Seems like it could be a nice head to pick up for not much cash since Silverface is not quite vintage yet. I'm not sure what info I'm looking for, but I know there's a lot of random knowledge out there, just throw it out.

 

[Curly]

Re: Silverface Bassman

I saw a band here at a Blues Fest, and the guitar player got a great tone from a Les Paul Custom and a SF Bassman head.

with SFs in general, most folks will tell you it's better to stick with earlier models, '68-'71. A "drip edge" '68 should be almost identical to late BF models.

yes, these are pretty good deals for hand wired amps that most techs will know how to work on, but you should figure in some cost to have a tech go through and take care of any issues, such as new filter caps.

 

[twoheadedboy]

Re: Silverface Bassman

I am a huge bassman fan myself. I love the way they respond and I love the way they grind when pushed. The head I use is basically a hotrodded '59 bassman circuit with a very marshally sounding output transformer. I know a guy who buys a lot of Silverface Bassmans and mods them. They usually have a beautiful, rich, jazzy clean sound to them, but it's very very easy to mod one for more gain. You can add an extra gain stage to one of the inputs so that on one input, you get the classic bassman cleans, and on another input, you get a sort of jtm-45 style crunch. I'm not really sure what the main differences between a silverface bassman and a blackface bassman are, but I do know that it doesn't take much work to get a silverface back to blackface specs if you want to.

 

[The Golden Boy]

Re: Silverface Bassman

It seems to be a relatively unpopular opinion here, but why would you "mod" a 35-40 year old amp to do something it wasn't designed to do when there are so many different amplifier options out there? I understand getting something and wanting to make it "yours," but the allure of vintage gear should be enjoying the characteristics of it that make it "vintage" not just "old."

 

[Curly]

Re: Silverface Bassman

why would you "mod" a 35-40 year old amp to do something it wasn't designed to do when there are so many different amplifier options out there?

the Bassman probably went through more circuit changes than any amp in Fender's lineup, and some of the decisions after the switch to SF weren't for the better. most mods on these amps are really to get the amp back to blackface specs, or to add more gain on one of the channels for current tastes.

that said, I'd prefer any mods to be reversible

 

[twoheadedboy]

Re: Silverface Bassman

It seems to be a relatively unpopular opinion here, but why would you "mod" a 35-40 year old amp to do something it wasn't designed to do when there are so many different amplifier options out there? I understand getting something and wanting to make it "yours," but the allure of vintage gear should be enjoying the characteristics of it that make it "vintage" not just "old."

I would buy a Silverface to mod it because I really like the tone of those amps with a little more grind to them, and also because Silverface Bassmans can be had for really cheap. If it's the most affordable and efficient way of getting what I want, why should I bother worrying about the fact that I've changed something that was "vintage"?

 

[Lewguitar]

Re: Silverface Bassman

I agree with most of what has been said here already. The Silverface Bassmans are hand wired and have high quality Schumacher transformers. And, unlike the Bandmaster and others which have only one preamp tube for each channel, (not including the vibrato tube in a Bandmaster) the Bassman usually has an extra preamp tube as part of the circuit and that allows for an extra two gain stages if you choose to hot rod the amp. There's alot you can do to improve the tone of a Bassman and make it better suited for blues or rock guitar. And I don't really think of the silverface Bassman amp as being a "collector's" amp like I do the Fender guitar amps. Lew

 

[WhoFan]

Re: Silverface Bassman

A guy i know just bought a late 70's Bassman 130 watt head... He has shipped it away to a custom amp place i think in Texas to be cleaned and modded... Next time i jam with that guy i hope to be able to try it out.... It's hard to jam with him often as i'm in Canada and he is in PA USA... But once a year or so he makes the drive up to Toronto...

 

[Empty Pockets]

Re: Silverface Bassman

I love my Silverface Bassman's clean and overdrive tones...when my DS-1 was non-functional I used to keep every knob on my Bassman dimed and just use my pickups and volume knob to decide how much distortion on the signal. Versatile but LOUD...

With a good distortion pedal (modded DS-1 for example ) this amp will take you everywhere you want to be and for a reasonably low price.

Once I saw one on eBay that somebody had re-wrapped in orange tolex...it looked sweet.

-X

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: Silverface Bassman

I'll be the first one to tell you this, and to me, it was the most important thing i learned about getting a bassman to crunch; dime the master & use the normal volume to controll actual volume

i dunno why they're like that, but if you do it the other way around & crank the normal & use master as...master, the distortion on them sounds horrid

hm, what else...use the bright switch for cleans/pedals, but not for natural tube distortion, sounds like minor threat if you do

the controlls on the side you're not using DO have a subtle effect on tone. For instance, if i'm not getting enough bass & am plugged into the normal channel, i flip on the deep switch & crank the bass on the bass channel, and it warms things up a bit

it's also a good idea to use a high gain tube (like electro harmonix 12ax7) in the phase inverter to get a bit more gain

with a TS & the right speakers & tubes, my 100 can get a pretty jtm45 sound, it's not exact, a little more modern & american sounding (which is what i like), but, to me it sounds a lot better, so

 

[PFDarkside]

Re: Silverface Bassman

Hmm... the Silverface I played on had no Master. Am I missing something? Were they equipped with master volumes at some point? Are you just saying if one mods it with a master volume?

 

[Curly]

Re: Silverface Bassman

early SFs didn't have a MV