What's a Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb Like?

[Johtosotku]

I saw a local shop having a used one for sale. I'll probably go and test drive it soon. What should I expect? What kind of tones has it been made for and what has it been used for? What artists has it become known with? Any clips? Cheers!

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: What's a Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb Like?

It's a cool amp. Fender put out a Brown Vibroverb reissue in it's first series of amp reissues in the 90s, and pulled it after a couple of years. Then Bruce Zinky, head of the amp Custom Shop at that time, took the vibrover ri and modded it in an attempt to make a great small club/blues amp for dudes who like older fender amp tones. He took out the negative feedback loop so it was a bit more wide open sounding and overdrived quite early, changed the trem circuit and made it available across both channels, modded the reverb, put in two eminence copies of jansen alnico 10s and redid the cosmetics in blonde. After a year the speakers changed to jensen alnicos and the cosmetics went blackface.

The tone is thicker than blackface and not as thick as tweed. I loved the tone of mine, but my one did have a ton of bass that would fart out the speakers (any speakers: I tried it with loads of different cabs). I sold mine, but if I knew what I know about amps I would have looked at new coupling caps and a few other tweaks and kept it.

I also did a mod to mine where I put the negative feedback loop back in and made it switchable. it was really cool, with loop in the amp was tamer and stayed clean very well, and with the loop out it was a tad hairier and broke up early.

I miss mine, and will replace it one day. I especially miss the eminence alnico 10s, which were great with the fender and with my other amps...

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: What's a Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb Like?

I had one and had issues with it...it didn't seem to like almost every speaker I tried in it, it was hissy and was kind of picky about tubes...with the "wrong" tubes it was brittle, and the reverb IMO was just not very good. After a lot of tweaking I could dial it into a good tone but I never liked it enough to keep the amp...However I have seen guys in local bands use them and get a good tone. I guess it just depends on what you want. Like Grits said it is based on the earlier Vibroverb reissue but that reissue was pretty far off base in a few ways then Bruce Zinky took it even farther out with a different reverb circiut, no nevative feedback and tweaks for more gain however all these things added up to the noise and it mayt or may not be worth it to you. I suggest play before you buy...like I said some guys use it and sound pretty good, for me I never bonded enough and never dug the tone enough to keep it...

 

[Johtosotku]

Re: What's a Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb Like?

Ok, thanks. It sounds like it could be nice, I'll just have to try it out. I'm not sure if the 40 watts is too much for me. I'll have to see how much breakup I get with the volumes I play at.

 

[the guy who invented fire]

Re: What's a Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb Like?

Ok, thanks. It sounds like it could be nice, I'll just have to try it out. I'm not sure if the 40 watts is too much for me. I'll have to see how much breakup I get with the volumes I play at.

The CVR has much les sheadroom than your typical 40 watt amp...to my ears they have less clean headroom than a Deluxe Reverb but they are still kind of loud...

 

[Johtosotku]

Re: What's a Fender Custom Vibrolux Reverb Like?

The CVR has much les sheadroom than your typical 40 watt amp...to my ears they have less clean headroom than a Deluxe Reverb but they are still kind of loud...

Ok. I had a Koch that I played mostly at 25 watts and I think that it was plenty loud with enough clean headroom. I don't know how much different the amps are to really compare but at least back then the 25 Koch watts were well enough for me. Maybe even too much. I'd like a little breakup every now and then but it's impossible to have it right in every situation. I'll have to get a nice pedal for it later.