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All time best fender amp?


deva_da_man

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That scooped-mid signature "Fender Tone" is best represented with the Blackface and Silverface combos.

 

The Tweed Bassman RI, as well as all vintage Tweeds, is midrange-heavy; fat and wonderful, but "Tweed Tone" is not "Fender Tone" and is a step into the MArshall family. You'll see a lot of used Tweed clones and RI's on the web from sellers who thought they were getting that classic spanky, shimmering Fender sound in cool retro clothing, they found out they were wrong. I'm not knockin' Tweeds, my main amo is a '60 Tweed Deluxe, bt it isn't the kind of Fender you would here on early Dire Straits or anything; if you want fat and clean, get a big Tweed. The same goes for the Blues Jr's and Pro Jr's, they are designed with plenty of fat midrange and midrange compromises clean headroom.

 

So, that brings us to the Princeton Reverb, Deluxe Reverb, Vibrolux Reverb (not the Vibrolux Custom Reverb, which lacks a negative feedback loop and has very littele clean headroom), Pro Reverb, Super Reverb and the Twin Reverb. These are the shimmering, twangy amps you hear on all the country-rock of the '70's, and behind every steel guitar lick, etc. The different sizes give you the opportunity to gauge your room and pick the appropriate amp for hclean headroom, slight overdrive, or searing guitar blues. From the Princeton, which overdrives at jam levels, to the king ultimo in Fneder clean, the TR, which can be cranked and stay clean, you pick yur poison. Few spaces most of us ever play will require more than a DR or VR, but if you want more clean headroom, or volume in your distortion, the Pro Reverb, SR and TR are there. Some of the Fender heads from the same era have different tone stack setups and get raunchy faster, with less shimmering headroom.

 

Modern large Fenders, like the Blues Deluxe and Hot Rod Deluxe have clean channels similar to the BF/SF models, so they also work well.

 

-Y.

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Originally posted by GAS Man

I own a Super 112, a Pro Junior and a Twin Reverb.


The one's that I'm possibly most interested in trying next are the Blues Deluxe and Blues DeVille models.


They are designed to capture vintage tones with the benefit of channel switching and gain controls. These are a notch step above the Hot Rod series.




 

 

Well, they were orioginally supposed to be considered a notch below the Hot Rod, because they are the same amp with less features. The Hot Rod was supposed to be the next thing with it's third gain channel. The thing is, everyone seems to hate the third gain channel, so it seems pointless to buy the Hot Rod over a used Blues Deluxe or Deville.

 

What cracks me up is they want to charge more for the Blues series RI's than the Hot Rod series, despite it being the older design with less features. In reality, it cost the same to make either one (and fewer parts in the Blues), so it is all marketing. Especailly since you can buy the originals for $300-400.

 

-Y.

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Originally posted by The Idiot

off topic: where's the reverb tubes located in a twin reverb? Thanks.

 

 

V3 is used as the reverb driver

 

One half of V4 is used as the reverb return, the other half is a second gain stage for the vibrato/reverb channel

 

Start counting from the far right, that is V1.

 

-Y.

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Can't nail it down to one particular amp. Too much variety/possible uses out there to do so. Just got to buy one and move up or down in speaker config/output section power to pick your poison.

 

Personally, I went shopping and picked up a '66 Bandmaster a while back, and now paired with Brit-styled 2x12 speakers works great with a 2nd guitarist, bass player and any sort of drummer. Guitar volume down for bright, spanky clean, turn it up for some grind, kick on a fuzz for lots of sustain and screaming tone.

 

Works well with my MIA Tele, and with my Burstbucker equipped Explorer.

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Originally posted by Wyatt



Well, they were orioginally supposed to be considered a notch below the Hot Rod, because they are the same amp with less features. The Hot Rod was supposed to be the next thing with it's third gain channel. The thing is, everyone seems to hate the third gain channel, so it seems pointless to buy the Hot Rod over a used Blues Deluxe or Deville.


What cracks me up is they want to charge more for the Blues series RI's than the Hot Rod series, despite it being the older design with less features. In reality, it cost the same to make either one (and fewer parts in the Blues), so it is all marketing. Especailly since you can buy the originals for $300-400.


-Y.

 

 

I hear what you're saying about the price point and features, but I think they use a higher grade speaker in the "Blues" series versus the Hot Rods. But I might have been "reading that in".

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Originally posted by Wyatt



Well, they were orioginally supposed to be considered a notch below the Hot Rod, because they are the same amp with less features. The Hot Rod was supposed to be the next thing with it's third gain channel. The thing is, everyone seems to hate the third gain channel, so it seems pointless to buy the Hot Rod over a used Blues Deluxe or Deville.



-Y.

 

 

I rarely ever use the third drive channel on my HRD, I don't care for it live because I can't use it much without having to reset the whole amp. But ironically, it worked great for recording, and had a really killer sound for some solos on a couple of tunes.

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Originally posted by skipstar59

I think different Fenders cover certain type of gigs depending on the size of venue. That's why I've been collecting different size Fenders to be able to cover all the bases. I just closed the deal on this 66' Princeton Reverb to add to my Fender family


My66FenderPrincetonReverb.jpg
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Wow, that 70s deluxe in the bottom pic on the left looks almost identical to the one I had, grill cloth and all!:thu:

 

And I also have one of those little GK amps behind it, it screams and will drive 2-12s quite nicely.

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Originally posted by BlueStrat




Wow, that 70s deluxe in the bottom pic on the left looks almost identical to the one I had, grill cloth and all!
:thu:

And I also have one of those little GK amps behind it, it screams and will drive 2-12s quite nicely.

 

That amp on the bottom left is actually a 69' Vibrolux, I guess you really can't make out the name on the faceplate.Yea, that little GK is quite a monster. It is really an all around great practice amp with a great studio like tone.

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I have experience with old black-face Pro's and Bassman. The Pro has beautiful tone that OD's well...but for my money I'd gladly get an old Bassman with a TS-9! Killer sounds clean or driven.

 

I am curious though about the new Vibroverb with the SRV mod switch.

 

Ayone try this one out?

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Originally posted by
id-man

With different tubes and maybe a more HiFi speaker a DRRI could be a fabulous clean machine too.

It IS a fabulous clean machine. I gig with mine exclusively - I've never even heard it break up!

 

Mine came supplied with the 'Red' tubes (8-10 on the GT rating scale). They're supposed to have the greatest clean headroom, so perhaps that's got something to do with it. I use the stock speaker too.

 

:thu:

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Best... that is rather subjective. When I play out I run a Twin Reverb and a Bassman 410 thru an analog Marshall chorus pedal. I also use a Vox wah and a Tube Sreamer. To my '70s ear my set up is just about perfect. The Fender Twin sound melds well with the Marshally bassman tone IMO.

 

At home I practice thru a Vox Pathfinder 15R Stack or a MicroCube but you wouldn't like it as the Fender model is pretty weak. However the Microcubes Vox model is pretty good...I use it the most.

 

That is my story and I 'm sticking to it.

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I used to use a bassman ri and a blackface super, then went to the bassman with a pro jr. Now i use a vibro king and the bassman reissue. best amp if you just had one would have to be the super- it retains some of the bassman vibe and speaker component with the reverb that is needed for the fender sound. The vibro king is one bad mother though......

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