Bassman Mods???

[Stephen Davis]

Hello gear heads. I have a 66 Blackface Fender Bassman head and I want to mod the first channel. I would LOVE a dumble mod. Does anyone know of anything? Who does this? How do they sound? Thanks as always.

Rabbit

 

[Riscchip]

I think he pretty much redoes the whole thing (as opposed to one channel), but if you like the Dumble sort of thing, Fuchs mods are killer:

http://www.fuchsaudiotechnology.com/

Your amp should be a fine platform for one. I have a Fuchs Deluxe reverb and it smokes.

 

[darkbluemurder]

Originally posted by Stephen Davis
Hello gear heads. I have a 66 Blackface Fender Bassman head and I want to mod the first channel. I would LOVE a dumble mod. Does anyone know of anything? Who does this? How do they sound? Thanks as always.

Rabbit

That is what I did to my AB-165 Bassman head. I sacrificed one channel and used the tube for two gain stages. The controls now read:

Bass channel: Input 1 (guitar), input 2 (dead), Deep switch converted to bright switch, Volume, Treble, Bass.
Normal channel: both inputs dead, Bright switch converted to gain boost switch, OD Feed volume, OD Drive, OD Volume.

I will replace the OD Feed volume with a fixed voltage divider to free the spot for a Master Volume control.

 

[Dave Rich]

Stephen, I understand the urge to mod but do you really want to do that to a blackface Fender? Why don't you sell it and apply the money towards an amp you really want?

 

[Stephen Davis]

Well, I already had the mod done. Man, this is an OLD thread, lol. I had a MV and a mid control put on both channels. The front channel is a modded Marshall thing now. It is a killer amp.

As far as selling it and putting it towards another amp, the amp isn't worth that much. A 66 Bassman is worth about $500 TOPS. I gave $300 for mine almost 7 years ago. Now, if it was a 66 Deluxe, that would be a different story. Plus, it isn't that I want a different 2nd channel, that side is great. I just saw the first channel as useless, so why not make it useful.

Rabbit

 

[darkbluemurder]

Originally posted by Stephen Davis
As far as selling it and putting it towards another amp, the amp isn't worth that much. A 66 Bassman is worth about $500 TOPS. I gave $300 for mine almost 7 years ago. Now, if it was a 66 Deluxe, that would be a different story. Plus, it isn't that I want a different 2nd channel, that side is great. I just saw the first channel as useless, so why not make it useful.

Rabbit

I agree. I bought mine (a blackface AB-165) in December 2001 for 600 EURO. The reason why they do not fetch a lot of money is that they are useless as bass amps (except for Bluegrass maybe) and almost so as guitar amps in stock wiring. I never understood why Fender at that time offered the guitarists 2 100 watt models (Twin and Showman) and only gave a 50 watt model to the bass players.

My original intention to buy it was to convert it into a Mesa Mark I since they are extremely scarce in Germany and about EUR 3,500 if you can find one at all. While it sounded good it was too loud with the added front gain stage. I decided to use a Dumble configuration instead and am very happy with the results. Its strength is that you can get a lot of the "in-between" tones at reasonable volume levels, e.g. where you would turn up a stock Fender to 6 or 7 and be much too loud, you use the overdrive mode with the feed and drive controls set about halfway and the OD output to about 3. Yes, it is a little more preamp drive and not as much poweramp drive compared to a stock Fender but it works for me. BTW the amp looks bone stock and could be converted to stock any time (except for the broken e-caps but I would have replaced those regardless of the mod to get the amp in playing shape - it was pretty busted when I acquired it). New Dumbles are generally not available to non-famous players and used ones sell for something like 30k. As far as I can see the only builders that build Dumble-like amps are Fuchs, Two Rock and Bruno, none available for less than EUR 3,500. So to me the most cost effective way to get a similar sound would be to acquire a SF Bassman and mod that.

I also agree that vintage pieces are better left alone but it seems that "old" does not necessarily equal "vintage". As for Fender, the 4x10'' 1959 Bassman, any brown, white or blackface with reverb amp would be "vintage". A blackface or silverface Bassman head is more "old" than "vintage". Ultimately it is a very personal decision to mod an amp or to acquire a new amp.