What Fender would you pick if .....

Wait, there isn't a stock Fender sound! There's at least 4 or 5 distinct flavors:
1. Tweed-complex mids, sweet distortion, poor clean overhead
2. Brown-harmonic tremelo with slightly thinned mids
3. BF-thin mids, sparkly top end, excellent clean, good overdrive
4. Rivera Era-singing sustain, sorta high gain with cascading preamps.

Mix in the different tremelos, the reverb flavors, 6L6s vs 6V6s and there's a lot to try. My favorite right now is the second Brown/blond 40w series (Bandmaster, Pro, Super with 6 preamp tubes).

 

Which 'stock' Fender sound would you like? I'd guess something from the blackface era (which can easily be replicated with a silverface). How much power do you want/need? 6V6 or 6L6?

 

Pretty thorough report there from drbob. Personally i've always preferred Rivera-era amps, right now i'm playing through a Concert, but I must say that the Twin Reverb II's i've owned/played have all been slightly more versatile than this concert. The Twin II shocked me at how functional the tone knobs were. Even slight adjustments would yeild a signifigant tone change. The concert has all of the same attitude as the other II series amps, and is extremely versatile in it's own right, however. The clean channel is terrific on the concert. It's much warmer and sweeter to my ear than any silverface i've owned, but possibly not as large and round...if that makes any sense. The gain channel is, in my opinion, by far the best ever put onto a fender amp. Some people complain about it, but I can't figure out why. It's a very unique and versatile distortion channel with a very signature flavor.

 

'Most good guitarists would agree' that the Blues Deluxe is the finest Fender.

 

I find my favorite Fender amps are 4x10 combos pre-CBS, my favorite being the brown era Concerts.

 

I have owned MANY Fender amps from the tweeds, brownface, blackface and silverface. For me, the single Fender amp that takes me to that special classic Fender place is the Pro Reverb. I currently have two.

 

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If you're not familiar with Fenders, trying to describe what they sound like is kind of like trying to explaint the difference between Porcinis and Portobellos to someone who's never tasted a mushroom.

I've played dozens (hundreds?) of vintage Fenders and I've owned plenty from TV fronts to blackface amps. For ME, only a couple were REALLY worth keeping

Overviews can be helpful, but take the generalizations with a box of salt. For example, a single-ended tweed Champ sounds nothing like a tweed Twin. And an early (cathode-biased) tweed Bassman with a single 15 sounds so different from a late fixed-bias tweed Bassman with four 10" speakers that they could have come from two different makers.

Same goes for a brownface Princeton and a brownface (blonde) Twin.

Granted, these are examples of the biggest differences and you won't find such drastic differences within all amps in a given Fender family, but sometimes even a small variation in circuitry (or speakers, or tubes, or...) can make the difference between keeper and "for sale."

Bottom line: you've really got to play some to figure out what's right for you.

 

You aren't by any chance the Scottie Johnson I met in Garth's studio about 10 yrs ago when Robben was laying down some tracks for Pat's CD?

jon

 

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Okeyyyyyy.

There's a Scotty Johnson, an accomplished guitarist, who was playing with Robben Ford in 1995 and they were laying down tracks in Garth Webber's studio (http://www.garthwebber.com/index.shtml) for Pat Ford's CD, Ford's and Friends. I was a 'friend', but not as a player. Just a friend of the Ford brothers and got to 'sit at the feet of the master' for the session.

Internet names......... sheesh......

In any case, welcome to TGP, Scottie!

jon

 

Great amps- maybe the best tremolo circuit ever. Raises the question, though, of impedance matching for the original poster's scenario: an unmodded Fender designed to drive 4x10 at 2.7ohms isn't going to match up with a 2x12.

 

Dual Professional

 

scottiejohnson:

Only fun intended..Just a corker about a recent thread!

 

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Try A Vibro King ( although I don't know about the 2 x 12 setup).

With a good overdrive pedal, it'll do just about anything-- extremely well.

 

I second the vibro king nod, there wasn't one of the greats without one in the first ten years!!!!!!! (1993 -on)