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the amp room
extensions of my loudmouth...
1970 Fender Twin Reverb
I sold a Mesa/Boogie Blue Angel 2x10" that had been sitting in a corner for a good while, and decided to keep the money for when I found something I really wanted. My normal gear-buying scenario is like this: I come across something nice -> I realize I really, really want it, but don't have the money -> GAS kicks in, and I realize I don't care if I can't afford it or not, since I need it -> I buy it and live on macaronis for a while. This time I had a plan - I was (as mentioned) going to keep the money, so that when I found something I wanted, I'd actually have the money to buy it. Great plan. It took two full days for me to find this one... a 1970 Twin Reverb with JBL D-120F's (grey baskets).
It is in good working condition, but could use new tolex - at least the bottom section, which is missing completely. The original footswitch is missing, but after a quick check what it'd cost to get a replacement from Fender, I decided to build one myself. It only has one switch (for the tremolo) as I never turn the reverb off anyway. The first thing I did was to add four good-sized rubber feet as the old ones were long gone. Fender didn't put castors on these amps until 1972, so I didn't want to add them now. Kinda stupid really, as the rubber feet means that the only way to move the amp - even if only 5 cm to the side - is to lift it straight up and set it down in its new place. I feel a hernia coming... Eventually, I got a flightcase for this amp, which has made transporting it far easier. Granted, the case itself weighs quite a bit, so lifting the thing into the back of my car is even worse than before. But the fact that I no longer have to carry the amp across flat surfaces more than makes up for that...
The amp was originally believed to be a '69, but further inspections has confirmed it to be an early '70. Not that there's much difference - the '68 - '69 silverface amps had an aluminium trim around the edges of the baffle/grille (which was in one piece until '72), but this amp doesn't have it. Apart from that, it's the same as the first generation SF Twins. I love this amp - it sounds absolutely fantastic at medium volumes and up, and I can't ever see myself selling it. I might replace the speakers for Jensens - partly because I've come to love the Jensen sound, and partly because they are soo much lighter than the JBL's the amp came with.
1969 Fender Bandmaster Reverb + 2x12" cabinet
While on yet another lookout for a smaller companion to the Twin - the same hunt I was on when I came home with the Princeton 65 below - I came across an ad for a Bandmaster Reverb head, with an accompanying 2x12" closed-back cab and a 2x10" Fender combo cabinet. It wasn't cheap, but these amps only rise in value, so as an investment it's hard to go wrong. Anyway, I received the amp and cabs in three big boxes, and there it was. The head cabinet had the aluminium trim typical for 1968-69 (the amp was later dated to june-august 1969), but the grille cloth has obviously been replaced at some point (Fender didn't use black grille cloth in '69, did they?). Other than that, the cabinet is in excellent condition, with no nicks and tears in the tolex.
The 2x10" combo cab (which houses the actual amp) is actually a cut down Super Reverb - it has a SR tube chart inside, and it is clearly visible that the cab has been (crudely) modified. The setup needed a little TLC - new speaker wire, new cables to/from the reverb tank, proper rubber feet etc - but as a whole it works just fine. It currently has two Jensen C10R speakers. Sonically, the amp sounds wonderful - very full and smooth, with a nice slight breakup the Twin doesn't have (unless it is cranked to stupid levels). The reverb is as awesome as always, and the tremolo does what it's supposed to. And with the Jensens, it is surprisingly light! The amp itself is a TFL5005X model, which is the first time I've heard of the "X" designation - they usually have a "D". If I were to guess, I'd say the "X" is for "Export", with the "D" for "Domestic". Hey, it's a guess, at least...
But... as with any 40 year old amp, there are niggles. And this one seems to have more than its fair share. The first time I took it to a rehearsal (thankfully, it wasn't a gig, at least), it sounded awesome the first 40 minutes, and then started fading off until it was distorting like a bad fuzz pedal. At present (april 2010) it's starting to look like this amp is a home-cooked hodgepodge of various bits and pieces - I'm not surprised the guy was willing to sell it... So far, in three trips to the doctor we've found:
But still the amp fizzes out after an hour or so. The new theory is that it suffers from the 4 ohm speaker load - while Bandmasters in general seem to be fine with 4 ohms, this one might not be. At the amp tech's workshop, it is hooked up to an 8 ohm dummy load for testing, and works perfectly. It might be the output transformer that is weak, wired the wrong way (using only the 8 ohm output, for instance) or simply the wrong type. Sigh... more to come, I suppose. Too bad, because it sounds absolutely ripping when it works.
- a couple of bad resistors
- a bad solder joint on the heater wire for one of the tube sockets (causing the amp to fry one of the power tubes, once it got hot enough)
- the power transformer was set up for 220 volts AC input, while the actual line voltage here these days are over 230 volts (I've measure 236 volts at my house). This meant the tubes were getting too much voltage. Thankfully, the tech was able to rewire the PT to 240 volts.
The 2x12" cab is most likely a Bassman cab - it has tilt-back legs, which Bandmaster Reverb cabs didn't have, and the threaded inserts are too widely spaced for the bolts in the head cabinet. They do fit my Bassman head to a tee, though. Going by the fender logo, it should be a '74 or earlier, but it isn't easy to say. The speakers are "Fender Special Design", which could mean more or less any manufacturer. In this case, it seems to be Pyle. That's the only manufacturer I could match to the code 1098 722 to - which would mean they are made in week 22 of either 1967 or 1977. 1967 doesn't match the lack of aluminium trim around the speaker grille, while 1977 is too late for the "tail" logo it has... Oh well. The cab will most likely be sold at some point - I have way too much stuff sitting around already.
Fender Princeton 65
I needed a smaller (lighter) amp than the Twin for smaller gigs, and was thinking along the lines of a Deluxe Reverb, Vibrolux or '63 Vibroverb Reissue. On a whim, I decided to try a solid state late '90s Princeton 65 that turned up at my local store, and to my surprise it's not bad at all. It does not disturb my smaller tube amp thinking, but as a reasonably easy to carry amp it does real well. It definitely didn't disturb my wallet, as I got it for next to nothing... The pic isn't mine - I'll get my own up shortly.
Anyway, it actually sounds quite good - not as smooth and "buttery" as a real Fender tube amp, but hey... The clean channel is way too bright (the treble knob stays at "2" or so), and the lead channel sounds... well, not very good.The reverb is surprisingly good for a short tank, but sadly it also comes with a slight hum, and has since died completely... I'll have to investigate that one a bit, to see what can be done about it. The fx loop is located after the reverb, so a good tremolo pedal stuck in there will make the amp sound even closer to the real thing... once the reverb is fixed, obvously.
The biggest problem is the volume control for the clean channel - it's more of an on/off switch than a volume knob. 1.1 is "too little" and 1.2 is "way too loud", so balancing the level at gigs (while playing) is a delicate affair. Sadly, since the volume pot controls the negative feedback in the initial IC preamp stage, rather than sit in line with the signal coming out of the preamp stage, as in a normal Fender preamp, it isn't simply a matter of replacing a (supposedly) linear taper pot for a log/audio version. I'm thinking of building a small preamp box based on the standard Fender preamp found in all the Blackface and Silverface fenders, taping the volume control on the amp up at a decent setting and controlling the volume from the external preamp instead. But there are soo many little projects that seem to be much more pressing...
1973 Fender Bassman head
I found this one in an advert, while I was away for a couple of weeks. A phone call later, I had secured the amp. We decided to talk more when I had returned home, and arrange the transport (as the amp was located in Sundsvall, 500 km's from Stockholm). I got home sunday night, and monday morning the owner called, telling me that he was leaving for Stockholm right away. He wanted to know if he should bring the amp... Needless to say, I said yes, and we met up later that day. I walked into a room full of amps, and in the center was a Steinway Grand, stripped of its strings and keys - apparently, the guy repairs grand pianos for a living... A cool job, indeed! And a cool guy, to boot - thanks Lars, for selling me this jem!
The amp is a 50 watt export model, which was manufactured in parallel to the regular US model. It's the same as a Bassman (renamed "Bassman 50" in 1972), only with a 220 volt transformer. Of course there were other export models as well, which had voltage selectors (either on the back plate or internal), but the ones with a fixed 220 volt tranny seems to be the only ones that actually said "export" on the faceplate. Also, the inclusion of the word "export" in the model designation only seems to have happened on Bassmans - at least I haven't seen any other Fender amps of this period which were marked that way. Anyway, dating this one was a breeze, thanks to my good friend Dirk (bettycat). From the serial # A57934, we can deduct (or rather, he could) that it was built in april 1973.
The amp sounds great - it growls and barks, but in a softer, more mellow way than the '72 50w Marshall I used to have. I bought it to power my Fender Vibratone leslie, a job it does admirably, but it has also been used as a stand-alone amp with a 2x12" cab, and lately it's also been used as a bass amp (with a 2x12" bass cab).
Marshall Lead 100 Mosfet (3210)
In 1984, Marshall launched a 3/4 scale line of amps, consisting of the 2204S (a 50w single-channel amp), a dual channel solid state preamp/tube power amp hybrid (the 30w Artist 3203) and this one - the 100w Mosfet model. The line also came with straight and slanted 4x10" and 2x12" cabs, to make up a slightly smaller Marshall stack. I don't really see myself using a Marshall very much (I am a Fender guy, after all), but I remember these from when I started getting serious about playing guitar, and thought it could be nice to have one. I'd love to get my hands on the Artist 3203 and one of the matching cabs too.
The clean channel can do a nice growl if you crank it, while the lead channel is classic Marshall - quite midrangey with surprisingly little saturation (compared to later JCM900 and JCM2000 models). The lead channel has a fixed eq with a single tone control, producing that classic Marshall tone that seems to cut through anything. Turning the guitar volume down to clean the sound up doesn't work very well, though. If you pull out the lead gain knob, the amp engages the eq section to with the lead channel, which puts the sound more into the modern range. However, the amount of sharp treble in the clean channel means you can't balance both sounds (you need to cut lots of treble for the clean sound, resulting in a boxy, dull lead sound). However, I think the pre-set lead eq might work well with a band. Now I just need to find a hard rock gig to try it out...
Crate VC508
Um... so what is a modern Crate amp doing amongst all the old Fenders, then? Well... the story was - as always - that I was looking for something else, and just happened upon this one. I was going to buy a Roland Micro Cube, actually, to use as a test amp in my workshop. As you may or may not know, I modify pedals in my spare time, and I'd gotten really tired of warming up my Twin every time I wanted to check that a pedal was working properly before I shipped it off to its owner. Basically, I was looking for a tiny practice amp. I had thought about getting a Pignose, but ended up shopping for the Micro Cube. And of course they were fresh out of them in the shop... I told Leffe (at 4Sound Stockholm, previously known as Estrad Musik) what I was looking for, and he whipped out this little puppy. It had been sitting in the shop for quite some time, so I got a great deal on it. Once again, Leffe and the crew at 4Sound Stockholm has hooked me up - I can't say enough good things about that store and its staff!
Basically, it is a 5 watt class A tube amp with an 8" Celestion in an open back cab. The controls are deceptively simple - gain, tone and volume - but the amp is still capable of producing a lot of different tones. The amp has a couple of twists and surprises. First off, the tone control is quite odd, and can't be treated as you would a tone knob on an overdrive pedal. It does not just control the amount of treble - as you turn it from 0 to 5, the tone goes from wooly to very midrangey, and from 5 upwards it starts to decrease the mids and add treble/bass, and at 10 you end up with a fairly scooped sound (as scooped as you can get with an 8" speaker). Very odd... Second, the preamp is actually a hybrid. The signal first enters a solid state gain stage that in turn drives the first half of the preamp tube. The signal then goes through the tone and master volume section, before it hits the single-ended 5w power stage. I'm guessing this design was something of a shortcut - in order to make the preamp distort to the designer's liking, they needed that extra gain stage at the start of the circuit. But the amp layout (or more likely the budget constraints) didn't allow for a second preamp tube to be used, so they stuck a solid state stage in there instead. That isn't inherently bad, but in this particular amp it sometimes becomes a disadvantage. You have to make sure the input level doesn't get too strong (i.e. no boosters in front of the amp), and watch the gain control setting. That knob controls the gain in the solid stage gain stage, and if you set it too high, you will distort the op-amp inside. That produces a fizzy distortion that is quite far removed from the power tube overdrive the amplifier type is meant to give. Luckily, the line out jack doubles as a loop, with a third hidden option there as well:
- With a regular guitar cable inserted all the way into the jack, you have a line out (signal taken before the power amp stage).
- A TRS insert cable (stereo plug to two mono plugs) will get you a regular fx loop (tip is send, ring return).
- To access the power amp directly, without sending the signal through the preamp section, plug your guitar cable halfway into this jack (pushing the plug only down to the first "click", instead of all the way down). The only control that works is the volume knob, the sound is much cleaner and louder, and there is not a trace of that fizzy solid state preamp distortion you can get when using the amp the "normal" way. You do need some sort of buffer amp to drive the return, though - plugging the guitar right into there won't work. But stick a buffered (Boss/Ibanez type) pedal in between the guitar and the amp, and it works just fine.
The amp currently lives under my workbench, doing duty as a test amp for newly modified pedals. But it got its gig teeth cut after only a couple of days in my possession, and it performed really well, so I suppose it will get to come out and play from time to time. To help transporting it safely, I've purchased a soft carrying case for it, complete with shoulder strap and all. A Rockbag softcase for a double bass drum pedal turned out to fit the amp perfectly, with just enough room. If you want to look into it, the Rockbag part # is RB22690B. If you also want room for a couple of pedals in with the amp, there is also a bigger size case - it has the same basic measurements, only a little wider.
I've read lots of info about modifications to this amp, but at the moment I'm letting it stay the way it is. Drilling some ventilation holes in the back plate would be a good idea, though - while the amp runs relatively cool under normal bedroom use, as soon as I crank the preamp, it's starting to give off that "hot" smell... Also, the amp desperately needs an external speaker jack, so I might put one in. A 10" speaker could probably be shoehorned in, but that'll be for later. I'd also like to see what can be done to stop the solid stage gain stage distorting. But who am I kidding - I don't have that much time...
1968-72 Fender Vibratone
A leslie 16 in Fender clothing. A friend of mine - yup, the one with the T100 - was using this with his Hammond organ, and desperately needed a "real" leslie - or so I kept telling him anyway. Eventually I found a leslie 760 with a defective amp section - perfect for turning into a 'speaker-only' leslie to go with his Yamaha T100 - and I kept mailing him pics of 760:s until he reached GAS overload. We took my car and drove the 400 km:s to Arvika (where the seller lived), loaded the beast into the back and headed for home. After a bit of fiddling, which included building a passive crossover, it was ready to go. We fired up the Hammond and cranked the T100... If you've never heard (or rather felt) a cranked Hammond through a big leslie... try it out. It's better than any drugs. In the meantime, as I had cunningly brought a guitar along, I took the Vibratone for a spin... sorry. I'm sad. I know... Anyway, It turned out to be a good deal for both of us - he got a real leslie (and chronic back pain from hauling the thing) and I got a Vibratone... If you want to hear it, click here.
It has the aluminium trim that - on the amps - only appeared in '68 and '69, but I've been hearing that the Vibratone kept the trim all the way to its demise in 1972. The vent slits (top and sides) does not have the aluminium trim, though, which every one of the 1967-1969 ones I've seen has had. But I don't know if they were there from the start but fell off, or if it came without them. So, date-wise, what I can say for sure is that it isn't a '67 (the first year, the Vibratone didn't have the aluminium nameplate), and that it might not be a '68 or '69, but I really don't know any more than that. Feel free to e-mail me if you know any good resources on dating Vibratones.
Anyway, the crossover network that routed the mids through the leslie and the top+bottom back to the combo amp is long gone - as is the original Utah speaker. Nowadays it's wired as a regular 8 ohm cab, using a 10" Celestion. I also built a small footswitch for the ramp up/down, as the original footswitch was lost with the crossover network. I use the Bassman to power it, obviously, and I also have the option of using a modified DOD A/B box to switch between the Vibratone and a regular cab. Another option is to keep the Bassman strictly for the Vibratone, and use a StinkFoot ABY box to switch between the Bassman/Vibratone and the Fender Twin. It makes for a rather versatile setup... The Vibratone now lives in a proper flightcase, which I got in a trade for an old Traynor amp. It does make the whole thing a bit bigger in transport, but far easier to move around.
Soundcab Bassline 300 bass cab
I needed a proper bass cab to go with my Fender Bassman amp. As you can see, I use that amp for plenty of things - as a to-go amp into whatever cab the venue provides, as an amp for my Vibratone leslie cab, and as a bass amp. It's only 50 watts, so for bass playing it needs a fairly responsive cab. I tried it with an 8 ohm Hartke 4x10", but it didn't get beyond jazz levels until it started distorting... I also knew I liked 12" speakers, but finding a 4 ohm (which is what the Bassman really wants to see) bass cab with 12" speakers isn't easy. Eventually, I came across this one - a swedish-made cab, with two 12" Eminence speakers and a horn. The horn is actually disconnected at the moment, and will stay that way.
Anyway, this cab seems to be a much easier load on the amp, compared to the Hartke, and it will let me play at gig levels without the amp distorting too much... Just what I need! I've seen later versions of this cab, with proper handles etc. This one only has cut-outs in the sides, so that will be something I'll be looking into. For now, though, it does the job.
I don't play that many bass gigs, and even less gigs where I need to bring my own amp. Bass players tend to use the house amp much more often than guitarists, for some reason. Either they don't care, or they are good enough musicians to don't care =) Either way, I've learned that as long as I can bring my compressor and overdrive pedals along, I can get my sound in almost any situation. Still, it is nice to have the option of bringing your own amp, and now I can do that.
Hagström BT-25-1
My very first amp. I bought it when I was 11 years old, answering an ad in the classifieds for an "electric guitar and amplifier". The guitar turned out to be a bass, that I promptly traded for a distortion pedal. In hindsight, the guy at the music store probably ripped me off - what did I know about the value of various instruments? - but hey... I was 11. Anyway, the amp stuck with me, and I've had it ever since. I thought I'd lost it, but it turned up in the same summer cleanup that netted me the Traynor (with I later traded for a flightcase for the Vibratone). Apparently, it had been sitting in storage for years, on the top shelf (far higher than a shortarse like me will reach). I was happy to see it again, and brought it home. The serial number of this amp is 796193 - I know that makes it the 193rd amp in batch 796, which should place it somehere in the early '70s, but I don't know more than that. If you know more, drop me an e-mail.
The internal 12" speaker is long gone - it didn't last very long at all, IIRC - so I quickly installed a jack for an external cab. And it needs a serious cleanup inside - the pots are way past scratchy... It has mostly been run together with a mid '60s 1x12" my dad used to use as a bass cab for his electric organ. With the speaker in that cab, the amp become very jazz-oriented (as it would, with a bass speaker). But I have thought about lobbing a Celestion or Jensen 12" in the amp, just to see what happens. In any case, I will never sell it. Not that I'd get very much for it anyway, but it's the principle that counts...
To the right you'll find a pic of the control panel. I have no idea what the extra hole in the accordeon channel is for - it was there when I bought the amp, and it doesn't seem to be from the factory. Other than that, it's very simple. The guitar channel (top) has volume, treble and bass controls, and a slide switch to activate the tremolo. The Accordeon channel (bottom) only has volume and treble controls, and another tremolo on/off slide control. The last knob sets the speed for the tremolo effect. The amp - on the guitar channel - is quite dark sounding with lots of bass. I usually end up with the treble at about 6.5 (it really opens up between 6 and 7) and the bass just above 2. With those settings, it's quite glassy-sounding and plenty loud with the volume at 3. The accordeon channel is very different - rather nasal and midrangey, which I'd guess would be just right for pushing an accordeon through the mix. A really cool amp, but impossible to repair if the power amp module should fail - these amps use a complete module that Hagström imported from somewhere, and those bits hasn't been available anywhere for at least 15 years...
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