Fender Deluxe Reverb is the eel's hips

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lharless
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Post by lharless » Tue May 18, 2010 7:48 pm

...and as TapeOp'ers, we should know this better than most, that tone is all subjective. What one guy calls tone, you might spit on the ground every time the amps name gets mentioned.

lharless
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Post by lharless » Wed May 19, 2010 12:49 pm

The Beatles used several silverfaced Fenders while recording at Apple Studios. Here's the puddin'. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdiaY-h4xdg

Silverfaced Fenders started showing up around, what, in '68? '67? Someone help me out, I'm in too deep.

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meldar produxshunz
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Post by meldar produxshunz » Wed May 19, 2010 2:22 pm

yeah, the beatles somehow make piercing bright guitars work. to me its one of their signatures...
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Rapidpro
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Fender Soldano Era Twin Reverb II

Post by Rapidpro » Wed May 19, 2010 3:26 pm

Well I have to chime in here. I have a Soldano Era 84 Twin Reverb II with EVM 12Ls in it completely stock untouched except a few replacement tubes.
I bought it in 84 with a 84 Stratocaster with a Rosewood neck. I could never get rid of these guys as both pieces have a sound I hold dear. The Twin is so big and heavy and way to loud I can never turn it all the way up. The distortion on the lead channel I never liked but I bought it for the fat clean sound that?s what this amp does best.. But hey one mans wet dream is another?s Night Mare.

chovie d
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Post by chovie d » Fri May 21, 2010 4:44 pm

lharless wrote: Silverfaced Fenders started showing up around, what, in '68? '67? Someone help me out, I'm in too deep.
68. The earliest ones had drip edge trim and would say 'amp" on the faceplate in adtion to whatevr model name it was. For example "
Showman Amp" rather than just "Showman". Logo has a tail tial disappears somehwere around 1974? (i think)
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Post by Jim Williams » Sat May 22, 2010 8:21 am

CBS bought Fender in 1965. Their engineers made changes to the silver faced models put out in 1968. They changed the power stage design in order to get rid of "that nagging distortion".

Within 3 months, all the stoned and deaf hippies picked up on it and created the "pre-CBS" story that has never been lived down. By 1969 the power amp stage was returned to original but the damage had already been done.

Other changes involved wire and mylar caps. The original black face molded extended foil mylars do have a clear sound. The blue dipped mylars used as replacements sound darker. All use ceramic disc caps for treble and brite switches.

Any era Fender amp can be made to sound great. You just need to fix a few things. I use Wima FKP-1 polyprop caps in my silver faced Vibro Champ. All those ceramic caps were changed to silver micas. I also used them in my 1965 and 1967 Showman heads and my pristene 1966 Deluxe Reverb. Contrary to common misconceptions, good caps do not take mojo out of a guitar amp.
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Post by Chris_Meck » Sat May 22, 2010 11:24 am

yeah, this whole 'silver faced amps are not as good' stuff is at best a vast generalization, and at worst just a pile of hooey.

I have a 1972 Deluxe Reverb that anyone in this area will agree is the best sounding Deluxe around. This includes a handful of folks that have actual blackface deluxes.

What makes mine so special? Well, in addition to being recapped (with mallory and orange drop caps) and 'blackfaced' (not all that big a deal, but in my amp's case I believe that meant that the previous owner installed a tube rectifier instead of a solid state one?) all of which should make it just the equal of a blackface era Deluxe in its' prime.

then I run it with 6l6's, which drops the resonant peak (icepick in the ear thing) to a lower frequency (seems to me, unscientifically) and smooths the overall response. It sounds like a much bigger amp than other Deluxes.This is an easy fix, and the output transformers can handle it. You just re-bias for them.

But that could be the JBL D120, too. Threw that crappy Oxford piece of crap in the trash. A real speaker makes a big difference.

so yeah, it's customized, but not that much, and there's no shrill pointy crap coming out of that amp at all, even on the bridge pickup of a strat or telecaster.

I'll agree that I dislike IN GENERAL the later, 'master volume' amps, largely because that is just basically an attenuator. Kinda sounds crappy. If you just run the master all the way up, it's roughly the same as the ones without. And the push-pull pot crunch thing is lame, too, but if you don't use it, it's out of the circuit.

I would characterize all of the silver faced amps as good value/interesting and solid choices for customization as they're all point to point wired amps that can be tweaked fairly easily by a knowledgeable tech.
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Post by Jim Williams » Sun May 23, 2010 7:05 am

I ran my 1966 Deluxe Reverb with sylvania 6L6's for many years. It does offer up about 40 watts that way, IF you replace the tube rectifier with diodes. I dumped tube rectifiers back in the early 1970's, to mushy, slow and sloppy for my style of playing.

I then removed the power and output transformers and installed 100 watt models that were a special model Fender once made back in the 1970's, a thin and long case 100 watt power transformer that fitted into the narrow Deluxe chassis. I found those at Apex electronics back in the early 1980's as they have a large suplus transformer area that happened to have a bunch of left over surplus Fender transformers. I paid 5 bucks for it and it's an export model with all the international voltages available.

I used 100 uf filter caps, replaced the audio path noisy, spitty carbon comp resistors with metal films. I removed the vibrato circuit (Hendrix told me surf music was dead in 1967) and the spring reverb. I installed a tube effects loop instead that I use Lexicon reverbs with. It has a presence control on the power stage, 2 GE 6550 power tubes, does 80 watts and I added mid controls. The normal channel is a Marshall JCM 800 preamp circuit. It has a master volume, needed as it's very loud.

I used to use a JBL E-120 speaker but that's too brite and spitty for overdrive guitar. I now use an Eminence V-128, a perfect match. This amp allows me to play rather loud without getting the blaim those with large amps get. No one ever suspects the little devil will get that loud.
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Post by Chris_Meck » Sun May 23, 2010 9:48 am

Hi Jim,

Afraid I can't get quite as specific as I am not the amp tech, just the player. I kept the tube rectifier as I like the little squish and being a single coil bridge pick-up guy, I don't mind the rounding off of the sound. strats and teles have more than enough high end to spare.

My deluxe, as is, with the tube rectifier and stock transformers puts out a little over 25 watts. Resistors have only been changed as needed. Most have been replaced at this point, by what I honestly don't know. My tech generally uses nice stuff, though.

It starts to overdrive in the most 'stonesy' of ways at about 5. In this amp, the JBL doesn't do a shrill, just sort of 'hi-fi' and three dimensional. It is a tad darker and beefier than the usual deluxe. Almost like a Deluxe/Bassman hybrid.

I absolutely could not do without my tremelo and reverb. I gots to get to my swamp on.

hee-haw!

Chris Meck
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chovie d
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Post by chovie d » Mon May 24, 2010 4:44 pm

maybe im just a hippie but my understanding was the following silverface amps retained thier circuits from their blackfaces predecessors:
Vibrolux Reverbs, Deluxe Reverbs, Princetons, Princeton Reverbs, Champs and Vibro Champs.
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Post by meldar produxshunz » Wed Mar 09, 2011 10:24 pm

i have to respectfully disagree that caps dont make a difference in an amp. i will say it is a subtle difference. but i find that overall i am not a fan of any amo that uses orange drops. and i have come to this conclusion only after the fact.

the "blue caps" BF used DO add something.
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Post by nestle » Thu Mar 10, 2011 12:42 am

I have a 68 SF super reverb. The thing sounds like heaven. Changed the speakers years ago. There was a mod done to it, but I think it was also one of those unchanged models originally too. Have and early seventies vibro champ that's amazing too. I have the 65 deluxe reissue, meh.. It's ok on about 8.

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Post by LupineSound » Thu Mar 10, 2011 8:01 am

I always thought Twin Reverbs were shrill and trebley until I saw Black Rebel Motorcycle Club back around 2001. Peter Hayes got such a warm, lush overdriven tone out of those things I was converted. I believe he played blackfaces but I don't know if they were re-issues or oriingals. Anyway, it made me want a 335 and blackface real bad :D

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