...the greatest guitar recording amp of all time...

Neal

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If I want “that” tone, I use this one.

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If it’s a grab and go situation, this one.

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If the champ needs a little help, I add the extension cab I made to match it.

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Westerly Wood

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I think I might switch to electric and cool old amp in next couple years. Easier to fret and I will be able to do the same stuff I do on BR.
I will be actually moving down to .11-.52s soon, just the stuff I want to do, its getting a little harder to fret. I am getting old lol.

Gives me time to search for the right Guild electric model to buy or make a trade for. Probably an old arch top right? I need something light and not heavy either.
 

Westerly Wood

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Oh I think this model will do nicely!

 

Canard

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I love older Fender amps. And I wish I had never sold my Twin, in particular, after I got married and had kids, but I did. A friend has a manageable sized Fender (heavy but not too heavy, loud but not too loud - forget the model) that came out of the Sunn factory after Fender took it over. I so covet that amp.

But as for recording, amps or guitars, nice is not always what you want for all parts in the mix.

There is John Lennon's Framus 12 string used on the Beatles' You've Got to Hide Your Love Away. If you can mentally disassociate it from the rest of of the recording, it sounds god-awful--muddy, dead, mid-rangy. But then when you put it back into the recording, it is so right.

My nephew keeps a variety of older amps, tube and solid state, in his studio for recording. Sometimes, he will say to a guitarist, "Try this 70s Peavey Pacer 100 for this track." The guitarist will cringe, but when take is reviewed, the guitarist is smiling. Harsh and punky garage with cheap reverb was the right sound for that guitar part in that tune.
 

tonepoet

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Legend has it that the Fender Deluxe Reverb is the most widely used over the years in recording studios. I have and still use a Deluxe Reverb.

But I also experiment with amps never mentioned and have had great results. These include obscure tube amps like the early 1990s Peavey Bravo 112 (25 watts with 2xEL84 3x12AX7) and a 1990s tube monster called a Crate Turbo Valve 6210 (60 watts 2x6L6, 4x12AX7, 1x12AU7) and a solid state amp called a Peavey Bandit ( "Red Stripe" )from the early 2000's (65 watt solid state).

The Crate TV6210 has a beautiful clean channel and is insanely loud at anything above 2 on the volume control. Ear damaging loud. Stupid loud. But right at 2, the clean channel is really nice. A heavy amp (mine is on pop-out casters) but you can pick them up cheap.

The SS Peavey is from their "TransTube" series and is quite tube-like both clean and dirty, and again, can be picked up cheap.

I like to experiment and see how the ears respond to the results rather than what the eyes see looking at the amp.
 

Rocky

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A '64 Blackface Princeton Reverb? They're 32 lbs.! The '64 Deluxe Reverb is 38 lbs.
May I suggest the early 80's Super Champ? If you just use the 'clean' sound, it is essentially a Princeton Reverb without tremolo. A little smaller, a little lighter (<30 lbs with a decent speaker) and a little punchier. I changed the value of the 'pull mid boost' capacitor to make it fatten up a strat just a little bit rather than the cartoon-y way it worked before.
 

Rocky

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But as for recording, amps or guitars, nice is not always what you want for all parts in the mix.
Recording is all about occupying the right sonic space, and not occupying the sonic space of the other instruments.
 

Maguchi

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May I suggest the early 80's Super Champ? If you just use the 'clean' sound, it is essentially a Princeton Reverb without tremolo. A little smaller, a little lighter (<30 lbs with a decent speaker) and a little punchier. I changed the value of the 'pull mid boost' capacitor to make it fatten up a strat just a little bit rather than the cartoon-y way it worked before.
Thanks, sounds like a great amp. I probly got those bases for portability (30 vs. 32 lbs.) and sound covered though with a '65 Princeton Reverb reissue that got rewired to handwiring and a Eminence GA10-SC64 speaker.

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Soul Tramp

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May I suggest the early 80's Super Champ? If you just use the 'clean' sound, it is essentially a Princeton Reverb without tremolo. A little smaller, a little lighter (<30 lbs with a decent speaker) and a little punchier. I changed the value of the 'pull mid boost' capacitor to make it fatten up a strat just a little bit rather than the cartoon-y way it worked before.


The Rivera era Super Champ was an excellent amp! Certainly an outlier for Fender, but one of their better amps.
 
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Rocky

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The Rivera era Super Champ was an excellent amp! Certainly an outlier for Fender, but one of their better amps.
An outlier in terms of packaging and a couple different tweaks, but the basic circuit is that of a late 70's Princeton Reverb with a SS rectifier and no tremolo. Even that 'lead boost' is just a refined version of the much reviled, reverb driven 'pull boost' in the silverfaced amps. In the very last of the SF Princeton Reverbs, that was footswitchable - see the far right:
1979-fender-princeton-reverb-silverface-u6RqmtK.jpg
 

jp

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I have both a blackfaced '76 Fender SF Deluxe Reverb with a Reverend All-tone speaker and an '83 Rivera Super Champ with an Eminence Rajun Cajun. I run these in stereo, and it is heavenly!

I've come very close to selling the Super Champ multiple times, but I just can't get myself to do it. It's the perfect little grab-and-go amp. Beautiful cleans, but I still want to do some of the recommended mods to get a better dirt channel out of it. I want to try it out with a Celestion Alnico Gold 10 if I can.

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Rocky

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I've come very close to selling the Super Champ multiple times, but I just can't get myself to do it. It's the perfect little grab-and-go amp. Beautiful cleans, but I still want to do some of the recommended mods to get a better dirt channel out of it. I want to try it out with a Celestion Alnico Gold 10 if I can.
I have the gold in mine. A great, great speaker. To my ear, it sounds a lot like the Weber 10A150. The Gold has a bit more upper mid emphasis, and the Weber a bit more in the lower mids, but they both sound bigger than they are, which really works well for the tiny box of the Super Champ.
 
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Walter Broes

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Legend has it that the Fender Deluxe Reverb is the most widely used over the years in recording studios. I have and still use a Deluxe Reverb.
It very well may be. The smaller blue-check ampeg combos were the standard in NY studios for a while, and a lot of records were made with tweed Fenders too.
Some of the legendary Nashville A-team session players used their 50's Standel 25L15's for a long time - Chet Atkins used his his whole life in the studio. They were the Dumble amps of the 50's -very expensive custom order amps built in very small quantities by one guy, almost all of them built for professional players.
 

crank

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I have both a blackfaced '76 Fender SF Deluxe Reverb with a Reverend All-tone speaker and an '83 Rivera Super Champ with an Eminence Rajun Cajun. I run these in stereo, and it is heavenly!

I've come very close to selling the Super Champ multiple times, but I just can't get myself to do it. It's the perfect little grab-and-go amp. Beautiful cleans, but I still want to do some of the recommended mods to get a better dirt channel out of it. I want to try it out with a Celestion Alnico Gold 10 if I can.

20181007_170304.jpg
I had a Hot Rod Deluxe which had a really great clean tone and a really crappy/harsh dirty channel. Was considering modding it, but ever modded amp I heard sacrificed those wonderful cleans for a better dirt. Just use a pedal for your overdrive is my advice.
 

jp

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I had a Hot Rod Deluxe which had a really great clean tone and a really crappy/harsh dirty channel. Was considering modding it, but ever modded amp I heard sacrificed those wonderful cleans for a better dirt. Just use a pedal for your overdrive is my advice.
That's what I do. I currently use a Fulltone Full Drive 3 and a T.C Mojo Mojo, but I'm still on the hunt for that one golden better overdrives/distortion. I do regret selling my old B.K. Butler Tube Driver, so I may get another newer one with the bias knob.

It very well may be. The smaller blue-check ampeg combos were the standard in NY studios for a while, and a lot of records were made with tweed Fenders too.
There were a lot of recordings made with brown tolex Fenders as well. There's also the venerable Roland JC-120, which was the go-to amp in every cartage box for a lot of studio players. I remember reading once that Tommy Tedesco's used one all the time.
 

Rocky

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There were a lot of recordings made with brown tolex Fenders as well. There's also the venerable Roland JC-120, which was the go-to amp in every cartage box for a lot of studio players. I remember reading once that Tommy Tedesco's used one all the time.
Carol Kaye (playing guitar out of frame) with a 6G3 Fender Deluxe.
Carol-Kaye-Getty.jpg
 
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