Silverface Champ and an OD pedal?

flyingv

I'm currently gassing for the above combo? always fancied a little 70's Champ for  'home'  tinkering ( hence the OD pedal )

I've an old 80's SD-1 that should suffice? Sound I'm looking for'  is that early Lizzy tone, nice cleans, but  a controllable growl? Anyone had any experience with this type of set up?

riscado

I regularly use an early 1965 fender vibrochamp, I much rather play clean, so very rarely use overdrive pedals, however when I do want overdrive, an analogman king of tone gives me great results.

Winny_Pooh

I have one that I use most often for practice. Most drives will work well with it. 
It will not sound like a slightly dirty Marshall though.

benecol

I've got a SF vibrochamp, and love a Bad Monkey with it. Also, much love for a Rat with the Distortion set below 9 (this is my secret weapon).

Champs are great with OD, though.

bingefeller

You could try a Boss DS1X with the SD 1 boosting it and smoothing out the tone a bit.  

richardhomer

Champs are unbelievably clean - so you need a pedal that provides dirt - rather than boost.

They are not as 'sparkly' as Princetons or Deluxes, so probably less tricky to get working properly with drive pedals than other Fenders. 

flyingv

Thanks for the comments fellas, food for thought indeed?

Funkfingers

Unless you are fixated on the Silverface cosmetics, try to find a Rivera-era Champ II. 

ICBM

richardhomer said:

Champs are unbelievably clean - so you need a pedal that provides dirt - rather than boost.

Actually Champs distort quite easily, although the result tends to be farty rather than a conventional overdriven crunch… so I agree with the second part of that. (Although I always would with any amp.)

richardhomer said:

They are not as 'sparkly' as Princetons or Deluxes, so probably less tricky to get working properly with drive pedals than other Fenders. 

That's also true. They're an excellent home-volume amp with pedals, whereas the bigger ones can sound fizzy until they're up a bit louder.

Corvus

My lad has one, sounds great turned up with a Rat or Octafuzz (less fuzz/more vol) into it, also with my La Grange. It's had a speaker swap but not sure what to.

riscado

I think it does drive quite well, but the later blackface and silverface models ran at really high plate voltages as they were incorrectly biased. So some will be excessively clean. This is easy to fix.

They sound really good, but people tend to forget, that just because it's a small amp, much like most amps it will sound quite shitty if you go past 6/7 on the volume. You sort of lose definition.

They're really good with pedals though and the drive you get naturally of the amp at around 6 is also quite nice.

I have a weber on mine, I've heard great things on jupiter speakers as well.

Winny_Pooh

@flyingv you're welcome to try mine if you are ever in the SW London/Surrey area

57Deluxe

if you looking for a Lizzie tone you will need 2xSilverface Champs and 2xSD-1s

bingefeller

You guys know the guitar solo in Round and Round by Ratt?  That's a Silverface Superchamp at full pelt and no pedals .  One of the greatest ever Fender tones.  

flyingv

Winny_Pooh said:

@flyingv you're welcome to try mine if you are ever in the SW London/Surrey area

very kind of you dear chap.

JohnPerry

benecol said:

 Also, much love for a Rat with the Distortion set below 9 (this is my secret weapon).

This. I have tried half a dozen quality drive pedals with my silverface Vibrochamp and the Mooer Black Secret (a Rat) set for low gain beat them all by a distance.

Must say I have found the VC pickier than any other amp for overdrives. Some of those it doesn't like much sound fantastic through other amps. Also it has a ten-inch Celestion Gold so it's not a speaker problem

mattdavis

I'm currently very much enjoying a lazy j Cruiser into my '77 champ. Whole range of drive tones in then cruiser. 
However I find that past about 4/5 the volume of the champ doesn't really increase but you get a wonderful throaty growly overdrive that you would probably love. 

HPhillipsmusic

I love my 76 silver face champ, it chimes and is super spanky and fun to play through. It breaks up ok when you hit it hard with no pedals but something like an Archer Klon makes it scream. I played a show last weekend with it unmiced on 9.5 with an Archer and a Strymon Flint and it was so fun, responsive and bright without being too tight.
Probably wouldn't play it if I had a loud drummer to get over, not because of volume but I just missed the bass response from my deluxe when trying to sit in the mix with a kick drum.
Super fun though and would 100% recommend picking them up at the moment as there are some steals about.