9 60s Blackface amps compared with a Les Paul

RandallFlagg

Some really nice old school drive tones here from these old Blackface Fenders. A little bit of fart and flab in the low end here and there but on the whole pretty nice.

Winny_Pooh

Nice, Supers!

RandallFlagg

The 65 Bassman is the one for me.

ICBM

1st - 65 Bassman
2nd - 66 Twin Reverb
3rd - 66 Deluxe Reverb

BowynMadley

See I'm going to say the Princeton sounded best to me. I heard a guy using a mid 60s Princeton with a celestion gold. Sounded ace with his les Paul and the sg junior he had

richardhomer

Super Reverb by a country mile!

ICBM

BowynMadley said:

See I'm going to say the Princeton sounded best to me.

richardhomer said:

Super Reverb by a country mile!

Funny how we hear things so differently - I've never liked Supers, and that one sounds no better... I thought it was probably the worst. I didn't like the Princeton either, or the Showman or the Vibroverb. All ratty, middy-sounding and boxy - surprisingly so for the Showman and Vibroverb with their 15" speakers.

Also surprisingly the Vibro-Champ sounded much better than the Princeton, and better than the non-reverb Deluxe too.

Lebarque

Reminds me of this clip. What a guy!

RandallFlagg

BowynMadley said:

See I'm going to say the Princeton sounded best to me. I heard a guy using a mid 60s Princeton with a celestion gold. Sounded ace with his les Paul and the sg junior he had

I quite liked the Princeton too, a good drive or boost mightnhelp push it a long and shape the tone a little more to my taste.

there's something about the drive tone of old Blackface and Silverface Fender amps thta I really like,

zepp76

RandallFlagg said:

BowynMadley said:

See I'm going to say the Princeton sounded best to me. I heard a guy using a mid 60s Princeton with a celestion gold. Sounded ace with his les Paul and the sg junior he had

I quite liked the Princeton too, a good drive or boost mightnhelp push it a long and shape the tone a little more to my taste.

there's something about the drive tone of old Blackface and Silverface Fender amps thta I really like,

I liked the Princeton too, how does a modern Princeton reverb reissue compare? I saw a lovely Knotted pine Princeton in my local guitar store but didn't have a chance to play through it, lovely looking thing but what kind of tones could I expect using a Les Paul?

gwEm

Love Johan's work.

I liked the Showman and Vibrochamp myself.

Stuckfast

I liked the Super Reverb, too.

I was surprised by how good the Showman sounded. Dunno how he could stand to be in the same room with it cranked up to that level!

RandallFlagg

zepp76 said:

RandallFlagg said:

BowynMadley said:

See I'm going to say the Princeton sounded best to me. I heard a guy using a mid 60s Princeton with a celestion gold. Sounded ace with his les Paul and the sg junior he had

I quite liked the Princeton too, a good drive or boost mightnhelp push it a long and shape the tone a little more to my taste.

there's something about the drive tone of old Blackface and Silverface Fender amps thta I really like,

I liked the Princeton too, how does a modern Princeton reverb reissue compare? I saw a lovely Knotted pine Princeton in my local guitar store but didn't have a chance to play through it, lovely looking thing but what kind of tones could I expect using a Les Paul?

Don't know about modern Princeton's but I have a Morgan PR12 (based on the Princeton) and with the Celestion greenback it's definitely in this territory with my R8 Les Paul. I rarely get chance to play it this loud though!

RandallFlagg

and now with a Strat, they don't sound anywhere near as good to me as they do with the Les Paul:

riscado

I like Johan's demonstrations, he tends to keep things simple to really demo how the amps rock out. However for a blackface recording I really wish I would have heard cleaner sounds. In any case my favourite was the bassman.

SunDevil

Johan's demos (and his shorts) are top of the tree in much the same way as Greg of Greg's guitars vids are the worst - buy a mic stand man as wash the bear!

Honerable mention to Doug & Pat too

ICBM

RandallFlagg said:

and now with a Strat, they don't sound anywhere near as good to me as they do with the Les Paul:

Interesting… some of them perform very differently - I can't decide if I like the Strat or the Les Paul best overall, but the order of the amps is quite different.

1 - Vibroverb
2 - Twin
3 - Bassman

The Super was still the worst, followed by the Showman, and the non-reverb Deluxe. The Princeton and Vibro-Champ sounded much better than with the Les Paul so I'd put them and the Deluxe Reverb in the middle.

So overall if I had to pick one amp for all purposes it would be the Twin. This is not a surprise to me - I've always liked them best.

timmysoft

they all sounded like ballbag

57Deluxe

you can't say best or worst as they all have characteristics defined by their stature, nos. of speakers and the speakers themselves! The Les Paul riffs weren't that uniform either, so dynamics count a lot when playing into a driven Fender.

What it does show is how organic and consistent classic Fender amp designs are. You can hear little snippets of tones and phrases from all those classic songs... I even detected a touch of Peter Green tone in there...

riscado

Blackface amps are for me the workhorse of amplification. I always go back to using them. To top it up they are reliable and consistent sounding (within models range) if properly maintained, and sometimes even if not properly maintained. I also tend to love the way they're voiced more so than tweeds.

Obviously voltages, output transformer, cabinet size and speakers, all make each model sound and react differently giving you lots of options.

RandallFlagg

timmysoft said:

they all sounded like ballbag

painting pictures of sound with words. nice.imagery :-)