Fender Super Champ XD / X2 - potential purchase questions

duotone

Blonde
https://images.musicstore.de/images/0960/fender-fsr-super-champ-x2-blonde_1_GIT0055181-000.jpg

wrinkleygit

Another question on these models, if you carry out a factory reset of the dsp, what happens to speaker emulation, is it on or off when playing through the amps own speaker. It appears there is no software available to do this, so using one of these for gigging purposes might not work ?

chickenbonejohn

wrinkleygit said:

Another question on these models, if you carry out a factory reset of the dsp, what happens to speaker emulation, is it on or off when playing through the amps own speaker. It appears there is no software available to do this, so using one of these for gigging purposes might not work ?

Fender discontinued support for the FUSE software and to me it matters not a jot. I have no desire to to tinker with the factory settings. I just dialled in a clean and an overdriven sound that I liked,  took my amp to a gig and played. 

Yorkie

Has anyone tried to boost the preamp into overdrive on channel 1 on these things? 

wrinkleygit

Dominic said:

best upgrade is the Ragin Cajun..................makes a huge difference

Hi Dominic, did this make much difference to the output volume, I’m seriously considering doing this to mine ?

Yorkie

So I got myself a Super Champ XD. I’ve had it for 4 days. I know it has fifteen other voices, but we’re still stuck on strat into black panel ‘on edge’ and a touch of spring reverb. Having the same logo on guitar and amp seems to have unlocked some kind of magic I was unaware of. 

munckee

If same voices as a scx2 then 5 is Princeton and 7 is BF deluxe and I think 2 is tweed deluxe. 

I find the Princeton setting
slightly better than the first channel. 

Yorkie

This is slightly different, the manual says ‘overdriven early blackface voice’ with no mention of amp model. 

As I said, I guess at some point I will have to try the other ones… but at the moment am more tempted to sellotape the knobs where they are! 

What a nice little amp to have. 

munckee

Now stick a Jensen pr10 in it to take it to the next level.  

Yorkie

munckee said:

Now stick a Jensen pr10 in it to take it to the next level.  

I’m not going down that rabbit hole anytime soon. It’s perfectly fine at recording levels as it is right now. 

Basher

Yorkie said:

So I got myself a Super Champ XD. I’ve had it for 4 days. I know it has fifteen other voices, but we’re still stuck on strat into black panel ‘on edge’ and a touch of spring reverb. Having the same logo on guitar and amp seems to have unlocked some kind of magic I was unaware of. 

I've had one for, I'm guessing, something like 15 years.
 
Would definitely say that they suit Fenders and single-coils a bit better than Gibsons and humbuckers as the voicing is quite midrange heavy and the gain levels are quite serious on some of the models (IIRC the AC30 model is way too distorted to get anything approaching a clean-ish sound with humbuckers).

I still think that the first channel (which I've read is itself a model of some sort) and the first few channel 2 models (the blackface and tweed) are where it's at. Odd moments of fun elsewhere but, as you seem to have found out, some of those first models are excellent and you can just pick a favourite and run with it. 

Yorkie

Bought it to try and see if I would possibly like to get a ‘proper’ Fender in the long run. But, who knows, this one might be proper enough? At least at recording volume it’s a very well behaved box. 

Yorkie

I've tried the "tweed champ" voice. WTF? this thing is amazing. 

wrinkleygit

On my XD the favourites are 1,2&5, plus the clean channel, I’m stunned at how good these things are, in the past couple of weeks gigged twice, plus a jam with some mates.

duotone

Found this Amp List here: https://www.strat-talk.com/threads/super-champ-x2-amp-settings-presets.284157/

“These are based on the SCXD which has this Amp Modeling List

1 Tweed Champ
2 Tweed Bassman
3 Tweed Deluxe
4 Blackface Clean (Twin)
5 Blackface overdrive
6 Blackface Deluxe OD (SRV)
7 Vox AC
8 Marshall Plexi
9 Marshall Modern
10 Hot Rod Blues Junior
11 Hot Rod Disto Boutique
12 Hot Rod Sustain
13 Metal Hi gain
14 Metal Hi gain sustain
15 Fender Jazz King
16 Acoustasonic”

Yorkie

So, a few more details after a couple of weeks playing the shit out of this thing: 

- You can absolutely boost the clean channel to get some light grit. I don’t know where the clipping originates in this case, but it doesn’t sound bad to me.
- Voice 4 on the drive channel is identical to the clean channel. 

- This amp behaves like a real Fender! No sound between 0 and 2, useful levels between 2 and 2.1, breaks windows above 2.2. 

Jon

Yorkie

Yorkie said:

- You can absolutely boost the clean channel to get some light grit. I don’t know where the clipping originates in this case, but it doesn’t sound bad to me.

Need to correct the record. That was a mixture of my treble booster circuit distorting at max volume and the preamp distorting. I’ve tweaked a couple of things to make sure the boost is clean and now I’m hitting the preamp even harder. I’ve got the harshest of clippings, unusable stuff. 

So, clean means ‘DSP clean’ on this amp. 

ICBM

Yorkie said:

Need to correct the record. That was a mixture of my treble booster circuit distorting at max volume and the preamp distorting. I’ve tweaked a couple of things to make sure the boost is clean and now I’m hitting the preamp even harder. I’ve got the harshest of clippings, unusable stuff. 

So, clean means ‘DSP clean’ on this amp. 

Why does it matter, if you got a good sound before with the pedal distorting?

I’ve never understood the need to have ‘amp only distortion’ or use a pedal purely to push the amp harder. Some of the best sounds are from a combination of amp and pedal distortion.

Yorkie

ICBM said:
Why does it matter, if you got a good sound before with the pedal distorting?

I’ve never understood the need to have ‘amp only distortion’ or use a pedal purely to push the amp harder. Some of the best sounds are from a combination of amp and pedal distortion.

It doesn't. This was just research. I won't dislike or sell the amp because the preamp doesn't purr. 

ICBM

Yorkie said:

This was just research.

Ah, I see . I suppose that’s the sort of thing I do too, although since I never use a pedal to push an amp harder, that case wouldn’t have occurred to me to test…