First vintage amp - what and why?

ThePrettyDamned

Okay, I'm getting myself a wonderful new amp this year and I'm torn between a few. I was dead set on custom, but money won't allow (as I'm *hopefully* starting a business course and moving somewhere more suitable for my living...

Anyway, I've been looking and as awesome as the orange rocker 30 is (sounds great, small, well built, looks nice, sub £400) I've also seen many 70s silverface fender amps.

Stuff like musicmasters, twins (bit big tbh), bandmasters, bassman... They often go for similar money. They look cool, sound great and are not too many pounds. Are they a good bet in comparison? Yeah, I lose a dirty channel, but I gain all that mojo...

What other vintage amps do you guys like and why? More of a discussion thread than a WTB.

DartmoorHedgehog

Probably completely useless comment, but FWIW my Boss Bassman pedal into the Rocker 30 natural channel does a pretty good Fender impression.

I think old AC30s are pretty cool.

meltedbuzzbox

what do you want?

Channels? grit, sparkly clean? Ideal size? Speaker config etc?

I say all this... you know I am going to recommend a hiwatt :-)

ThePrettyDamned

meltedbuzzbox;612465" said:

what do you want?Channels? grit, sparkly clean? Ideal size? Speaker config etc?

I say all this... you know I am going to recommend a hiwatt :-)

This is more of a discussion on vintage amps and why we'd rather get them I guess.

Channels don't bother me - I love pedals. My df-2 is excellent, and I'm getting into muffs. Going to get a @juansolo modded muff or mk4 tonebender type thing he came up with, so dirt channels are not massively necessary for me. Welcome bonus, I guess.

So silver face Fender's appeal. They have nice cleans, big bass, are serviceable... Pretty, too

spacecadet

If you're after something to gig with and you are out regularly, I wouldn't go vintage. Too much of a risk. If it's an investment but something you will play at home, I don't think you could go wrong with Marshalls. They will grow in value as Marshall continue to make average quality amps. Fender keep getting better as far as I can tell so the vintage stuff doesn't seem as desirable. 

Gassage

I love any SF Fenders. The SF Vibrolux and SF Pro Reverb are the true secrets, but most are great and if theuy're not, they're cheap and fixable. I espcially love D120F's in a Twin,

Vox AC4's. Yummy.

Any Hylight era Hiwatt, but the prices are going through the roof.

Bargains to be had in JCM800 combos, the last of the real marshalls.

Any sound city cab as go cheap and likely to have fanes.

ICBM

How old counts as vintage?

My '94 Trem-o-verb is 21 years old now!

This does seem a bit odd when it's so clearly a 'modern' amp. When I bought my first amp - a 1964 Centurion Hi-Fi Five - in 1985, it was also 21 years old, but it seemed like something from another time even then.

Babones

This looks like a lot of amp for the money.

Gassage

Babones said:

This looks like a lot of amp for the money.

It is. It's a behemoth thing though

ThePrettyDamned

Gassage;612563" said:

Babones said:

This looks like a lot of amp for the money.










It is. It's a behemoth thing though

That was the advert that prompted the thread. Looks beautiful!

Gassage

Offers accepted! You'd part it out for a lot more than 400.

ThePrettyDamned

Gassage;612597" said:

Offers accepted! You'd part it out for a lot more than 400.

I know. If I had the cash, I'd probably get it right now. How can I raise £350 instantly?!

Anyone want to buy an Ltd h1001 with Duncans for 300 quid?!

meltedbuzzbox

ThePrettyDamned said:

Gassage;612597" said:

Offers accepted! You'd part it out for a lot more than 400.

I know. If I had the cash, I'd probably get it right now. How can I raise £350 instantly?!

Anyone want to buy an Ltd h1001 with Duncans for 300 quid?!

I think you meant to post that in the parody thread? :-P

timhulio

My first vintage amp was a silver face '74 Twin. It was very reliable (gigged often and never serviced in five years) but weighed a ton and was too loud. It could get proper ice-picky too. I decided to replace it with a SF '73 Deluxe Reverb, which was far more expensive and needed some work - it was an export model with the voltage selector, bought from the USA. However someone had hard-wired it to USA voltage, which needed to be undone. The stock ceramic speakers in these are lovely.

I also bought a SF Musicmaster bass so that my girlfriend could play the DR. I ended up loving the brash nature of the MMBass, so that was my main gigging amp for ages. All these amps mentioned take pedals brilliantly - they never get mushy, wooly or otherwise indistinct. I've got a 40w SF Bandmaster too. It's the German model. Again, a great amp - especially the reverb on that one - but it's a bit of an effort to cart around.

All of these amps are reliable.

meltedbuzzbox

touch wood and all but I have never really had a major issue with any of my Fender amps. 

Even "The Twin" which is meant to be super unreliable has been bomb proof for me over 15 years.

Catthan

I'm just setting up a b rig consisting of a boogie studio pre (late 80s AFAIK) a peavey 60/60 and a montage 2x12.

All should be around £600 max.. No fancy fx rack units or anything.. Apart from the cab everything else should be >20 y.o.

F-style cleans, Mk-style dirt and so on..

RE the vintage amps you're considering, I don't know why I would get them simply because they are not what I need as much as I appreciate the nuances of certain ones. (as far as my ears allow at least)

I was recently watching a Tim Pierce vid (LA session legend) who was saying you can't go wrong with a bassman of any era as they are considered the archetype amps; I guess there's a good reason for you to get one.. tho I'm surprised that old bassmans (bassmen?) can be had for cheap.

Haven't looked tho tbh. 

And then, what I found extremely interesting was that this guy plugged in to a valve junior with a boss GEQ and got comparable vintage-y sounds to his posh /13s, riveras and other boutique and older amps he had in his studio.. He wasn't ditching boutique gear in any way, just demonstrated how one can achieve good enough (to whatever reference, say vintage in your case) tones on a budget if they know what they're doing and what to go for. If you don't plan to gig and don't need the wattage maybe that's smth to consider.

Since you also mentioned custom, why don't you build a 5e3 from a kit or smth? What an experience that would be!!

bandmaster188

get a pair of bandmaster reverbs, if and when one starts playing up, you have an organ donor at the ready!

http://i1231.photobucket.com/albums/ee512/bandmaster188/image.jpg1_zpsydm33oit.jpg

57Deluxe

DartmoorHedgehog said:

Probably completely useless comment, but FWIW my Boss Bassman pedal into the Rocker 30 natural channel does a pretty good Fender impression.

I think old AC30s are pretty cool.

NO! Deffo NOT - none of the Fender BOSS impersonations add amp sounds, they add either modulation or gain... is a complete misnomer and largely a misleading.

If the OP is reading - try a Tweed Twin... has loads of variety to offer.

ICBM

57Deluxe said:

DartmoorHedgehog said:

Probably completely useless comment, but FWIW my Boss Bassman pedal into the Rocker 30 natural channel does a pretty good Fender impression.

NO! Deffo NOT - none of the Fender BOSS impersonations add amp sounds, they add either modulation or gain... is a complete misnomer and largely a misleading.

I don't agree. I've only tried the Deluxe Reverb pedal, and into a clean amp of some other description it does a reasonable impression of the character of the Deluxe. Definitely not exact, but it's better than I expected. I actually liked the basic sound of it.

The fact that it was also designed by someone who has no concept of how an amp-emulating pedal would be useful in a live context is another issue entirely...

samzadgan

So...i think most vintage (60's, 70's and some 80's) single channel amps will be great as pedal platform...seems like amps were a lot simpler and thus better platforms.

I havent had many...actually any...vintage amps besides my marshall super bass...and i can wholeheartedly recommend it. Fender bassman and bandmasters and also a PA amp they did are all cool as fuck and sound amazing. My only issue with fenders, since you mention you are getting into muffs, is the lack of mid range growl...a lot of people will disagree, but that ls just a personal taste thing for me.

So i would be more inclined to go for marshall/laney/orange on the vintage side. But none of that stuff is cheap. However, you could look for smaller brands that are/were just as good (tone wise) and can be had much cheaper...things like Carlsbro, Selmer tnb, Kelly tnb etc. there's a guy, i think he is close to you as well, runs a small buy/sell operation on vintage amps called Ampstack. He's stuff usually is in the £500 range and he sells some obscure stuff...and he's a tech, so when he sells them, you know they've had work done to them to ensure they dont die on you.

That brings me to my next point...vintage amps can cost you a shit load of money if they have issues...so beware of that. (I know its obvious, but sometimes we see stuff and lose out shit and buy it before actually making sure its in good condition)

DartmoorHedgehog

57Deluxe said:

DartmoorHedgehog said:

Probably completely useless comment, but FWIW my Boss Bassman pedal into the Rocker 30 natural channel does a pretty good Fender impression.

I think old AC30s are pretty cool.

NO! Deffo NOT - none of the Fender BOSS impersonations add amp sounds, they add either modulation or gain... is a complete misnomer and largely a misleading.

If the OP is reading - try a Tweed Twin... has loads of variety to offer.

OK, it doesn't sound exactly like a Bassman, but it has an acceptably "Fendery" sound when there isn't a real Fender amp in the house IMO.  I wasn't seriously suggesting anybody should use a Boss pedal instead of an actual Fender amp if they're primarily after a Fender sound - my comment was partly meant in jest.