blackfacing a silverface bassman 50

[haroldman]

i'm an amature gearhead but a guitar player in an indie rock band excited about purchasing a vintage fender amp. Initially i considered buying a fender bassman amp so that I could play both guitar and bass guitar through it and still have a good sounding amp. The more I have looked into this the more I have learned about amps and it is exciting but I don't no much. Seems like the Bassman 50 black face is a coveted set up for guitar players but not really going to be good for pushing a bass guitar in a live situation with a band. I'm more into guitar than bass so I might ditch the two in one idea. What do you guys think? Can I make good use of a 100w Bassman with guitar if it has a master volume (crank the preamp to get it to break up nice but keep the master volume low enough not to blow everyone else away)? Or is it going to be to loud and/or just not work optimally for guitar like that. Optimally these old amps sound good cranked up and breaking up. I don't want my guitar set up to be less than great.

Also, what are the disadvantages if any to modifiying a silverface Bassman 50 to black face?

And how much will vintage vibrolux's go for? I'm considering getting one instead of the "blackface." Any and all advice is much appreciated. thank you.

[stokes]

First off the only way to know for sure is to try different amps and see what your ears tell you.But to address certain questions I would say if you know that 100watts is too loud then look for something lower.Cranking the preamp is different than cranking a lower watt amp and getting the power tubes cooking.Preamp distortion is much different,and to many players, less desirable.But only you can answer that by trying it yourself.As for the blackface mod,I have done this to a number of different SF amps and it is a big improvement over the SF,but it doesnt give you a 100% Blackface sound.If you happen to own a SF amp there are no disadvantages to doing the mod,since it will improve it,unless you happen to like the SF to begin with.If you want a Blackface I would suggest you look for one instead of getting something and then trying to mod it to be something it isnt.Vintage amps are expensive,and quite often need some TLC to keep them sounding thier best.And dont buy a vintage amp "blind" because somebody elses you tried sounded great,because most times no two amps sound the same.But in the end it all comes down to what you hear,vintage amps are all about tone,and what sounds good to me may sound like crap to you.Hope this helps.