Silverface tone question

[Justin Thomas]

I had a Bassman 50 w. The "any desired amount of distortion" MV, NOT the pull boost. With the channel volume cranked, it did sound a good bit like my 67 Bassman on 10, but the master still had to he on 5 or better to get the entire amp to sound good. My Bassman 100 MV is not effective for getting distortion at all, even though it advertised any "desired amount of distortion." It gets good Diarrhea-Stortion. Super Twin distortion? It worked okay, if you had the MV up loud. My Prosonic sounded great with the clean channel on 10, but the OD channel had to have the MV on 10 and then use the gain knob to taste. But by the time you got enough usable distortion, yep, loud as crap. All of them needed an extra somethijg to get the ubiquitous singing lead tone, though the Prosonic would come close. And these are quite different amps, from cathode-biased tube-recto to UL Behemoths, 30-180W. Yes, I own or have owned all of them. I see Fender tube amps as performing tools, not for bedroom use.

I guess Fenders just need to be played really loud with bass on <2 to get good distortion. The best way to use a Fender MV is to toss it and carry cotton balls for any ear bleeds.

Justin

[Alan0354]

Check out the Super Sonic. They are very good. I tested a lot of OD high gain amp lately, this is the one I like best with the Marshall DSL40C comes in second. Both are not even expensive.

BUT the switching circuit is down right ugly. People had so much problem with that until lately. So many people complained in the Strat Talk forum about noise, popping sound when switching channel. I think they finally fixed all the problems after many unhappy customers. But I never see the new schematic.

[Justin Thomas]

I did. I like my Prosonic gooder. And better build quality. Actually, it was my first tube amp... If I can track a rectifier switch for it, it goes on the block. And I have 7 working amps already, some for sale. 3 more work but hum/lose signal, ~10 chassis w. trannies, 2 sets of PT/OT, and a slew of common, odd-but-usable, and off-the-wall tubes. Luckily, I'm single.

NO MORE AMPS!

Justin

[Shawnobi]

'Normal channel with all knobs set to 5'

That means nothing really.
Track end to end values are generally specified to be within +-20%, but along the track the accuracy to nominal taper / law of the pot is unspecified.
The amps could well have been fitted stock with different taper pots to each other.
My experience is that the bass and middle control taper of late 70s Fenders is much steeper than earlier models, eg ~30% c.f. 10%.
So electrically, setting them to '5' would provide differing results.
And with old amps, parts get replaced, and pot tapers are poorly understood and its difficult to identify / source the OEM type.

If the Pro Reverb master volume isn't at max then there's a treble boost from a bright cap.

And then the speakers in amps are probably different.

A fairer comparison that's simple for the user would be to set all the tone controls to max and put both amps through the same cab.

You forgot to mention the fact they have different speakers in
It wasn't a very scientific test at all really. It was a snap decision based on me finally getting them in the house together. Maybe I'll try something a bit more considered at some point.

Really happy with it it though. I picked it up for £100 not working. Planned to fix and sell but I don't think I can bare to part with it now. Will do a few more little jobs to it so I'm happy. Just a shame I can't make it any lighter

Have definetly seen a lot more Silverfaces being gigged though. I think these days most guitarists seem to have a board with 100 pedals, and so they want amps that will take them without breaking up all early.

[Leo_Gnardo]

I had a Bassman 50 w. >>snip<< I guess Fenders just need to be played really loud with bass on <2 to get good distortion. The best way to use a Fender MV is to toss it and carry cotton balls for any ear bleeds.

The regular run of master-volume SF amps sounded horrible when you tried for distortion the Marshall way. MV down, chan volume up, phooey. "Pull for distortion" knob, triple phooey. Surprisingly I have seen some guitarists make these work for them. I find the MV handy only for a bit of noise reduction. Dial down to 7 or so, a good deal of hiss goes away and you still have just enough headroom to hit the power amp for a clean tone. Alan recommends the SuperSonic, totally different. You can work up an insane amount of overdrive with the extra gain stage if you want, and many pleasing settings at less-than-insane levels. One of my customers brought in a mod that essentially filtered off a lot of hi end in the SS OD channel, made for a way huge fat tone very pleasing to the ear.

[pdf64]

'Really happy with it it though. I picked it up for £100 not working'
Wow, lucky fella!

There's no reason a properly working SF Fender shouldn't sound great, no pedals needed, just taste and talent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YF3jzZ8DZ4

[Shawnobi]

There's no reason a properly working SF Fender shouldn't sound great, no pedals needed, just taste and talent

Where do I buy that?

[J M Fahey]

There's no reason a properly working SF Fender shouldn't sound great, no pedals needed, just taste and talent https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5YF3jzZ8DZ4

Hey !!! Using a killer guitar player to prove a point is called CHEATING !!!!

I suggest you buy a bag of this instead, and smear you, your guitar and amp with :



Squirting a little inside audience's ears also helps improve perceived tone

[Justin Thomas]

They make $3000 boxes to add "breath" to lyrics, autotune, there's digital tools to chop up your music and make sure your timing is all absolutely flawless. And clinical. Taste is something you can learn, but you really have to listen to the righht people a LOT. I recommend David Gilmour to start, others may have other suggestions. I don't think talent is something you can buy. Usuually, someone who is powerful and rich thinks, "hmmm... they have a face for TV/video. I could get millions of teenage girls and boys to buy muzak if I put THAT face on it! I'll call the studio aces when I get back to the office, and we'll make up some backing tracks for the road. I guess as long as they can bounce/dance in time, they'll be fine in that area... They're young and grew up listening to (c)rap. They can move to a beat. I can't believe this - I'll be richer and more powerful than ever!" And that is where talent comes from.

The real talent languishes in bars and clubs and dies at a young age because they can't afford to feed themselves.
Please pardon my cynicism!

I gueess to keep it relevant to thee thread, I am one who will play a SF over a BF <IF> tuned properly. Of all the vintage Fenders I've played, more SFs sound better to me than BFs. Maybe because nobody minds working on a SF- they're noot collectable, so go ahead and replace those leaky fiter caps! I even liked the Dual Showman Reverb I owned with the mixed bias circuit. I've never played a late 70s pull boost or UL SF, and I don't include the Super Twin, 300PS, 400Ps etc. in the SF amp class. Same era, very different amps. There was a thread here years ago about "Silverface Pull." I know exactly what they were talking about.

Come to think of it, if I separate the SF Fenders that got "Marshalled" into 'Squito Fuzzboxes, I've played more dog BFs than SF...

Justin

[pdf64]

'I even liked the Dual Showman Reverb I owned with the mixed bias circuit'

The old Vox JMI AC50 is a monster and uses mixed bias (well, the far more prevalent Si rectified ones do).

[Alan0354]

Alan recommends the SuperSonic, totally different. You can work up an insane amount of overdrive with the extra gain stage if you want, and many pleasing settings at less-than-insane levels. One of my customers brought in a mod that essentially filtered off a lot of hi end in the SS OD channel, made for a way huge fat tone very pleasing to the ear.

Ha ha, I might be really born cheap!!! I love that amp!!! It has a very nice clean channel too. This is the one influenced my designs.

It seems that this amp follows more the sound of your guitar rather giving you it's own sound.

[Alan0354]

Where do I buy that?

At home, with your guitar, practice, hours a day, years............

I remember when I was playing, 2 hours a day, 5 days a week, having different regiments, ALONE!!! That was not including rehearsals. Cost you more strings and maybe a fret job. Other than that, it's free.

[J M Fahey]

I remember, long ago, an excellent Argentine guitar player with a horrible tone (335 into Big Muff into Dual Showman with EVM15L used on 1 or 2 ... no master) stumbled and stepped with his full weight into the Big Muff, crushing it for good (a mess).

His first solution was to set all knobs on 10 and strum hard.

Killer sound but we had to leave the theatre where he was playing.

Then he hung a carpet in front of the speakers ... not enough.

Finally he had to turn cabinet backwards towards the far back wall of the stage ... some 15 Meters/yards away.

Now it was bearable but he had this huge Delay effect, like it or not, in every note he played.

The built in "latency" made him lose timing.

Oh well.