Fender subtly updates a classic, delivering value, dynamics, and versatility.
Sparkly tones. Dynamic response. Great value.
Low-end loses some focus at high volumes.
$899
Fender '68 Custom Princeton Reverb
fender.com
The Princeton was never the amp for everybody, but it came pretty close. If you’re working with a loud drummer and like your tone clean as can be, it won’t take long to reach the limits of 12 watts and a ten-inch speaker. On the other hand, it’s not uncommon to hear guitarists say: “If your band’s too loud for a Princeton, then your band is too loud.” The dictum is truer than ever in an age of better and more powerful P.A. systems.
Fender stopped making the original Princeton Reverb in the late ’70s, though the company has used the Princeton name for other models over the years, some of which bore little resemblance to the original. A few years ago, Fender added a Princeton Reverb to its line of ’65 Reissues, and recently introduced the ’68 Custom Princeton Reverb featuring circuit tweaks that, while less vintage-correct, are friendlier to pedals and deliver more modern and immediate response.
Silverface Beauty
Despite the amp’s name, Fender is up-front about the fact that this is not a strict reissue. While the amp captures the general vibe of vintage units, it’s wired for less headroom and less negative feedback (for a more dynamic response).
Fans of Fender design minutiae will love the vintage-accurate silver-and-turquoise front panel and grille cloth, aluminum trim, and chrome hardware. In fact, the only obvious differences between the Custom ’68 and a vintage Princeton Reverb are on the rear panel, where there is now a standard cord socket, a metal cage protects the power tubes, and in a nod to 21st century safety compliance, there’s no ground switch.
The amp has two inputs (the second is padded by –6 dB). Six knobs control volume, treble, bass, reverb, and the tremolo’s speed and intensity. A blue jewel power light replaces the original red one. The rear panel is similarly streamlined: there’s a fuse, an on/off switch, two speaker outputs (one for the built-in speaker, another for an extension), a 1/4-inch TRS jack for the included vintage-style two-button footswitch (for controlling reverb and tremolo), and RCA in and out jacks for the amp’s spring reverb tank.
The tube array is vintage-correct: two 6V6 power tubes, three 12AX7s, a 12AT7 reverb driver, and a 5AR4 tube rectifier. The transformer is a Schumacher, and the speaker is a Celestion Ten 30.
Sparkly Tones
It took all of one note from a Gibson ES-335 with stock ’57 Classic pickups to know I was going to like this amp. Even at living room volume, the Princeton possesses the sparkly and slightly spongy response you hope for from a good Fender amp. The nice, fat jazz sound from the neck pickup had me reaching for my Real Book. The output remained clean until the volume knob reached 4 or 5. This setting was loud and clean enough for most jazz gigs. Above that, the Princeton gets surprisingly loud and begins to break up in a most musical way.
What really knocked me out was how sensitively the amp responded to varying types of pick attack and guitar volume knob settings.
But what really knocked me out was how sensitively the amp responded to varying types of pick attack and guitar volume knob settings. With the amp’s volume around 6, I could go from playing clean chord comps with my thumb to a more saturated sound when digging in with a pick. The amp’s inherent compression narrowed the volume differences between those extremes, which makes the ’68 Princeton ideal for conveying dynamics without blowing away your bandmates in louder passage.
I also tried the Princeton with a Squier Classic Vibe Telecaster Custom and loved what I heard. Played clean, the tones are quintessentially Fender, ranging from nice, jazzy warmth with the neck pickup and the guitar’s tone control rolled back, to biting bridge-pickup twang with the controls wide-open. Just for fun, I tried a Jim Campilongo-inspired move and turned the Princeton’s volume, bass, and treble knobs up all the way, controlling the volume only with the guitar. Played this way, the amp had amazing range, though it became hard to control the bass response at louder volumes. When pushed with a TS-9-style pedal, the amp provided excellent overdriven sounds.
You’d expect this amp to have sweet-sounding reverb, and it does. But as nice as the reverb sounds, complete saturation occurs with the knob at about 5 or 6, which Fender chalks up to the reduction in negative feedback. The amp’s vibrato is gorgeous, deep, and as authentic-sounding as the reverb.
The Verdict
The Custom ’68 Princeton Reverb is a great amp. It’s not a down-to-the-letter vintage replica, but for some players it may prove more versatile than an original. Yes, some gigging players need a little more volume than the Princeton can deliver. But anyone seeking that classic sparkly Fender tone at a less-than-boutique price needs to check out the ’68.
Review Demo - Fender '68 Custom Princeton Reverb
[Updated 12/6/21]
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The final day is here! Enter Stompboxtober Day 31 for your last chance to win today’s pedal from Keeley and finish the month strong!
Keeley Octa Psi Transfigurating Fuzz Pedal with Polyphonic Pitch Shifting
Meet the OCTA PSI Transfigurating Fuzz – The Ultimate Combination of Pitch-Shifter, Octave Generator, and Tri-Voiced Analog Fuzz! Key features include: Instant Effect Order Switching, Flexible Output Configuration, Momentary or Latching Octave/Pitch, and more! Each pitch shift mode includes an up, down, and dual setting, resulting in 24 different modes.
Does the guitar’s design encourage sonic exploration more than sight reading?
A popular song between 1910 and 1920 would usually sell millions of copies of sheet music annually. The world population was roughly 25 percent of what it is today, so imagine those sales would be four or five times larger in an alternate-reality 2024. My father is 88, but even with his generation, friends and family would routinely gather around a piano and play and sing their way through a stack of songbooks. (This still happens at my dad’s house every time I’m there.)
Back in their day, recordings of music were a way to promote sheet music. Labels released recordings only after sheet-music sales slowed down on a particular song. That means that until recently, a large section of society not only knew how to read music well, but they did it often—not as often as we stare at our phones, but it was a primary part of home entertainment. By today’s standards, written music feels like a dead language. Music is probably the most common language on Earth, yet I bet it has the highest illiteracy rate.
Developed specifically for Tyler Bryant, the Black Magick Reverb TB is the high-power version of Supro's flagship 1x12 combo amplifier.
At the heart of this all-tube amp is a matched pair of military-grade Sovtek 5881 power tubes configured to deliver 35-Watts of pure Class A power. In addition to the upgraded power section, the Black Magick Reverb TB also features a “bright cap” modification on Channel 1, providing extra sparkle and added versatility when blended with the original Black Magick preamp on Channel 2.
The two complementary channels are summed in parallel and fed into a 2-band EQ followed by tube-driven spring reverb and tremolo effects plus a master volume to tame the output as needed. This unique, signature variant of the Black Magick Reverb is dressed in elegant Black Scandia tolex and comes loaded with a custom-built Supro BD12 speaker made by Celestion.
Price: $1,699.
Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is one of the loudest guitarists around. And he puts his volume to work creating mythical tones that have captured so many of our imaginations, including our special shoegaze correspondent, guitarist and pedal-maestro Andy Pitcher, who is our guest today.
My Bloody Valentine has a short discography made up of just a few albums and EPs that span decades. Meticulous as he seems to be, Shields creates texture out of his layers of tracks and loops and fuzz throughout, creating a music that needs to be felt as much as it needs to be heard.
We go to the ultimate source as Billy Corgan leaves us a message about how it felt to hear those sounds in the pre-internet days, when rather than pull up a YouTube clip, your imagination would have to guide you toward a tone.
But not everyone is an MBV fan, so this conversation is part superfan hype and part debate. We can all agree Kevin Shields is a guitarists you should know, but we can’t all agree what to do with that information.