These before and after photos show the rough condition that our columnist's '65 Super Reverb arrived in, and the worn-but-dignified look of his restoration. Of course, a shiny red ES-335 with a Bigsby pretties things up, too.
Our columnist shares a love story about his longtime passion for the 1965 heavyweight that’s his No. 1.
Let me tell you the story of my first vintage Fender amp, which I call “No. 1"—the 1965 Super Reverb that I consider the greatest guitar amp I've ever heard and played.
When I was a teenager, in the late '80s, I had a 25-watt Fender Sidekick and a bigger, 2x12, 40-watt Marshall Valvestate. They worked well for the Gary Moore and Jeff Healey blues-rock licks I was into then. When I moved to Trondheim, Norway, in 1998 to study at the university, I went back in time and listened to classic blues from Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Albert King, B.B. King, and Freddie King. I learned they all played Fender amps, at various times, and when I saw Stevie Ray Vaughan's legendary Live at the El Mocambo concert film, where he played a Vibroverb and a Super Reverb, I knew I had to get a black-panel Super Reverb. So I got in touch with a local guitar shop called Tre45, and they helped me find a Super Reverb in the U.S.
A few months later, I paid €1,400 for a beat-up Super Reverb dated January 1965 that came via boat. The amp looked real rough and had large cuts in the aged brownish grille cloth. It had replacement Mojotone speakers with weighty ceramic magnets and large speaker coils. The shop installed a heavy-duty step-down transformer in the back to cope with 230V, making the amp extremely heavy. Despite the weight and rough looks, I loved it. It played twice as loud as my brother's 1968 transition-era Super Reverb with original square-magnet CTS alnico speakers. Back then, volume and punch meant everything, and I hadn't yet developed an appreciation for the CTS alnicos, which later became one of my favorite speakers. Neither did I have much experience with how speakers affect tone. My No. 1 sounded louder, more mellow, and creamy compared to a typical black-panel Super. Because of my amp, my brother sold his precious, vintage-correct '68.
Twelve years later, in 2010, I started trading Fender amps on a larger scale, finding them on U.S. eBay and importing them to Norway, where I swapped power transformers and did basic service like tubes and cap jobs. I eventually developed a taste for vintage-correct tone and pursued amps in original or mint condition. I was eager to learn, and systematically A/B-tested all black- and silver-panel Fender amps, with all possible speakers and circuits. I also experimented with newer replacement speakers from Weber, Jensen, Eminence, Celestion, and WGS, and tried all kinds of circuit mods.
"Because of my amp, my brother sold his precious, vintage-correct '68."
I decided to replace my Super's Mojotones with a set of vintage-correct speakers for an authentic pre-CBS sound. I found a 1965 Super in really poor technical condition and swapped the grille cloth and the factory-original CTS ceramic speakers into my No. 1. Now my amp was restored to original condition, with speakers with matching manufacturer date codes, and, more important, it sounded better! The new-old speakers added more clarity and crispness, which I particularly enjoy with a Strat's out-of-phase, quacky tone in the in-between pickup positions.
Other amps have caught my affection, too. Not surprisingly, I find the narrow-panel Fender Bassman a great amp, but unfortunately it lacks reverb, which is a big deal to me. Same goes with the Marshall JTM45 and JMP50 amps from the '60s. They have great crunch but lack some transparency and clarity when used with closed-back 4x12 cabinets. I've also had the pleasure of owning and playing some popular boutique amps, like the Two-Rock Custom Reverb, Victorias, Headstrongs, Bad Cats, and others. Compared to vintage amps, they are more robust and have high quality materials and components that survive longer on the road. I also like how the solid, thick cabinets in some modern amps produce a tight low end. All the boutique amps I've tried sounded good, different, and had more tone options than my Super Reverb, but when I played those amps for a long time or at gigs, I found myself confused with all the tonal options and I end up dialing in a sound as close as possible to a Super Reverb. I can't help it. That is how a guitar is supposed to sound, in my ears. And nothing sounds more vintage Fender than a black-panel Super Reverb, in my humble opinion.
If you haven't played one, try the huge tone and dynamic response within the big and airy 4x10 speaker cabinet of a Super. It offers a pure, natural, and transparent tone and connects with your guitar in a physical way when you crank the amp a few meters behind you on a larger stage. If you need a little more crunch and early break-up, add an Xotic RC Booster and see my April 2020 column, "How to Get Big Tones on Small Stages."
[Updated 9/3/21]
Morris Day and the Time’s lead axeman gets funky with Prince-influenced Schecters, JCM900s, and stomps that range from simple to sophisticated.
Facing a mandatory shelter-in-place ordinance to limit the spread of COVID-19, PG enacted a hybrid approach to filming and producing Rig Rundowns. This is the 37th video in that format.
Tori Ruffin—currently Morris Day and the Time’s right-hand man—has been laying down funky, danceable riffs for decades. He’s toured in Fishbone, worked alongside Prince, Michael Jackson, Mariah Carey, Mick Jagger, Lenny Kravitz, Randy Jackson, and even was in the on-screen band Randy Watson & Sexual Chocolate from Coming to America. After recently releasing his own album—Freak Juice & Friends’ They Call Us Juice—Tori virtually welcome PG’s Chris Kies into Guitar House of Tulsa. In this Rig Rundown, he goes through his herd of Prince-influenced Schecter T-styles, details how he mixes American- and British-voiced heads, and shows off his Keeley-packed pedalboard that brings the heavy and the psychedelic. (All photos and video coverage of Tori Ruffin was filmed and produced by Phil Clarkin.)
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An already great Marshall-in-a-box is made more potent with the addition of a killer treble booster.
RatingsPros:Great-sounding Marshall-inspired overdrive in a pedal form. Flexible boost channel. Superb for rhythm-to-lead transitions. Cons: Can lean toward bright for some tastes. Street: $229 Carl Martin PlexiRanger carlmartin.com | Tones:  Ease of Use:  Build/Design: Value: |
More than a few legendary artists have matched a Dallas Rangemaster to a Marshall plexi to screaming ends. So Carl Martin’s new PlexiRanger, which mates the Danish builder’s PlexiTone Marshall-in-a-box stomp to a treble booster in the mold of the Rangemaster and John Hornby Skewes Treble Booster, is a pretty natural pedal proposition. For players that have never experienced the joys of a Marshall and a vintage-style treble booster together, the combination of the two in one tidy little box could be an eye-opening—and ear-awakening—experience.
If Six Were Knobs
The PlexiRanger’s circuitry cascades the treble boost into the plexi side of the pedal, but each effect has its own bypass switch and dedicated control set. The boost side features an eponymous knob that unleashes up to 15 dB of extra kick, a “freq” knob, which determines the boosted frequency, and a range control that regulates the amount of boost applied within the selected frequency band. There’s also a 3-way switch that applies a slight or heavy low-frequency cut—or no cut at all.
The plexi side features familiar controls for gain, tone, and level. In addition to the input and output on the pedal’s top panel, there’s also a ¼" jack for remotely switching on the boost side, and an internal voltage multiplier that increases power from the 9V DC input to +/-12V DC (24V total) for improved headroom. It’s all housed in a ruggedly built aluminum enclosure, with a thin foam skid pad on its underside in place of rubber feet. (Pedalboard users might need to peel this off to apply Velcro.) It measures 4.75"x3.75"x2.25" and weighs around a pound.
Double Shift
I used the PlexiRanger with Gibson humbuckers, Fender single-coils, and Fender and Marshall-style amps, and in every case I readily found the familiar palette of crunch and hot lead tones that typify the vintage Marshall experience. The plexi channel is predisposed toward brightness. But even with the tone knob fully counter-clockwise, it yields a creamy, thick overdrive with high end enough to rise above a dense mix. Like its inspiration, the plexi circuit deals medium-level gain at its most aggressive settings. But it’s never boxy or congested sounding, as some Marshall-in-a-box pedals can be.
If the plexi side of the pedal is bright, the boost side can be very bright—particularly when those freq and range controls are dialed up for maximum treble. But when used judiciously, these controls can very effectively highlight frequencies you want to shine most prominently. It works well on its own as a boost, but the real magic happens when you use it to kick up the plexi side a notch, which can make the output so completely juicy and saturated that it’s hard to switch it off again. It’s very tasty stuff.
The Verdict
The PlexiRanger executes its mission beautifully. It might all lean a little bright for some tastes, and it can take a little practice to master the boost circuit’s freq and range knobs. But the sum is a super-wide range of tones brimming with sweet spots. A warning though: it may be difficult to go back to single-function overdrives after spending some time with this one.
Watch our demo of the Carl Martin PlexiRanger: