This sharp fiesta red Strat and Pro Reverb sang beautiful Knopfler-esque melodies, but all that glitters isn’t gold.
A search for a fiesta red Stratocaster and a Knopfler tone didn’t turn out the way our columnist hoped it would.
The latest chapter of my quest for perfect sounds is a love story filled with surprises and valuable insights worth sharing about a fiesta red Stratocaster with a maple neck. Along the way, I’ll explain how I used it to dial in a timeless Mark Knopfler tone from old-school Fender amps.
My personal journey with this elusive guitar tone began at the age of 10, in 1985, when my mother, who was a music teacher, introduced me to Dire Straits’ Brothers in Arms album. Mark Knopfler’s melodic guitar and his signature Stratocaster and Les Paul sounds left a mark on my musical soul. However, I must confess that I'd never been particularly enamored with the looks of his fiesta red Strat. I have gravitated towards Fenders with rosewood necks and lighter body colors like vintage white, surf green, and shell pink.
It was in September of last year that everything changed. I found myself holding a pristine fiesta red Stratocaster in my hands, and a revelation occurred. The color, in real life, is far more nuanced than the intense and dark shades often depicted in magazine spreads or on screens. In the physical world, it’s a beautiful blend of pale red, carrot orange, and delicate pink undertones. It appears that cameras and screens simply cannot capture the true essence of this classic finish.
While browsing for guitars here in Norway, I stumbled upon a 1958 Fender Custom Shop Strat, crafted in 1997, which had been on sale for an extended period, causing its price to gradually decline. It seemed that the absence of the receipt, the certificate of authenticity (COA), and the “case candy,” coupled with the fiesta red finish’s apparent limited popularity, had contributed to the lowered price. I made the seller an offer of $2,090, which he graciously accepted. Today, it is hard to find any Custom Shop Stratocaster below $3,000 to $4,000. My purchase felt like a good deal.
The photos in the advertisement showcased the usual Fender Custom Shop badges and stamps on the headstock, neck plate, neck, and inside the body’s neck pocket. The neck bore a date stamp of February 18, 1997, and there were no telltale signs of other paint colors in the body’s neck pocket or the pickup cavity. With a minor setup, the guitar demonstrated impeccable playability and sustain reminiscent of a grand piano. I proudly and loudly played my newfound fiesta red for a week, eagerly looking forward to the next gig. The only tweak I considered was replacing the small vintage frets with 6105 stainless steel, enabling easier bending and shaking.
“Play from the heart, without overplaying, and you'll find yourself transported to the realm of ‘Sultans of Swing.’”
With my new Strat in hand, I once again set off in pursuit of the classic Knopfler sound. I gravitated towards amplifiers featuring light and low-powered 10" speakers known for their remarkable touch sensitivity. Think of the black-panel or early silver-panel Super Reverb or Vibrolux Reverb models with CTS alnico speakers, famously known for their pristine clean tones. Crank these amps’ volumes up to around 5 or 6, engage the bright switch, ditch your pick, and delicately pluck a set of light or medium strings using the combined bridge and middle pickup position. Play from the heart, without overplaying, and you'll find yourself transported to the realm of “Sultans of Swing.”
Things took an unexpected turn when I reached out to Fender to request a new COA. They responded quickly and asked for more close-up pictures of the wiring harness, pickups, and components. To my great surprise, they informed me that the serial number did not align with a fiesta red with a maple neck; instead, it corresponded to a ’60s flame maple top aged cherry sunburst, crafted in 1998. Even more disheartening was that the wiring, switches, and pots did not appear to be vintage-correct.
While I had heard rumors of discrepancies in Fender’s historical records, it was challenging to accept that my guitar could be a “partscaster” with mismatched components. Nonetheless, the absence of a COA significantly impacted the guitar’s secondhand value. What was I to do? As much as I enjoyed the instrument, the nagging feeling that something was wrong kept me awake at night. Ultimately, I contacted the seller and requested a refund. To my relief, he understood the situation and accepted the return. As a token of gratitude, I gifted him a bottle of Châteauneuf-du-Pape.
A lingering doubt remained: What if Fender’s records were incorrect? I may never have a definitive answer. And so, my quest for the perfect Knopfler fiesta red continues.
The slide master talks about amalgamating influences, keeping it fresh, how he approaches tone, and the best amp ever made.
Wong Notes is presented by DistroKid.
Use this link for 30% off your first year.
Derek Trucks On the Best Amp Ever | Wong Notes Podcast
Rig Rundown - Tedeschi Trucks Band
PG’s John Bohlinger caught up Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, and Tim Lefebvre of the Tedeschi Trucks Band before their 3-show residency at the Ryman in Nashville. While this might not be a gear-heavy band, there’s plenty of soul, groove, and vibe.
Need more headroom or gain? Spin the bottles.
[Originally published: 9/2/2019]
You might guess from the title of this column that I love Fender amps. And you’d be right. From a musical and engineering perspective, I think vintage Fender blackface amps are the best ever made. With bright, American-style speakers, they deliver pure and natural tone. Their channels, with volume and EQ, are intuitive for any guitar, bass, or keyboard player. It’s impossible to not find a decent tone in less than 10 seconds. From a technical perspective, their handmade tube-based circuits are simple, and they were built with high-quality components. And today, there are easily available parts and schematics, and an abundance of other online technical information, which makes it possible for many techs and players—including you—to service these amps.
Classic Fender blackface amps have been an inspiration for an entire industry. They’ve appeared on countless stages and an incredible amount of great albums by legendary performers. Why? Mostly tone and clean headroom. So, for this debut column, let’s discuss what we can do to make those two factors work best for you via tubes.
Reverb and tremolo were the main functional innovations in Fender’s blackface line. The king of blackface amps, the Twin Reverb, produced 85 watts from four 6L6 tubes and had enormous power and output transformers, a non-sagging diode rectifier, and two powerful 12" speakers. The 4x10 dual-6L6 40-watt Super Reverb has half that power, a softer tube rectifier, and smaller transformers. Still, the massive array of four 10" speakers is screamingly loud and sometimes difficult to handle for its weight (65 pounds), size, and volume. A 4x10 is more directional and scooped in the low mids than a 2x12. So a guitar plugged into a Super Reverb can end up competing with the bass. Experience is required to tame these amps. Once you know how to handle them, you will be rewarded with an overwhelming and physical sonic experience.
In the blackface world, the 1x12, double-6V6 22-watt Deluxe Reverb’s advantage is that it’s small and light, at 42 pounds. It breaks up earlier than its bigger relatives due to the less powerful 6V6s, small transformers, and a small speaker cabinet. Additionally, the original Oxford 12K6-5 speaker farts out early and is very weak, although it also delivers a true signature vintage Fender sound. And who doesn’t want their amp to break up easily these days? I have kept the Oxfords in my Deluxe amps. Before the internet, few people knew they could replace the 6V6s with 6L6s and replace the Oxford to double the Deluxe’s volume.
The V6 12AT7 phase inverter tube can be replaced with a 12AX7 to reduce headroom in large 6L6 amps.
Via my website, fenderguru.com, I often get questions about how to achieve different tones in blackface amps run at lower volumes. The answer often lies in the tubes. So let me share some simple tube tricks that will help you develop an understanding of how tubes function—and how they can be used to affect changes—in the typical two-channel AB763 circuit in the Twin, Super Reverb, Vibroverb, Pro, Vibrolux, and Deluxe amps of the original blackface era.
The tubes in these circuits are typically identified as V1 through V10, looking at the back of the amp from right to left. Here are some tricks:
- The V1 12AX7 tube in an amp’s normal channel can be removed for more preamp gain and reduced headroom in the vibrato channel. It can also be replaced by weaker tubes, like 12AY7s or 5751s, for less volume/gain. I always pull out this V1 since I use the vibrato channel and want solid preamp gain, which the single V2 delivers.
- The V3 12AT7 reverb driver for the vibrato channel can be replaced with a 12AU7 for less reverb and improved reverb knob control.
- If you’re only using the normal channel, think about removing the V2 through V5 tubes for the vibrato channel. That will give you more gain and headroom in the normal channel. (FYI, the 12AX7 in the V5 position is the tremolo tube.)
- The V6 12AT7 phase inverter tube can be replaced with a 12AX7 to reduce headroom in large 6L6 amps.
- Several alternatives to 6L6 power tubes exist. I mostly use 6L6GCs. In a Twin Reverb, you can pull either the V7 and V10 or V8 and V9 tubes for half power and earlier breakup. Ideally, but not totally necessary, you should disengage one speaker to match the impedance change.
- In a blackface Deluxe, the GZ34 in the V9 slot is the rectifier tube. If I want reduced headroom and more sag, I use a 5U4GB.
And there you have it: You’re on your way to becoming a Fender guru, too!