Our resident Fender amp guru, Jens Mosbergvik, usually sings the praises of Fullerton’s classic offerings, but this time he switches sides to unpack his biggest gripes with the manufacturer’s legendary noisemakers.
Vintage Fender amps have a strong reputation among players in many genres. The brand is instantly associated with an endless list of great bands which created music that has stood the test of time. In terms of general tone, Fender’s original amplification strategy—which favors articulate, bright, transparent, and clean sounds—was a winning combination that myriad players still gravitate toward.
Through my previous columns in this magazine, I’ve shared the tips and tricks I’ve learned after playing, trading, and servicing old models from the California manufacturer. But today, it’s time for critical thinking. I’m switching sides to share the 10 most annoying things about vintage Fender amps. As usual, I will mostly refer to the black- and silver-panel amps.
“It breaks my heart that the original Deluxe Reverbs came with a weak and farty Oxford speaker, when it sounds so much better with a more punchy, clear-sounding C12N.”
Many of the critiques that I offer here ultimately advocate for simplification. All amp techs know that simple is good. Simple amps are lighter, smaller, cheaper, and have less things that can go wrong in the long run.
So, here is my list:
Two Jack Inputs
I’ve never met anyone who uses the second input. Back in the day, Fender thought we were going to swap guitars between songs without having to adjust the volume knob to compensate for the different pickups’ varied outputs. Wrong assumption.
Two Channels
I always use the reverb channel, even when using high distortion, at which point I simply turn the reverb down. Except for the Bassman, the normal channel is not needed at all. If all of the dual-channel amps were instead single-channel, like the Princeton Reverb, a lot of tubes and circuit components could be spared, leading to significant cost reduction and simplification of the production line. Even with the black- and silver-panel Bassman, I would prefer a single channel, as long as both the deep and bright switches were available. The only advantage with having a second preamp channel is the possibility to isolate the power amp section and the two preamp sections in diagnosis. But that still doesn’t make it worth it.
The Non-Reverb Amps
If I was Leo Fender, and I was looking to reduce costs, I would have trimmed my portfolio by eliminating the non-reverb Deluxe, Princeton, Vibrolux, and Pro amps. The rarer versions of these amps are no-frills, cool, and great value for the money. But there are reverb-equipped models that can do everything they do just as well and better. They’re not in as high demand, and they’re less profitable due to lower production numbers. Instead, I would have continued the Vibroverb after 1964, which would do the job as the only 1x15 combo amp in the portfolio. Just admit it: Everyone wants a Vibroverb.
Rectifiers
As another cost-cutting measure during my imaginary tenure as the founder of Fender, I would consider using a diode rectifier instead of a tube rectifier in all the bigger dual 6L6GC Fender amps. I like sag in tube amps, but I think very few players can really hear the difference between diode and tube rectifiers. Smaller amps intended for earlier breakup may have tube rectifiers, but they’re not essential there, either.
Glued and Stapled Baffles in Silver-Panel Amps
I wish Fender had continued the floating baffle in the early ’70s instead of the tightly glued and stapled-in baffles that are found in silver-panel amps post-1971. The screwed-in boards are much easier to repair and replace.
MDF Baffles
Medium-density fibreboard, or MDF, baffles are consistently the weakest point in Fender’s wooden cabinet construction, and eventually tear apart. I would much prefer a more dependable plywood pine baffle.
Small Output Transformers
These are found in both the Bandmaster head and the 1x15 Vibroverb—amps that deserve a firmer low end, and which should have the Super Reverb-class output transformer.
Lack of a Bright Switch
In my opinion, this is an essential EQ function that’s left off of Fender’s smaller amps, like the Princeton Reverb and Deluxe Reverb. Without it, these amps leave me no chance to enhance the details of fingerpicking on a clean tone setting.
Lack of Mid Control
This applies to many Fender amps. The bassy and flabby Pro Reverb would particularly benefit from a better mid EQ, with a much wider tone spectrum.
No Jensen C12N Speaker in Deluxe Reverbs
We all know how awesome the Jensens sound in the early black-panel amps, like the C10N in Princetons and Vibroluxes, the C10R in Supers, or the C12N in the Pros and Twins. It breaks my heart that the original Deluxe Reverbs came with a weak and farty Oxford speaker, when it sounds so much better with a more punchy, clear-sounding C12N.
So, there you have it: my list of 10 grievances with Fender. If you have more to add, please share your thoughts in our social media channels.
The term gets thrown around so much it's almost meaningless. Let's see if we can wrap our heads around it a little better!
Transparency has been a boutique effects pedal buzzword for something like a millennium at this point. When the simplest stompbox crawled from the primordial soup of aluminum castings, footswitches, capacitors, and resistors, there was a guitar player standing there, arms folded, a jaundiced eye, and questioning, “Is it transparent?"
I fall in and out of love with this overused adjective constantly. I believe at one point it was probably used by players who had a very defined notion of what it was they were looking to get out of a particular piece of gear. Since then, it's often a rather indistinct concept that serves as a cloak for players who can't really figure out why a pedal does or doesn't work for them.
Taken literally, transparency is not something the typical player is looking for. This clinical interpretation would indicate that anything that alters your guitar signal in any way is less transparent and, accordingly, less desirable. Taken to the logical and ridiculous extreme, this rules out any and all effects boxes, amplifiers, and cables of non-zero length. Everything in your signal chain is disruptive—twisting and bending your guitar's signal in one way or another.
In recent days, I've had clients ask for transparency from all kinds of effects. A transparent compressor could be reasonable. A compressor can be set to gently massage your guitar signal and not completely upend your base signal. On the other hand, asking for a transparent Big Muff-style fuzz is pushing the limits of credulity.
When people use the phrase in describing what they want or need, it has become increasingly unclear what they're going for.
Being critical of a pedal's lack of transparency can be a sort of self-defense. Do I not like how this pedal sounds? Then it must be that there's not enough of me getting through it! Asserting that a pedal is not transparent can also serve as a rug under which all of the pedal's faults can be swept, absolving the critic from having to formulate an opinion on or understanding of what they actually like and don't like. For instance, is it easier to know and hear that an effect could use a 3 dB cut at 250 Hz, or simply condemn it as lacking transparency? Should everyone be able to diagnose the timbre of an effect that way? Certainly not! But we've so overused and abused the word transparency that it has become a semiotic nightmare. As a pedal designer and modifier, when people use the phrase in describing what they want or need, it has become increasingly unclear what they're going for. And worse yet, I believe the average guitar player is becoming increasingly unclear on what it means to them. In some ways it has become a filler word like "uh" or "um," and when we run out of meaningful things to say, we start talking about transparency.
We were recently working on a signature pedal design for a guitarist. The question of transparency came up, as it often does. Do we need to design this pedal so that there is a set of knob positions where the pedal sounds like it's doing nothing? It can be done, but what would be lost? Your pedal's controls and connected circuits have a finite range of operation. If you adjust the sweep of a knob to include "no effect," then you potentially lop off something cool at one end of the spectrum or the other. This guitarist made what is an increasingly trend-bucking decision in the ultra-boutique overdrive pedal market. He didn't want to worry about making it totally transparent. He just wanted to make it sound good.
The above may make me sound like a disgruntled word-police officer, railing against transparency's use the way that some rail against the fact that "irregardless" is inWebster's dictionary. A sign's meaning is ultimately determined by the group using that sign. I do wonder if we shouldn't look at transparency in tone not as a sheet of clear-plate glass, but as a lens. A lens must be optically transparent to do its job effectively, but a lens is also contoured and shaped so that it modifies its input: stretching, shrinking, and otherwise distorting it in some useful way. It enlarges some aspects of the source image and minimizes others. If we exalt fidelity over function, transparency isn't serving us anymore.
An understated, utilitarian buffer/boost/preamp that can profoundly reshape your tones.
RatingsPros:Intuitive and transformative impedance control. Excellent transparent boost. Includes AmpliTube 4. Cons: Feature set might be overkill for some. Street: $149 IK Multimedia Z-Tone Buffer Boost ikmultimedia.com | Tones:  Ease of Use: Build/Design: Value:  |
In its relatively nondescript matte-black aluminum enclosure, the Italy-made Z-Tone Buffer Boost isn’t likely to stoke longing at a glance. But plug one in and you may find its pure utility hard to live without.
But calling the Z-Tone Buffer Boost merely a buffer/boost sells it short. Yes, it offers up to 10 dB of relatively transparent boost and +/- 8 dB of output gain. But it also offers the flexible impedance control from IK’s AXE I/O interface, a feature that can dramatically change the way pickups interact with the rest of your rig. Engineers can write volumes on these esoteric electronic relationships, but the impedance control makes it easy to feel your way to the best match between your guitar and pedalboard—or for that matter, a less ideal match that coaxes unusual but useful tones.
There are switches for accommodating active or passive pickups, as well as for moving between transparent “pure” boost and a more colorful and midrange-y JFET boost. And useful routing options include a balanced XLR output and a link output that mirrors the input so you can route to multiple sources. Add in a full, downloadable version of the AmpliTube 4 modeling application, and the Z-Tone Buffer Boost might be the most flexible pedal value you didn’t know you needed.
Test Gear: Fender Telecaster Deluxe, black-panel Fender Vibrolux