With a few simple tweaks, you can get any classic Fender amp to cooperate with whatever guitar you like.
I find endless fascination in experimenting with different combinations of guitars and amps. Many of you may also have made surprising discoveries with certain amps and guitars as “killer” combinations. In this column, we’ll delve into the reasons behind these magical pairings, and discuss how you can modify your amp to achieve the elusive tone that lingers in your mind day and night. While having a variety of amps at your disposal is one solution, it’s undeniably an expensive and impractical one. Fortunately, knowledge is a more accessible asset. In my previous column, I explored speaker cabinets that can expand the versatility of your amp. I recommend giving it a read, as it closely ties into this topic.
Let’s begin with the Les Paul. Its mahogany body and neck contribute to a warm tone with exceptional sustain and attack, attributes further enhanced by the fixed bridge and solidbody construction. While most people associate the Les Paul with Marshall amps for classic rock tones, I find its clean tone more intriguing and often overlooked. Recently, I have discovered several live performances by American blues guitarist Mike Welch on YouTube, showcasing a fantastic Les Paul tone: bright and clean, with crucial attack that heightens dynamics and “fingerspitzengefühl”—in short, intuition and sensitivity.
Here’s my approach to achieving a fabulous clean Les Paul tone with classic Fender amps. I’ve found that amps with all EQ controls (bass, mids, treble, and a bright switch) work best for me. This allows me to rein in the bass and add top-end sparkle. For amps lacking a mid control, such as the Princeton, Deluxe, and Pro, I recommend installing a 25k mid pot in the amp’s ground-lift spot. This modification widens the tonal range from extremely icy and scooped to full British warmth. The Les Paul’s humbuckers, with their significant bass and mids, pair well with larger Fender amps that offer clean headroom and a firm low end. Personally, a Twin Reverb or Super Reverb loaded with firm, American-style speakers is my preferred mate for a Les Paul, providing enough attack to prevent muddiness in the tone.
“Hollowbodies pose a challenge, as they can generate unpleasant, squealing feedback when too close to a loud and bass-y amp.”
Now, let’s shift our focus to Gibson’s semi-hollow and hollowbody ES guitars. These guitars exhibit a bit less attack and a more vibrant, acoustic flavor. The semi-hollow ES-335 pairs well with most Fender amps, given there’s enough clarity. However, hollowbodies pose a challenge, as they can generate unpleasant, squealing feedback when too close to a loud and bass-y amp. To counter this, I prefer smaller amps for smaller venues, such as the vibrato channel of the Deluxe Reverb, thanks to its bright cap. The Princeton Reverb and the Deluxe’s left, normal channel lack the sparkle and clarity I prefer with the airy Gibson ES guitars. Since I installed a 100 pF bright cap in my 1966 Princeton Reverb, it has proven to be a perfect match. But newer, brighter speakers can compensate for the missing bright cap, too.
If you predominantly use humbucker guitars with older Fender amps, consider swapping to a low-gain preamp tube to expand the amp’s volume control range. The 5751 tube, with a gain factor of 70–80, makes it easier to dial in a sweet spot, providing more usable span on the volume control than the original 12AX7, with its gain factor of 100. Using the amp’s second, low-impedance input can also lower volume and gain, but keep in mind that you’ll lose a bit of treble in the process. Therefore, reducing the preamp tube gain is a better option.
In the single-coil league, the strategies for achieving a desired tone are almost the opposite of the humbucker league. Here, the focus is on taming brightness and generating enough warmth, especially with Stratocasters that have bright and low-output pickups. Thicker strings and increased pickup height contribute to warmth, but pushing the amp hard enough is equally crucial. This causes it to break up in both the power amp and preamp sections, creating rich harmonics in the upper mid and treble frequencies. These harmonics balance and smooth out the guitar’s scooped tone. With larger Fender amps, I may want to reduce clean headroom by disengaging speakers to increase speaker impedance, or by swapping to less efficient speakers. An easy tube mod involves replacing the 12AT7 phase inverter tube with a 12AX7 to decrease clean headroom in the power amp section. You can find details on these well-known mods in my past columns.
Hopefully, these examples can inspire you to discover golden tones with the amps and guitars you already have.
Kingfish doesn’t play a lot of gear, but with a signature Fender Tele Deluxe, a Chertoff Custom guitar, a pair of road-worthy amps, and a handful of effects, the Clarksdale, Mississippi, native is well on his way to becoming the blues’ newest 6-string ruler. He returns for his second Rundown with a Grammy under his belt, supporting his new Live in London album.
Christone "Kingfish" Ingram’s 2019 debut album, Kingfish, hit No. 1 on the Billboard blues album chart and remained on it for an astonishing 91 weeks. From then on, he’s been roaring around the world, bringing his mix of downhome Delta-informed blues and sophisticated turns incorporating funk licks, Hendrix fantasias, jazz runs, and inspired improvisation to club and festival audiences. Late last year, he was a guest performer at BMI’s Troubadour Awards presentation for fan Billy Gibbons. His second album, 662, named after his hometown’s area code, also topped the blues chart and won him a Grammy. For this Rig Rundown, at Nashville’s sold-out Brooklyn Bowl, he was on the run behind his third album, Live in London, which captures the fire and invention of his guitar work onstage. You’ll be hearing more from Kingfish, but right now, check out his live rig.
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Fit for a Kingfish
Christone Ingram’s signature Fender Kingfish Telecaster Deluxe comes in a finish called Mississippi night, the color, he explains, of the Delta evening sky. It’s got a roasted maple neck with a rosewood fretboard, two hot Custom Kingfish humbuckers in its alder body, a V-profile neck, a Tune-o-matic bridge, medium jumbo frets, and a 12” radius. There’s also a couple cool little filigrees (next), and he uses Ernie Ball Power Slinky .011 sets.
He's Got It Covered
Check out the cool Kingfish imprint on those humbuckers.
The King's Crown
Not your average 3-way switch! Bow to the Kingfish’s good taste.
His Main Used-To-Be
Ingram brought his old main axe on this tour. The LP-style was custom-built by Michael Chertoff and given to Kingfish when he was just 16 years old. He literally played the frets off of it. Now on a second set of frets, this guitar features a set neck, maple cap with a mahogany body, and Jalen humbuckers. It also wears Ernie Ball Power Slinky .011 sets. And his picks are Dunlop Jazz IIIs.
Dynamite Duo
When you’re stringing together one-nighters like run-on sentences, it’s important to have amps that are built to be punished. He switches between these two: a Fender Twin ‘65 Reissue and a Peavey Classic 50—the latter in honor of his Mississippi roots. The Peavey is usually a backup in case there’s an issue with the Twin, or can be used to guests who are invited to join Christone onstage.
Pedals for Pushin'
The signal starts with a Shure Wireless BLX4, which hits a Boss TU3w Tuner. From there, the route is a Dunlop Cry Baby Mini Wah, a Marshall Shredmaster, and a Boss DD3 Delay, all powered by Strymon. The pedals live on a Pedaltrain Nano board and were assembled by Barry O’Neal at XAct Tone Solutions.
Shop Kingfish's Rig
Fender Kingfish Telecaster Deluxe
Fender Twin Reverb
ProCo Lil Rat
Marshall ShredMaster
Boss TU-3w Tuner
Dunlop CBM95 Cry Baby Mini Wah
Pedaltrain Nano Pedalboard
The high-end, Dumble-style amp supplier to the stars explores and expands upon ’60s Fender tone templates.
Two-Rock’s top-tier amplifiers attract a lot of players who can afford to play through any amp they want. Generally speaking, the company is known for Dumble-style amps. But their newest release, the Vintage Deluxe, takes a different tack—drawing inspiration from the black- and brown- panel Fenders of the 1960s. Cleverly, Two-Rock’s modern design creates a sort of hybrid of old-school Fender moves and contemporary Two-Rock touches, embracing some of the best from both worlds and creating a Fender-influenced amp with a broader palette of sounds.
Masterful Mutation
The Vintage Deluxe comes in a 1x12 combo or as a head that can be paired with Two-Rock’s open-backed 3x10 or single-15 cabinets (or any 4-, 8-, or 16-ohm cabinet of your choice). You can also choose between a 35-watt 2x6L6 version with a tube rectifier or a 40-watt version with four 6V6 tubes and a solid-state rectifier. Our review model is built around the former format and is housed in a sizable (20.5"x12"x10.5") head. Apart from the two 6L6 power tubes, many specs and features will be familiar to Fender fans. It’s built with a steel chassis and comes with footswitchable bias tremolo and a tube-driven spring reverb. Other features are more novel—most notably the two footswitchable tone stacks. The first of these, which is situated on the front panel, features treble, mid, and bass controls. The alternate tone stack is built around a single tone knob on the back panel. Further tone shaping is available via a presence knob and switches for texture, bright, and power modes. A passive effects loop offers an insert point between preamp and power sections for time-based effects.
Signature Sonics
There’s a rich fidelity to the Vintage Deluxe, and an equilibrium in the frequency response that allows the personalities of instruments to shine through. Lows are clear and tight, edgy mids are present but not shrill, and upper harmonics are proportional and exhibit a smooth rolloff. The ability to meticulously shape the output also means the midrange can sit center stage, while the supporting cast fills their layers. That’s not an option on most mid-scooped Fender amps. And while there is some mid scoop evident here, it’s nowhere near as pronounced as it would be on a vintage black-panel amp.
Though the Vintage Deluxe is rated at 35 watts, there’s an abundance of clean headroom and a lack of stiffness or pushback from the power section at high volume levels. There's a near-instant-responsiveness to transients. This open, almost compression-free sensitivity was common across all settings and volumes (the one exception being low-power mode, but more on that later).
Shimmery Sparkle and Crunchy Chords
The Vintage Deluxe gain voicing is straight out of the 1964 Fender playbook—spanning chimey cleans and rich, creamy grind. The amp retains detail and warmth throughout the sweep of the gain pot, and the hint of warm preamp compression that you do hear and feel adds a subdued bloom of sustain. In fact, at some settings the Vintage Deluxe feels like a Fender Deluxe’s preamp mated to a Twin Reverb’s power section. Front-end dynamic response is superb. And setting the amp at the edge of breakup, I could easily vary drive textures via picking dynamics or guitar volume adjustments. This amp is loud, really loud, so I was pleased to find that low volume levels did not compromise its richness of tone. And I didn’t need stage-level volume to feel the body and fullness of the amp.
Silk or Burlap?
The texture switch toggles between two distinctive preamp voicings. The jazzier down position is smooth and warm, characterized by scooped mids and a softer dynamic response. Flipping the switch up unleashes an aggressive tone with snappier transients, enhanced harmonics, and midrange bite—perfect for slicing through a mix. This option is a new Two-Rock feature, unique to the Vintage Deluxe, and expands its range beyond the confines of a typical single-channel configuration.
One … Two … Stacks of Tone
The front-panel treble, mid, and bass filter controls are highly interactive, creating myriad sound sculpting options. The taper of the pots is precise, making fine adjustments easy and satisfying. The range of the pots is also useful from one extreme to another. If you just set everything at noon, the amp sounds full and musical, and you could make merely minimal adjustments from those noon positions and still find a world of cool alternative tones.
The alternate tone stack and its single knob increases gain and adds an aggressive midrange bite that imparts a cranked-up tweed vibe. There’s also a little less low end, which has the effect of sharpening the upper frequencies. It’s not all tweed texture though. You can also find warm and woolly tones, and some with a Vox-y edge. And depending on the setting, the alternate tone stack can serve as a solo boost just as readily as a source of dramatic tone shifts.
Fortissimo vs. Pianissimo
The Vintage Deluxe offers a unique take on the traditional power mode switch. Instead of reducing output level, the power tube bias is adjusted, transforming the response of the 6L6s. High mode utilizes a fixed bias for a glassy uncompressed quality that transparently reproduces nuanced dynamics. Low mode switches to a cathode bias, reducing available headroom, and increasing compression and touch sensitivity. (Interestingly, the hi/low switch serves a very different function in the 6V6 version: cutting output power from 40 watts to 20 watts.)
Retro Effects
The Vintage Deluxe’s onboard effects are very satisfying. The 3-spring, tube-driven reverb tank has classic boingy resonance, but it’s warmer than most vintage Fender reverbs with fewer metallic overtones. It’s also more flexible. The front-panel reverb return adjusts the wet/dry mix, while a back-panel reverb send alters the intensity of the effect, which can range from an ethereal whisper to a saturated wash. The excellent power tube bias tremolo, meanwhile, evokes the woozy sway of a vintage Vibroverb.
The Verdict
The Vintage Deluxe captures the essence of 1960s Fender amps while seamlessly integrating features that extend the boundaries of that template. It’s a beautiful example of artisanal craftsmanship, handcrafted by players for players. Is it worth the nearly $5,849K you’ll pay for the matched head and cabinet? You’ll probably have to spend significant time at your dealer with your favorite guitar to be sure. But that investigation will be an experience that’s well worth the time. You’ll likely be inspired by the tones—even if the amp is beyond your means.