vintage fender

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.

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This vintage Leslie-designed cabinet is one of the first—and still among the finest—modulation effects built for guitar.

It's time to discuss the Fender Vibratone—Fender's "Leslie" guitar speaker. The Leslie cabinet is famously known for making the swirling sound of the Hammond organ, which everyone has heard in classic soul, gospel, and blues recordings. But the Leslie is also great for guitars. I try to be a natural-tone idealist, eschewing most effects, but Leslie-style modulation is my guilty pleasure.

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The Bandmaster Reverb head was built from 1968 to 1980 and has enough grille-room to install a pair of 8" speakers—a popular mod.

An introduction to Fender's classic amp heads of the '60s and '70s.

Fender's black-panel piggyback amps are not as widely known as the combos that every guitar player on this planet has either seen, heard, or played. They have lost appeal in a time when practicality and economy are guiding amp selection for most of us. Thanks to PA and monitor solutions, we no longer need big, powerful amps to fill rooms and stages. But, as we know, tone and size are related. So, let's look back at the great Fender piggybacks, from an era before the world needed to be so efficient and compact.

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