These Look Very Cool Indeed
You can never go wrong with a classic Fender amplifier. Despite what those who favour more gritty and aggressive overdrive tones say, you can seriously rock with a Fender if you know how to coax it out of one.
Actually, it’s not complicated, you just need to understand that it’s necessary to crank the volume up high and take out plenty of bass. I had Blackface Deluxe’s, Princetons and Bassmen. I had Brownface Concerts and Bassmans, I had tweed Princetons and Champs (never had a tweed Deluxe, which is a sin I know). They all excelled at that classic breakup/overdrive tone effortlessly and in the case of a friends ’65 Blackface Twin Reverb I played with the volume on maximum, it out “Marshalled” many Marshalls I have played through. Not what you’d expect right? Don’t be fooled by the “King of Clean”.
I left the world of lovely, cranked tube amps years ago when it became too inconvenient in the environment I play. Too much maintenance, too heavy and too big and after about six years of tweaking and fiddling I have found a way to get close enough to everything I loved about using a vintage amp to be satisfied. My amp is the size of a stompbox now.
However I do still miss the cumbersome joys of turning up to a gig or rehearsal with a traditional style combo amp and now I am intrigued by Fender’s new (ish)Tone Master series of amps, especially the Deluxe Reverb – a digital recreation of the 60’s classic combo with the best modern features added and at about half the weight (weighing in at about 11 kgs or 25 lbs).
I really wish this was a demo, but alas I have not had a chance to play one or even seen one in person, but it is something I am very keen on. From what I’ve heard in demo videos I’d say this amp gets very close to a classic Deluxe reverb in terms of tone and with power scaling plus a balanced DI with a realistic speaker-simulated tone (thanks to Impulse Response technology), it ticks pretty much every box for me.
The Deluxe Reverb has always been a good pedal platform, perfect size and now perfect weight. Shame it’s not my perfect price. It’s not cheap, but it is a Fender, so it’s got to be worth it hasn’t it?
So here’s hoping. Who knows? I might just get to give one a try and when I do I’ll be sure to review it here and in a video.
Or maybe I’ll wait for a Fender Tone Master tweed Deluxe. Even better would be this technology crammed into a stompbox-sized amp to put on my pedal board to use with my Tonetubby cab. Here’s hoping.
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