I tried to modify the amp so that it would use E元4 tubes, have a master volume, an extra gain stage and a "brown sound" tone stack (whatever that means). I won't name any names because when I do people generally have negative reactions. I immediately realized that I didn't know what I was doing so instead of giving up, I bought some "mod kits" from a dealer that is still in business today. I read an article in Guitar Player magazine about someone modifying an old Fender and thought I would try. I had never done any electronics before and probably should never have even tried, but I was young and stupid. I originally bought my bandmaster head around 1992. WARNING: this one has a bit of my usual silliness, just sayin'.I shared some of this information in other posts, but since I have started my build I thought it might be helpful to people in the future to keep a log of my project. Reverb, which has been “Blackfaced” and has the larger output transformer. Since it just happens that I have several Bandmaster heads, I decided to doĪ little shootout between my blackface Bandmaster and my drip-edge Bandmaster Went this route, commonly called “ Vibroclones”. With a larger aftermarket transformer with multiple impedance taps feeding aĪnd with that larger transformer feeding a 15, you get a Vibroverb! Quite a number of Bandmaster Reverbs have With the stock (small) Output Transformer into a pair of 10” speakers, you With Tremolo AND Reverb, based around a tube-rectified 2-6L6 power Okay, so what do you get when you take a classic blackface fender design To the Bandmaster that had been gone for a long, long time: a TUBEīack-to-the-future for the Bandmaster Reverb!Īnd hey, what REAL Fender Ampaholic DOESN’T like tube rectification? There is one “new”įeature of the Bandmaster Reverb sure to please most Fender Fans: the Bandmaster Reverb re-introduced a little something Vibrolux Reverb, the Bandmaster Reverb’s small tranny makes for niceĮarly-onset saturation. May actually be a PLUS to some, because just like with the small OP tranny in a blackface Another concern some point out is that theīandmaster Reverb had a pretty small output transformer compared to the The changes for the most part are in the biasĬircuit and a few component values here and there. To true blackface specs in very short order and for very little cost. Reverb really were not a big deal at all, and a good amp tech can put it back The undesirable changes to the Bandmaster Reputation of sounding a little more like a toilet seat than a blackfaceīut, my friends, there IS a silver lining to all this talk of toilet seats! Let me point it out. Silver-face cosmetics, the Bandmaster Reverbs from that period have a Time period is considered a real gem … basically a blackface amp with That CBS brought in to REPLACE Leo Fender (who had volunteered to stay on) wasĪ real big name electronic engineer, but didn’t know a guitar amp from a toiletĪnd so it is that while every other aluminum drip edge Fender from that In this book Forrest mentions that the head engineer Just finished reading Forrest White’s book: Theįender Inside Story. The 1968 Bandmaster Reverb bears the unfortunate title of being the and so on … that’s most decidedly NOT a Bandmaster in With digital signal processing, Chinese PCīoard construction, etc. Not even on my radar as far as a Bandmaster goes. Okay, there is the new Bandmaster VM, but that’s One member of the Bandmaster family that sometimes goes unloved: The Models to the quintessential tight sparklyīlackface tone of the blackface Bandmasters, there’s a whole lotta love in the Bandmaster Although these amps run the gamut tone-wise ,įrom the super-woody raw no negative feedback sound of the early tweed Silver-face models that began in 1967 and ran through the early 1970’s. Or a trio of 10’s, the short lived (1960 only) brown combo, the fabled blond,īrown, and blackface “piggy-back” heads of the 1960’s, and finally the From very early tweed models with a single 15 Through several metamorphoses in their lengthy lifespan. Like most of the classic Fender amp models have existed for decades, and have went A Little Love for the Fender Bandmaster Reverb
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