If you were to build one fender amp

you need to decide if you truly want to build an amp for the sake and pleasure of DIY.

if you're doing it to save on costs..... well, you're gonna have a bad time. (especially if you live far from where kits/parts get shipped)

the same conversation could be had for a tubescreamer.
it's a lot cheaper to just buy a whatever TS on amazon/ebay and you'll have the sound. but how will you feel?
 
jimilee said:
I almost pulled the trigger on a champy build, but then bought a blues deluxe for about the same money. I’m not saying I can’t justify it, that’s crap. I’m saying I can have more amp for the same money and I don’t have to build it. Am I missing something, how are you guys doing it?
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I can’t speak for others, but I had an approximate budget, and a pretty specific sense of what I was looking for. I don’t think I could’ve snagged a used amp that had the features I wanted for less, (although deals do happen). And then there’s not knowing exactly what shape everything’s in on a used amp. So beyond just the immense pleasure of loading a turret board, etc., I got to build a seriously great, old school (in terms of construction) amp.

From a purely economic perspective, it’s hard to justify building almost anything at this point. Unless you are starting with raw materials, and already have the needed equipment and don’t have to put a value on your time.

It helps to do a better price comparison. If you wanted a champ, handbuillt by a boutique builder, it would cost a good bit more than the kit. If you do a solid construction job, you will get that same quality. So, if you want something that is non mass produced, (and especially if you like getting your hands dirty), it does start to make sense.
 
kweefthief said:
I'm looking for a winter/summer break project! I really love the sound of a blackpanel princeton but don't feel like shelling out $800+. A super reverb would be so cool, but tooooo loud. Personally, I just play at home and would like something quieter. Right now, I'm just running a blues jr with a crex keeping it clean (looking to change tone stack on it). I would love to run two amps in stereo😏.

Anyways, if you guys could build only one fender amp, which would it be?
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So you're going to run stereo with the Blues Jr and the DIY-jobbie? Or do you want to build two amps or...


For your needs/wants:
Princeton Reverb

You don't feel like shelling out $800+...
How much do you think you'll shell out for a DIY Princeton Reverb?
How 'bout shelling out $1,200+? NOS tubes and tolex etc... All in, It adds up quickly.
 
I build amps because I want something really good and don't want to pay boutique prices for it. Also I find stock Fenders frustrating - they can sound good until you crank them then the bottom end falls apart. In the case of a Princeton Reverb RI the farty, splatty low end drives me crazy and I just can't use it.

I can probably build my version of a Princeton Reverb for about what a new RI costs here in Australia. But mine will have a bigger power transformer so that the low end is well reproduced, better quality caps and properly rated resistors, a 12" speaker, a much lower noise floor and much longer life expectancy. It will also be biased correctly!

My main amp right now is a 5E3 Deluxe which was inspired by a Clark 5E3 I played. I got a Mercury Magnetics Power transformer with a slightly lower B+ so that it replicates the sound of lower wall voltages. I also used an MM self-lead OT which sounds amazing. Good quality caps and parts, nothing outrageously expensive or hard to source, a Celestion G12H Creamback speaker. Made my own pine finger-jointed cab and it's probably cost me around or just under US$1000. Bear in mind all of the parts have to come a long way so shipping is a big part of the cost for me.

I love this amp. I have biased it to just under 100% plate dissipation so when it breaks up it sounds chunky and fat, not fizzy and noisy like the hand-wired Fender RI I played a few years ago did. But in my home office it's clean enough that I need to use pedals and it handles them beautifully. It wasn't cheap to build but I think it was great value - it sounds better than anything I could buy locally for the same money.

The only caveat is that I've been doing this for 20 years now and it probably took at least 10 of those to get to a point where I'm really happy with how my amps sound. None have been awful but the amps I build now are a lot better! And there is so much more information available now - when I started there was very little. So a new builder now should be off to a much better start than I was 20 years ago.

The other problem is that now I have become an unbearable amp snob. I try out guitars in stores and all the regular Fenders, Voxes and Marshalls sound so noisy and bad!
 
jimilee said:
I almost pulled the trigger on a champy build, but then bought a blues deluxe for about the same money. I’m not saying I can’t justify it, that’s crap. I’m saying I can have more amp for the same money and I don’t have to build it. Am I missing something, how are you guys doing it?
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The trick is to never price anything prebuilt. (y)
 
I guess picking a fender circuit really depends on what you want to do with the amp. Not all tweeds sound alike but if you want the tweed thing then you kinda want just the guitar into amp thing I suppose. BTDT. Brown/blonde is the middle ground and depending on what circuit can either be a pedal platform or a mini marshall but like tweeds you gotta crank them to get THEIR sound. While the black/silver era may seem like the least sexy IMO they are the pedal platform amp and because I love pedals are the most flexible to me. While all slightly different they are the most consistent in tone and it's really about what size/volume you want. Between speakers and pedals I can make my ab763 be whatever I want, while never having to sacrifice a great clean tone.

Edit: I also am not one for a cranked ab763. I play mine at edge of breakup for the warmth and body. I use a TS style pedal for OD sounds and Rat for distortion. The sound of BF distortion is not the same as tweed or brown amps and not as pleasing. But I also have a mid pot and play single coils mostly and don't have the mushy booming bass issue. I have a celestion speaker too and that helps a lot.
 
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You guys are getting me too excited LOL. Maybe I should actually get better, get a good strat, and try modding my blues jr first. If I mess it up I won't have an amp to play through😖.

But u guys have slipped nasty expensive ideas into my head...maybe i want to make a 2x6V6 vibroverb
edit: is that the same as a deluxe reverb just with a 15 inch?
 
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Guardians of the analog said:
I guess picking a fender circuit really depends on what you want to do with the amp. Not all tweeds sound alike but if you want the tweed thing then you kinda want just the guitar into amp thing I suppose. BTDT. Brown/blonde is the middle ground and depending on what circuit can either be a pedal platform or a mini marshall but like tweeds you gotta crank them to get THEIR sound. While the black/silver era may seem like the least sexy IMO they are the pedal platform amp and because I love pedals are the most flexible to me. While all slightly different they are the most consistent in tone and it's really about what size/volume you want. Between speakers and pedals I can make my ab763 be whatever I want, while never having to sacrifice a great clean tone.

Edit: I also am not one for a cranked ab763. I play mine at edge of breakup for the warmth and body. I use a TS style pedal for OD sounds and Rat for distortion. The sound of BF distortion is not the same as tweed or brown amps and not as pleasing. But I also have a mid pot and play single coils mostly and don't have the mushy booming bass issue. I have a celestion speaker too and that helps a lot.
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I think that brown/blonde middle ground is why I am leaning toward the 6G16. It seems that it can go from almost BF clean to more Tweed-like with the volume knob on your guitar. I don't think I could buy a vintage 63 Vibroverb for anything close to what I can get a kit for. My only thought is that it may not be a good pedal platform, and they are why I am here.
 
cwsquared said:
I think that brown/blonde middle ground is why I am leaning toward the 6G16. It seems that it can go from almost BF clean to more Tweed-like with the volume knob on your guitar. I don't think I could buy a vintage 63 Vibroverb for anything close to what I can get a kit for. My only thought is that it may not be a good pedal platform, and they are why I am here.
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It depends on the model. Headroom is the key at any pedal platform amp. If you have an effects loop for time based effects then it doesn't matter where the gain comes from, but for a nmv amp then you want all the headroom you can for delays or reverbs especially. I struggle with maintaining balance with delays while using the guitar volume knob for clean tones in a dirty amps. If you set the delay to sound good for the dirty tone the delay will be weak with the volume rolled down. Set it for the clean and when you roll the volume up it will be loud AF. This why is have a 35 watt single channel deluxe.
 
Guardians of the analog said:
It depends on the model. Headroom is the key at any pedal platform amp. If you have an effects loop for time based effects then it doesn't matter where the gain comes from, but for a nmv amp then you want all the headroom you can for delays or reverbs especially. I struggle with maintaining balance with delays while using the guitar volume knob for clean tones in a dirty amps. If you set the delay to sound good for the dirty tone the delay will be weak with the volume rolled down. Set it for the clean and when you roll the volume up it will be loud AF. This why is have a 35 watt single channel deluxe.
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is 12w actually quieter than 22/35/40w or is it more a speaker thing
 
12 watts is plenty loud for home use. It's more about the amount of volume before the onset of distortion. The more wattage, the more clean "headroom" before break-up. Speakers can also aid in this, want more volume and headroom, get a speaker with a higher db rating.
 
Guardians of the analog said:
It depends on the model. Headroom is the key at any pedal platform amp. If you have an effects loop for time based effects then it doesn't matter where the gain comes from, but for a nmv amp then you want all the headroom you can for delays or reverbs especially. I struggle with maintaining balance with delays while using the guitar volume knob for clean tones in a dirty amps. If you set the delay to sound good for the dirty tone the delay will be weak with the volume rolled down. Set it for the clean and when you roll the volume up it will be loud AF. This why is have a 35 watt single channel deluxe.
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That's my concern. I was looking at the brownface vibroverb. It has tremolo and reverb built in, but I feel like outside of putting an effects loop into it, it probably wouldn't be clean enough at the necessary guitar volume.
 
cwsquared said:
That's my concern. I was looking at the brownface vibroverb. It has tremolo and reverb built in, but I feel like outside of putting an effects loop into it, it probably wouldn't be clean enough at the necessary guitar volume.
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This is why I arrived at the amp I'm using. For me it's the ideal pedal platform and I can cop just about any tone I want with the right pedal. Also a chance to show my custom amp badge 😂 IMG_20221128_195337_625.jpg
 
The "clean headroom" thing is interesting... My main amp is the 5E3 Deluxe right now but I also use a modified 5E5-A tweed Pro, built as a 1x12 with a Celestion Gold. It has a bigger than stock PT and runs KT77s (kinda sounding like really nice EL34s). It has a full, warm, sweet tone which works incredibly well with pedals and any guitar I plug into it. It has been my gigging amp for years because it's small, easily carried and can fill a stage with sound.

But it can work at home at the same volume as the Deluxe, despite being probably 3x the wattage. It has more clean headroom than the 5E3 but at home that doesn't really matter. The thing is that tube amps need a certain amount of volume to sound "right" (ie not thing and weird) and both amps sound good at around the same volume.

My vote for "one Fender amp" would be one of the 5F4/5E7/5E5-A family. They're all the same circuit but with different speakers and I build them as a 1x12 anyway! They have a full, warm sound which works perfectly well with effects, sound sweeter than a lot of tweeds, have decent tone controls and enough headroom for any but the loudest drummer. And they also work at home. I prefer the sound over any BF Fender I have tried.
 
cwsquared said:
That's a pretty sweet looking amp. Kit?
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No, back in 2019 I sold a guitar and bought my desert island amp. It's a vintage sound 35 single channel. Ab763, 35 watts, 6l6s, trem has optional diaz mod for added gain stage, reverb has dwell knob, mids knob, beefed up iron, solid pine cab, WGS et65 speaker. She sings. Got a deal on it for 1300 brand new. The amp badge is just because like @Harry Klippton I like putting my logo on anything and everything 🤷
 
Guardians of the analog said:
No, back in 2019 I sold a guitar and bought my desert island amp. It's a vintage sound 35 single channel. Ab763, 35 watts, 6l6s, trem has optional diaz mod for added gain stage, reverb has dwell knob, mids knob, beefed up iron, solid pine cab, WGS et65 speaker. She sings. Got a deal on it for 1300 brand new. The amp badge is just because like @Harry Klippton I like putting my logo on anything and everything 🤷
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Nothing wrong with marking your territory. If I had a decent logo, I would do the same. Maybe one day...
 
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