Fender amp differences

[Eric]

Can someone help me with the terminology of Fender amps? I hear 'tweed' and 'blackface' a lot, but what do they mean? A wikipedia entry made it clear that they are different eras of Fender amps, but it seems like people always use those terms to refer to specific sounds or possibly amp models.

Is a blackface supposed to be a Twin Reverb? A Twin? I don't even know the difference, unless it's that one has reverb and one doesn't. Is a tweed a Deluxe Reverb? A Bassman?

I feel like this is super-basic knowledge, but I will admit that I know none of it, so any help would be appreciated. Even a link would be useful.

[Monkus]

I was wondering about the same thing and finally realized that a lot of people use the terms very loosely. The defining denominator I found was eras. Check here,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Amplifiers

hope that helps.

[Eric]

I was wondering about the same thing and finally realized that a lot of people use the terms very loosely. The defining denominator I found was eras. Check here,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fender_Amplifiers
Yeah, I saw that too. Unfortunately, even after reading through that, I still feel like I'm missing some of the slang/terminology.

[guitarhack]

Tweed and blackface refer to cosmetics, i.e., tweed tolex, blackface control panel (as opposed to silver face), etc. I'm not an expert either, but that's how some of the Fender amps are identified.

[Bookkeeper's Son]

Yes

[tunghaichuan]

Tweed, Brown Face, Black Face, and Silver Face not only refer to different eras and cosmentics, but also circuit topologies and tonal characteristics.

Tweed era: these amps were covered with linen luggage covering, hence "tweed." In the combos, the chassis hung down in the back of the cabinet with the controls in the back. This era lasted from the late 1940s to the very early 1960s. Tonally, these amps are more mid-rangy, and distort earlier. The circuit topologies tended not to produce as much power as later Fender amps as electronics had not advanced at this point. Iconic amps of this period are the Twin, Deluxe, Bassman, and Champ. None of these amps had reverb, IIRC. Some had tremolo.

Brown Face era: these amps had brown tolex covering with brown control panels, (although there were some that had black control panels) and either wheat or oxblood colored grills. The electronics mounted in the top of the cabinet with the controls facing front. Most of these were produced in the early 1960s. Tonally, these amps are cleaner than the earlier tweeds, but can still get great sounding OD. The circuits were evolved to the point where they were getting more power out than the tweed era amps. Leo Fender was obviously trying to get his amps louder and cleaner. I believe the later Brown Face amps were the first to have spring reverb. And there was a Brown Face stand alone reverb tank. These amps were also the beginning of piggyback amps with separate heads and cabs. The Brown Face Deluxe, Bassman, and Bandmaster are iconic amps of this era.

Blackface Era: black tolex, black control panels and silver grill cloth. They were configured a lot like the Brown Face amps with different cosmetics. This era lasted from the mid to late 1960s. These amps were louder and cleaner sounding than the previous Fenders. Fender continued to engineer his amps for more power and less distortion. I believe this was because Fender used to service amps for country players in the beginning of his career, and they had little use for distortion. Fender also collaborated with Dick Dale to build a loud surf amp, the Dual Showman. I was 100 watts, IIRC. Other iconic amps are the Twin Reverb, Deluxe Reverb, Champ, Princeton Reverb and the Bassman (at this point it was a head, and sounded nothing like the Tweed Baseman.) Tonally, these amps are more scooped sounding, less midrange.

Silver Face era: most of these were just Black Face amps with updated cosmetics, black tolex covering, silver control panels and silver grill cloth. Fender sold his company to CBS in 1965 and CBS continued to engineer amps for more power and less distortion. This era lasted from the late 1960s all the way up until 1979. CBS began to engineer "improvements" into the Fender line, increased voltages for cleaner sounds, master volumes, pull boosts, and ultra linear output. Because of this, Silver Face amps are not as well regarded as the earlier Black Face amps. Some of the amps only got cosmetic changes, like the early Silver Face Deluxe and Twin Reverb. These amps can usually be tweaked back to Black Face specs. Later amps with the "improvements" generally can't be modded to BF specs because of the extra circuitry and very high voltages.

Overall the progression was from lower powered, midrangy amps that distorted quickly, to more scooped sounding amps with higher power and less distortion.

Edit: forgot Blonde amps, but for all intents and purposes, they are similar to the Brown Face amps.

[Retro Hound]

You really need to read The Soul of Tone: Celebrating 60 Years of Fender Amps ("http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0634056131/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=retrohound-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0634056131). "Tweed" and "Blackface" refer more to eras than sounds. A Tweed can be a Bassman, a Deluxe, a Champ, etc., it's just earlier ones. The sounds of a Tweed Bassman and a Blackface Bassman will differ with different circuits, tubes, blah blah.

I try to sound like I know what I'm talking about, but one of these old-timers may come along and smack me down. I'm OK with that, as long as I deserve it.

EDIT: OK, tunghaichuan posted as I was writing mine. I agree with him.

[Eric]

Overall the progression was from lower powered, midrangy amps that distorted quickly, to more scooped sounding amps with higher power and less distortion.
Awesome. Thank you so much!

The reason for asking this was because I was reading a thread elsewhere that talked about the Blues Deluxe. Someone said that the covering/exterior shouldn't fool you, because it's not a tweed -- it has 'Fender cleans.' That makes sense given your point about how the amps became higher powered and cleaner. I suppose I wouldn't expect a tweed to have sparkling cleans.

[Tig]

tunghaichuan needs a raise!
Nice write up. :AOK

[otaypanky]

That's pretty much correct about a blues Deluxe Eric. The only tweed like thing about that amp is the exterior.
The 57 Deluxe re-issue is a 5E3 style amp. 5E3 refers to the circuit design. As someone mentioned, they don't have a huge amount of headroom but they are loved by many players for their creamy breakup. The 5E3 style amp is built today by lots of independent builders and is also available in kit form from a number of sources. While it's not a very complex amp as far as controls go, it does take a little while to discover how to get all the tones it can deliver. There are 2 channels, a normal and a bright channel, each has two inputs. Each channel has a volume control and there's one tone control. Guitarists usually use the bright channel, and some will run a jumper wire to the normal channel. One of the unique things about those amps is if you are plugged in the bright channel, and not jumping it with the normal channel, the volume pot for the normal channel still affects the sound of the bright channel. The controls are very interactive. I had a Richter 5E3 and I liked it a lot. I sold it to help fund a guitar purchase. Some day I'd like to have a 5E3 again, but the next one I'll probably assemble from a kit.

[MAXIFUNK]

Great thread!!!!

[Eric]

That's pretty much correct about a blues Deluxe Eric. The only tweed like thing about that amp is the exterior.
The 57 Deluxe re-issue is a 5E3 style amp. 5E3 refers to the circuit design. As someone mentioned, they don't have a huge amount of headroom but they are loved by many players for their creamy breakup. The 5E3 style amp is built today by lots of independent builders and is also available in kit form from a number of sources. While it's not a very complex amp as far as controls go, it does take a little while to discover how to get all the tones it can deliver. There are 2 channels, a normal and a bright channel, each has two inputs. Each channel has a volume control and there's one tone control. Guitarists usually use the bright channel, and some will run a jumper wire to the normal channel. One of the unique things about those amps is if you are plugged in the bright channel, and not jumping it with the normal channel, the volume pot for the normal channel still affects the sound of the bright channel. The controls are very interactive. I had a Richter 5E3 and I liked it a lot. I sold it to help fund a guitar purchase. Some day I'd like to have a 5E3 again, but the next one I'll probably assemble from a kit.
That's funny -- my next question was going to be about the 5E3. Thanks!

Although...are we talking about the same amp? I looked up the Blues Deluxe Reissue, and it seems to only have 2 inputs. It's this amp:

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/guitars/fender-blues-deluxe-reissue-40w-1x12-combo-amp/483718000000000

It doesn't seem to be the 5E3 you talk about, but I could just be confused.

[otaypanky]

The Blues Deluxe is an amp that came out back in the early 90's. I had one back then and i enjoyed it. It was 2 channels, one that was like a drive channel, and powered by 6L6's with a SS rectifier. It was a printed circuit board. The only trouble I had with mine was with the input jacks which were soldered directly to the PCB and would break loose. I replaced the jacks with better quality ones and ran little jumper wires from them to the circuit board and never had that problem again. I just read the description of the re-issues and I don't recall that mine had the effects loop like the current ones.
The 5E3 is a 2 X 6V6 amp with a 5Y3 rectifier. Most all of the kits and clones available use point to point wiring. I saw one inexpensive kit with a PCB. I've only played a couple of 5E3 type amps, but I think the following is pretty much true of all of them. The amp is about as loud and as clean as it gets at 9 0'clock on the volume pot. From there up it gets more compressed and saturated. Rolling the tone pot up not only added treble, it also added a bit of gain. I used to set mine at 9 o'clock on volume and about 3 o'clock on tone. At those settings, playing with a light touch stayed reasonably clean and digging in things started to get gritty. The interactive nature of the controls worked like this - rolling the channel 1 volume pot up from 0 to about 9 0'clock would kind of thin out the sound a bit, even though I was plugged in to channel 2.
Here's a link to a Richter 5E3 style up for auction on eBay. If you click on the pics you'll get larger pics of the chassis

http://cgi.ebay.com/Richter-5E3-G-Narrow-Panel-Tweed-15Ws-of-Classic-Tones_W0QQitemZ130545596031QQihZ003QQcategoryZ1017 1QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ht_3349wt_1 141

.

[ZMAN]

I owned one of the BDRI as they are called. Blues Deluxe Reissue. BTW someone referred to the covering as "tweed Tolex" but it is actually a tweed cloth covering. You can get them in a Laquered tweed where they have actrually put laquer over the tweed to deter stains.
The amp in question was a 2 channel version of the Deluxe. No gain channel. It had super cleans and a lot of headroom.
40 Watts so it was hard to play it loud enough for breakup. I eventually traded it plus cash for a MIA Deluxe 50th Ann. Strat.
A lot of guys were using an attenuator on the amp, to get it to break up at lower volumes. I just decided I needed something that breaks ups earlier at my home levels so I purchased a 65 Deluxe reissue. A lot better amp for my purposes at 22 watts. Legnday tone. An array of pedals in front gave me the tone I was looking for.
But now with the new modelling amps, you can get that tone with the Vibro Champ or Super Champ XDs. Having owned most of the Fender amps I can testify to the quality of the tone on these little gems.
I have also owned the Super Reverb, and the Vibrolux. All great amps but very very loud.

[tunghaichuan]

Awesome. Thank you so much!

The reason for asking this was because I was reading a thread elsewhere that talked about the Blues Deluxe. Someone said that the covering/exterior shouldn't fool you, because it's not a tweed -- it has 'Fender cleans.' That makes sense given your point about how the amps became higher powered and cleaner. I suppose I wouldn't expect a tweed to have sparkling cleans.

When someone talks about Fender cleans they usually mean mid 60s Black Face amps with reverb: Twin Reverb, Super Reverb, Pro Reverb, Deluxe Reverb, Princeton Reverb. There were non-reverb models of some of these amps but they are not as well regarded as the reverb-equipped amps. For example, the Deluxe Reverb and Deluxe are really two different amps. The non-reverb Deluxe has less gain, and sounds kind of weak when compared to it's reverb-equipped big brother.

The 5E3 Deluxe and the 5F6A Bassman are the two defining amps for tweed tone, although the low and high powered tweed Twin and the tweed Pro are great amps as well.

Fender basically used two tube types in their amps: 6V6 for lower powered amps, 6L6 for higher powered amps. Both tubes are in the same family. The 6V6 is softer sounding and creamier when pushed into OD. The 6L6 is loud and clean and has to be pushed hard to get it to distort. Fender did make a short lived amp with 6BQ5/EL84 tubes, but it never caught on and was discontinued quickly.

You are indeed correct, for new production Fender amps, you can't go by the covering, you have to take a look at the circuit, tubes, and speakers.

[tunghaichuan]

The Blues Deluxe is an amp that came out back in the early 90's. I had one back then and i enjoyed it. It was 2 channels, one that was like a drive channel, and powered by 6L6's with a SS rectifier. It was a printed circuit board. The only trouble I had with mine was with the input jacks which were soldered directly to the PCB and would break loose. I replaced the jacks with better quality ones and ran little jumper wires from them to the circuit board and never had that problem again. I just read the description of the re-issues and I don't recall that mine had the effects loop like the current ones.
The 5E3 is a 2 X 6V6 amp with a 5Y3 rectifier. Most all of the kits and clones available use point to point wiring. I saw one inexpensive kit with a PCB. I've only played a couple of 5E3 type amps, but I think the following is pretty much true of all of them. The amp is about as loud and as clean as it gets at 9 0'clock on the volume pot. From there up it gets more compressed and saturated. Rolling the tone pot up not only added treble, it also added a bit of gain. I used to set mine at 9 o'clock on volume and about 3 o'clock on tone. At those settings, playing with a light touch stayed reasonably clean and digging in things started to get gritty. The interactive nature of the controls worked like this - rolling the channel 1 volume pot up from 0 to about 9 0'clock would kind of thin out the sound a bit, even though I was plugged in to channel 2.
Here's a link to a Richter 5E3 style up for auction on eBay. If you click on the pics you'll get larger pics of the chassis

http://cgi.ebay.com/Richter-5E3-G-Narrow-Panel-Tweed-15Ws-of-Classic-Tones_W0QQitemZ130545596031QQihZ003QQcategoryZ1017 1QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem#ht_3349wt_1 141

.

Fender did reissue the tweed Deluxe as the Custom Shop '57 Deluxe. It was built mostly like the late 50s models, but with some changes to meet modern safety codes. Here is some info:

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/57Deluxe/

$2K for that amp is ridiculous, IMHO. As otaypanky pointed out, there are lots of builders making 5E3 copies and lots of kits. It is a fairly simple circuit. I've built one and it sounds fantastic. I've seen kits for about $500, which includes everything to build a working amp.

You'll also hear the terms narrow panel and TV associated with the Deluxe. The 5E3 had a narrow paneled cabinet:

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/yhst-8476489043850_2164_148477805

TV front:

http://173.83.74.46/images/Deluxe_TV.jpg

These were the first versions of the Deluxe circuit, 5A3 and 5B3. They used different preamp tubes and sound different than the 5E3.

There was also a wide panel version that was in between the TV front and narrow panel version:

http://173.83.74.46/images/Deluxe_WP_5C3.jpg

Here is an excellent guide to Fender amps with lots of pictures and great information:

http://173.83.74.46/fender.asp