Preamp for my big old Fender?

[sunvalleylaw]

Hi all! Do any of you have experience with using a preamp with an older tube amp to drive it at lower volumes? A new guitar buddy of mine suggested I could do that with my old Fender Concert to get it cooking without opening it up so much in terms of volume. The Concert does not have a preamp section and has just volume, EQ and presence controls. I can and do use dirt boxes to get it making some noise at lower volumes, but that tends to muddy things up. The amp sounds really good when it cranks on its own. I have no experience with stand alone preamp units.

Also, if this idea can work, any ideas on decent, not too expensive units to look for, used or otherwise?

[deeaa]

Ah, that be exactly what I did for 12 years, more or less...I used an EMG PA-2 onboard preamp/booster on my LP. Worked just GREAT in front of my Fender amps like the DeVille. It was an amp that did NOT open up until way too loud already, and indeed I did not like the way it took drive pedals either...the clean boost of the PA-2 was just the ticket. It can do some 20db of boost but I only kept it at very low boost (has adjustment).

Other upsides were great s/n ratio and independence of any pedals. All I basically used was an LP with the preamp and the two channels of DeVille, HRD or TheTwin. Superb. Later I also added a TS for some small lead bits.

Here's a good example how my LP sounded on clean with the PA-2...this is a direct recording from a DeVille w/a 57...lots of treble on it, more than I'd use these days, but you should be able to tell how it gave the very clean amp a slight dirty edge nicely.

http://www.sci.fi/~juho/bm/BM_Tahdon_olla_se_mies.MP3

These days, I also use the same trick with the Ceriatone, more or less.

[hubberjub]

Personally, I'd go for an attenuator first. Not that Fender amps are known for their overdrive, but running a preamp into your Concert is just going to overdrive the front end and the preamp tubes. If you're running an attenuator you can get the power tubes cooking. That's where the big, fat, classic rock tones are.

[deeaa]

Yes a power brake is good, but very expensive for a good one, and a simple mass type device will indeed literally get the tubes cooking...until the whole amp blows up. I would not recommend using a brake for prolonged use.