Fender amps why the love??

ICBM

thebreeze said:

GavRichList said:

Blues deluxe breaks nicely. You’d maybe like those. 

How do you manage that without making your ears bleed and breaking all the windows though? (On either channel)

By turning the master volume down. I really don't get the hate a lot of people have for the drive channel and the volume controls on these amps - I've never had any trouble getting good overdriven sounds out of them at quite sensible volumes. Yes, you do have to turn the knobs carefully…

That said, they are not the amp for professorben if those clips are anything to go by - you can't get those sounds out of almost any Fender amp. I doubt it with the Tonemaster either, really. That just leaves the Machete as a possibility - rare, heavy and wasn't a commercial success, but at least they're cheap! If you can find one.

Lodious

professorben said:

Lodious said:

professorben said:

Here are my takes on great tones. 

Not really a surprise you don't like Fender amps then is it? Tools for the job and all that. 

Totally. Just trying to be open minded as to alternative choices. 

If your trying to be 'open minded' about fender amps being great at nu metal, then your going to be disappointed. It's like saying you want to be open minded about using a Ferrari for offroading. 

professorben

Riiiight ok. 
I can see this going south. 
I started the thread as I am genuinely curious about F style Amps. 

I personally have never been able to get a great tone out of one, by that I mean a tone I personally find great. 

But they are the most popular amp brand in the world by some margin I think

So there must be something in it, I wondered if it's a case of having some 'trick' to dialling them in, like my Boogie for example. 

Btw to all I don't play or listen to Nu-Metal. 

professorben

bbill335 said:

professorben said:

robinbowes said:

merlin said:

professorben said:

compromise

That one word is the summing up of this whole thread. 

I think "pointless" would be more appropriate.

What makes you say that? It's an honest inquiry as to what people like about that style of amp, to garner a greater understand of the different options available. 

When you're only interested in the same bland nu metal tones that form a whole seperate section of the gear industry, it doesn't make sense to look over the fence and tell the neighbours that their mower is shit coz you only like electric ones and theirs is petrol. Or something.

Ok so I'm not saying the F style Amps are shit, I don't like the sounds of them, others do, I'm interested in WHY they do, I may not want to play heavy interesting music my whole life, I might one day really really want to play 'Brown Sugar' in the local and prob will find that I can't get that tone from my amp. 

Im just seeing what people think of them. 

professorben

octatonic said:

robinbowes said:

professorben said:

robinbowes said: 

I think "pointless" would be more appropriate.

What makes you say that? It's an honest inquiry as to what people like about that style of amp, to garner a greater understand of the different options available. 

You don't like the sounds that Fender amps are good at.

You don't like the (vast pantheon of) music that uses Fender amp sounds.

You clearly don't like bananas.

That's fine.

Enjoy your apples.

R.

Agree.

I don't really understand Ben's reason for starting the thread- his responses reminded me of a toddler when says 'No' to any question you ask it.
I'm not sure he really has a doctorate either.

If it make you feel any better you can lump me in with Captain Sensible........

my reason for starting the thread was to poll the forum on a topic, see why they like something that I don't, rather than dismiss it out of hand. 

I could have said "ah yeah people like Fender Amps cos they have shit taste in music" 

but it that's not true is it?
I don't like em, with a couple of exceptions I don't like any of the examples that have been posted, but I do now have a much better understanding of WHY people like them so much, about how they use them and what musical situations would suit that type of sound. 

professorben

Another aspect is that my favourite amp brand thus far (Mesa Boogie) started life as a guy modding old Fender combos, so I figured that there must be a heritage in there somewhere in the tones I do like. 

guitarfishbay

There was the Fender Machete.  I think someone here bought one

ICBM

professorben said:

Another aspect is that my favourite amp brand thus far (Mesa Boogie) started life as a guy modding old Fender combos, so I figured that there must be a heritage in there somewhere in the tones I do like. 

There is, but Mesa/Boogies very quickly became something very different. The only Mesa that's really Fender-like is the Boogie MkI, and only on the low-gain input. After that, even though their marketing claimed that they could do Fender sounds on their clean channel, they really couldn't - they're much tighter, bolder, middier and darker even though they are still capable of loud strictly clean sounds.

The modern 'Mesa' (ie Rectifier) sound is completely different again and is based on the Marshall lineage (via Soldano), which even though it was originally derived from the tweed Bassman, is really quite different-sounding after the early models. And even though it's much looser and more scooped than the Mark series sound, the Rectifier sound is still very bold and dark.

With the possible exception of the Machete - which I haven't heard in person - Fender have never made an amp with either of those sorts of voicings, and a lot of gain. (I'm deliberately discounting the EVHIII, because in my opinion it's not really a Fender amp, in the sense you mean.)

Kebabkid

I have to admit that some of those that you mentioned I've not liked but a Princeton, Deluxe Reverb, Super, Twin, or a Vibrolux are wonderful things. Yep, they can be brighter than you might expect but set them up as Matt Schofield does where he turns each EQ knob until there's a perceivable difference and leaves it.

*For cleans, some grit and as pedal platforms, these amps are great and I'd take one over most other brands as if you're requiring both decent clean and overdriven sounds, and the amp fits the above remit*, add a pedal for the latter and you're sorted. However, if the amp possesses a naff clean sound to start with, then there's very little you can do to improve it. Maybe add a compressor but for me, anyway, that's why I like Fenders or any amp that has a decent clean sound and takes pedals really well.

As an example, I did a gig a few years back where we were playing 80s rock (Guns N' Roses, Def Leppard, Van Halen) and it was a hired backline. I chose a Twin as my amp and added a Wampler Pinnacle and a Zoom MS-70 CDR as I had both clean and overdriven parts to play. The other guitarist and others on the bill laughed at me. Well, my set up left people surprised as to how good, loud and clear it was and the Twin worked a treat. Even the other guitarists, who happened to be using Rectifiers and Marshalls, were left stroking their chins.

One of the best modern Fenders I've tried in recent years is the George Benson model. Superb cleans (better and richer than a HRD) and slightly bolder than a DRRI but it took overdrives so well. Same weight as a DRRI but with the added bonus of 40 watts on tap.

professorben

guitarfishbay said:

There was the Fender Machete.  I think someone here bought one

That sounds awesome. 

I had no idea Pierce Brosnan played. 

guitarfishbay

It's actually really hard to find decent demos of the Machete.

I think the look and name weren't quite right for the target market, plus a  50 watt 1x12 combo just doesn't sound like a metal spec choice.  But I agree that clip sounds pretty good.  It might be @paulmapp8306 that bought the Fender Machete

professorben

Duplicate

PolarityMan

octatonic said:

Clean: Fender
Dirty: Marshall.

I'm hoping in a few months it will be

Clean: Diezel
Dirty: Diezel

professorben

PolarityMan said:

octatonic said:

Clean: Fender
Dirty: Marshall.

I'm hoping in a few months it will be

Clean: Diezel
Dirty: Diezel

Now that's an amp I'd like to try. 

guitarfishbay

PolarityMan said:

octatonic said:

Clean: Fender
Dirty: Marshall.

I'm hoping in a few months it will be

Clean: Diezel
Dirty: Diezel

Which one did you order?

PolarityMan

guitarfishbay said:

PolarityMan said:

octatonic said:

Clean: Fender
Dirty: Marshall.

I'm hoping in a few months it will be

Clean: Diezel
Dirty: Diezel

Which one did you order?

VH4  \m/

guitarfishbay

Awesome.

Bucket

professorben said:

Now that's an amp I'd like to try. 

Lots of people get great sounds out of them (including Drew) but I wasn't keen on the one I tried - can't remember if it was a VH4 or a Hagen. One of the best metal amps I can remember trying is the KSR (formerly Rhodes) Colossus.

One that I would love to try is the DAR Forza Quattro, which sounds absolutely fucking enormous and looks like a spaceship, but sadly there were only about four or five made before the company went belly-up and made off with a bunch of people's deposits.



I never find Ola's demos particularly informative as every amp tends to end up sounding the same, but this one does have something about it...

ICBM

Bucket said:

Lots of people get great sounds out of them (including Drew) but I wasn't keen on the one I tried - can't remember if it was a VH4 or a Hagen.

I didn't like the Einstein I tried either - the only Diezel I have. It was too 'fast', for want of a better description - yes I know that the speed of any electrical signal is irrelevant . Presumably something about the transient response, in reality.

Bucket

ICBM said:

Bucket said:

Lots of people get great sounds out of them (including Drew) but I wasn't keen on the one I tried - can't remember if it was a VH4 or a Hagen.

I didn't like the Einstein I tried either - the only Diezel I have. It was too 'fast', for want of a better description - yes I know that the speed of any electrical signal is irrelevant . Presumably something about the transient response, in reality.

It was more the actual voicing of the lead channel - just nothing like the sound in my head, I guess.

In other news - I searched for more DAR amp clips on YouTube and found this. This was the unreleased signature model for Fredrik Thordendal from Meshuggah. Sounds like everything else Ola has ever done, but would you just bloody look at that light show on the front.



Apparently these were all hand-wired as well. That's probably why the company went belly-up - how the hell can you make a profit when that's your approach to building such a complicated amp?