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Fender Bassman Ten

PostPosted: Mon Jan 11, 2010 1:24 am
by Starfish Scott
If you know what this is, would you mind telling me about it?

We have locally and if I had known, I might have spurned the Fender Concert in favor of this 1970 Fender Bassman Ten.

Thanks for sharing..

PostPosted: Fri Jan 22, 2010 8:23 pm
by Starfish Scott
BUMP.

I didn't like the fender concert.

It sounded too bright and clean once I stuck my pedals on it.

I sold the sucker for a quick 1200$. Easiest sale I ever had.
Don't buy them even for 400$. They are good for jazz and that's about it.

NOW, I just bought a 1970 Fender Bassman Ten, silverface.
It's a 50-60 watt rms, 4x10" speakers. I paid 400$. Worth it at that price, I say.

After playing it thoroughly, I like the master volume on it and the tone is unbelievable, def better than that fender concert.

Problem is it has no reverb or trem/vibrato.

I took it to a guy in Edison that works on some very high end musical equipment for some really high brow types in NJ. He states that I could do something called a "blackface mod" to it.

I have no idea what that entails and he wasn't very forthcoming.

Anyone know what a BLACKFACE mod is>?

He also goes further to state that he can put a reverb tank in it, so it has reverb and is also willing to do a similar mod to give it vibrato or trem.

I get the feeling like maybe this is too much of a mod>?

Anyone know of something similar and how it came out?

Opinions? Criticism ? Conjecture?

Gimme-Gimme...

Thank you!

PostPosted: Sun Jan 24, 2010 5:59 pm
by Starfish Scott
Oh someone told me that his reverb and vibrato MODs are meant to emulate a Fender Super Reverb!

Ok, let me rephrase..

"Does anyone know anything about the on-board Reverb and/or Vibrato worth on a '70s Fender Super Reverb"?

Is that tone worthwhile or do you get better results via stomp box?

I think he's going to add a reverb tank AND 12ax7's >?

PostPosted: Sun Feb 14, 2010 10:10 pm
by Mephistokid
Blackface amps are amps ( made mid 60's to about eartly 70's) that a lot of guitar & amp guys consider to be Fender's golden era. When CBS bought Fender in 67/68 (i think) they started to change some of the components inside of the amps. Later they changed the faceplates from Black to Silver. As the years went on the components got cheaper because the new owners @ Fender were greedy.

Anyway, the Blackface mods are generally thought of as upgrades to Silverfaces but it does make the sound warmer; meaning @ higher volumes on the amp it will distort break up. Non-Master volume Silverfaces are usually cheaper to modify cause they don't really have to do that much to modify it to "Blackface." Silverfaces w/ master vol. may be a little more expensive depending on the components of the amp (some because they have to change the transformers & whatever, very expensive).

With the mod, it is noticeable as yer amp does sound more musical ( I had mine Blackfaced also) and the clean is a little better (only my opinion) but it does beak up at a lower volume ( breaks up @ about 6 but before the modification it was @ about 8 half.) So it depends on what yer looking for. I hope this helps a little....

PostPosted: Wed Feb 17, 2010 3:30 pm
by Starfish Scott
Yep. Thanks a bunch!

PostPosted: Sat Feb 27, 2010 7:00 am
by 335 Guy
Mephistokid wrote:Blackface amps are amps ( made mid 60's to about eartly 70's) that a lot of guitar & amp guys consider to be Fender's golden era. When CBS bought Fender in 67/68 (i think) they started to change some of the components inside of the amps. Later they changed the faceplates from Black to Silver. As the years went on the components got cheaper because the new owners @ Fender were greedy.

Anyway, the Blackface mods are generally thought of as upgrades to Silverfaces but it does make the sound warmer; meaning @ higher volumes on the amp it will distort break up. Non-Master volume Silverfaces are usually cheaper to modify cause they don't really have to do that much to modify it to "Blackface." Silverfaces w/ master vol. may be a little more expensive depending on the components of the amp (some because they have to change the transformers & whatever, very expensive).

With the mod, it is noticeable as yer amp does sound more musical ( I had mine Blackfaced also) and the clean is a little better (only my opinion) but it does beak up at a lower volume ( breaks up @ about 6 but before the modification it was @ about 8 half.) So it depends on what yer looking for. I hope this helps a little....


Well, some of this is sorta true. CBS actually purchased Fender Electric Instruments in late 1964 ( the last year Fender was called Fender Electric Instruments ). The following year, 1965, it was called Fender Musical Instruments. However, CBS did not initiate immediate design changes as first, they wanted to use existing inventory and they had to have time to redesign the amps. So Fender Blackface amps are all pretty much the same from 1964 till 1967. Some models were dropped and very minor cosmetic changes made but no circuit changes. 1968 was the first of the "silverfaced" Fender amps that contained some of CBS's design changes. Most notably was the switch from cloth covered wire to plastic ( pvc ) covered wire. Plus, less care in routing the wiring caused some hum in the circuits. To rectify this, CBS added some resistors and changed the values of some components. By the end of 1969, amp owners were complaining about the way these early "silverfaced" amps sounded. So CBS made even more changes to try to get back that earlier sound. But it didn't happen. They kept changing the circuitry and components, so different years of the same amp can sound considerably different.

When "blackfacing" a silverfaced Fender amp, it depends on the model and year. Later years, like 1978, and high powered amps, like the Twin Reverb, are not good candidates for blackfacing, because regardless of what is done, the transformers used then were so completely different, as were the circuits.

Now, your Bassman 10 could not be a 1970 as Fender did not start making them till 1972. The circuit is closer to a Fender Bassman head circuit ( of which there are 5 in the silverface years ) than it would be to a Super Reverb. If you like the sound of this amp as it is now and want to keep it, I would not modify it to add reverb or tremelo. That would be cost prohibitive and probably not get you what you're looking for. You would be better off buying good pedals to get those sounds. I have a Lexicon Reverb in a Hardwire pedal that sound very nice. THe best thing you can do for the amp is to make sure all the caps ( capacitors ) are working well ( they wear out over time ), it is properly biased with good tubes and everything works as well as it should. Pots cleaned, caps changed, tubes checked and biased. Then find a good Reverb Pedal and you're set.

If you MUST have the Fender spring reverb, then you can either buy a separate Fender spring reverb unit, or sell the amp and buy a Super Reverb Amp.