The Steel Guitar Forum

I often play my steel at church, so I leave some equipment there so I don't have to lug it back and forth from home.

I usually use my 100 watt Fender SS amp with 15" JBL for lap and pedal steel. But today The other guitarist had left his FDR Blackface Reissue amp set up on stage. I decided to give it a try...
AND WOW.
The bright clean Spring reverb "Fendery" sound was just beautiful!

When I pushed it a little with my volume pedal, it warmed up so sweetly, not really breaking up but sort of a compressed sound.

The amp is only 22 watts I think... but it was more than enough to fill the sanctuary with sound and keep up with the worship band.

I have sold all my tube amps, because I don't want to mess with servicing them (replacing tubes etc. with age and damage when traveling to gigs)

But it sounded so nice it started me thinking about re-considering a mid size tube amp again.

Dom

You're right about the Delux Verb sound, it's one of the best. It may need to be mic'd for a larger venue but at some point you could have probs hearing it over the rest of the musicians. Twin Reverb is the only thing that comes close tone wise but is much heavier.

I agree. I've had one of these for a few years. I dug thru my 6V6 box and found a fairly balanced set, set the bias and put in a Weber Californian speaker.
Once I got the bias in a safe range, I ran it up and down a tiny bit and there was definitely a sweet spot where I liked it the best.
It's my only tube amp, and I keep a little shelf of stuff just for this amp. Haven't had to use them, though.
A cheap tube tester, a bias harness, an RCA tube manual and a small box of spare tubes.
I'm not sure I needed to change the speaker, as the Jensen reissue I took out sounded awfully nice. I wanted the extra couple of db that the Weber offered for headroom.

I've been fairly gentle with it, but no reliability problems. The only issue was my fault, when it fell over on its back and the 5AR4 rectifier got microphonic.

Nice and portable, too.

Dom Franco wrote:I often play my steel at church, so I leave some equipment there so I don't have to lug it back and forth from home.

I usually use my 100 watt Fender SS amp with 15" JBL for lap and pedal steel. But today The other guitarist had left his FDR Blackface Reissue amp set up on stage. I decided to give it a try...
AND WOW.
The bright clean Spring reverb "Fendery" sound was just beautiful!

When I pushed it a little with my volume pedal, it warmed up so sweetly, not really breaking up but sort of a compressed sound.

The amp is only 22 watts I think... but it was more than enough to fill the sanctuary with sound and keep up with the worship band.

I have sold all my tube amps, because I don't want to mess with servicing them (replacing tubes etc. with age and damage when traveling to gigs)

But it sounded so nice it started me thinking about re-considering a mid size tube amp again.

Dom

I love my Blackface Deluxe re-issue for guitar.
If you get one, I would suggest changing the tubes ASAP.

I put JJ's in mine. I got them from Eurotubes.

I went through a 'compact rig' phase (mb200, cubes) sold a 70's session 400, and ended up very happy with the deluxe reissue. A little more power at that weight would be ideal, bringing us into Milkman territory (someday). In the ballpark 50 gigs I've had with it, I've only wanted more power once.