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Fender Bassman 135....Im in love

primusfan1989

primusfan1989

Jan 17, 2005
1,273
1,651
new jersey
#1
Just when I thought I was over GAS, I played through a Bassman 135 from the 70s going into an ampeg svt 1x15 (loaded with a kappa lite I believe). Im just totally knocked out by the tone this amp made. I like it more than any new piece of gear I've encountered in the past 10yrs. IDK what it is about the fender tone stack I love so much (also own a late 70s Studiobass and a bandmaster reverb from early 70s) but y'all can keep these class d miniature PA system bass rigs. I need a Bassman 135 in my life. Anyone else out there still rocking these dinosaurs?
 
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#2
You wanna have some fun???

Find yourself a Fender PA100 or PA135.

They are 4 channel amps built around a similar circuit. Here's where it gets cool. You can mod the input resistor to increase gain on the different channels. You can also use a short cable to jump from one channel to the other to "stack" gain stages. I have a PA100 with 4 different values for the input resistor... each one hotter than the last.

They can be found for CHEAP too. They aren't as "sexy" as the Bassman to most people. So you can get them for peanuts.

Just about the best tone I ever heard from myself was my PA100 running into an old Bassan 215 cab.... P bass of course.

I'm shopping one of those cabs to match with mine for my jam room now.
 
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#3
Haven’t rocked a Fender 135 for over 30 years. It was my first real bass rig coupled with a gargantuan Fender 4x12 with angled speaker enclosure. The cab was too unwieldy to be practical so sold the 4x12 and bought 2 2x12 Bassman cabs. Much easier to transport and made me a 2x12 fan for life.

Can’t remember how the 135 sounded but would love to try it again to compare after all these years.

Congrats and enjoy that classic!
Fender Bassman 350 _1024.jpg
 
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#5
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#9
We've been using 135's on the road for 15-16 years or so,on n off
I like having amps on the road that I can work on fairly easy...the 135 is IT

MY observation, if you change the CBS balance control to a bias control , you manage to get just a little more juice out of it . I was able to A/B two 135s ,before n after . The "after" one sounded just as fat as the B4 amp .....after the change

We've used it with a variety of cabs ,including an old 2x12 bassman cab that I re-baffled into a 6x10 ( I know sh*t about cabinet design,but it worked great )

135.jpg


135005.jpg


Bassman%20135s_zpss65eljff.jpg


Sounded great,Stonehengin' , with SP-212's !

H%20burg%20bass%20rig_zpsiuu2su8m.jpg
 
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#16
Well darn

Go figure

A quad of 6L6 and a decent 15" speaker sounds good. Sweeeet :)

But nah ...
I really really think this lap top power supply and this tiny amp into some tiny 8" drivers sounds greaaaaaaat
 

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