Fender Bassmans

[Ric Vice]

I think its also important to point out that the first Bassman's were a 410 combo amp, not just a head. Those are the ones guitar players used to go nuts over. As an under-speakered, open back cab, they were not very good for bass.

For sure, the open back Bassman eventually evolved into the Super Reverb with a lot of modifications. They were terrible bass amps, but until the Ampeg B-15 hit the market in 1960 that was the only game in town. It's apocryphal that modern the 4x10 bass cabinet was in part
Inspired by Leo's original 4x10 Bassman. plus a lot of innovation in speaker technology and cabinet design. Leo went back to a single 1x15 Bassman combo once Jensen developed a more robust 15" Bass musical instrument speaker. Just my take however. Probably the most important improvements in bass amp technology were the JBL D-130F, the JBL D-140F, K-140, and E-140. The Bassman tone stack didn't change much. They did continually upgrade the power section. Once the Sun 200s, SVT, and eventually the Acoustic 360/361 the Bassman was relegated to lounge bands at Holiday and Ramada inns again just my take.

 

[sunbeast]

For bass I usually run mine into a Bag End cab witha 300w. EV, love it tho' my current loud rig is a PF500 into a GK 2x12" Neo.

I definitely know alot more about dialing in a tone and have better equipment on hand than I did 20+ years ago when I had both the Bassman and HD130 around, so it may have just been a matter of cabinet experimentation to get there. I do miss my recollection of the Bassman sometimes though, maybe my favorite guitar amp that I've owned even without knowing what I was doing! And for bass it could also do some really cool things- I know the bandleader of my band at the time loved when I'd bring that for bass even as it was pretty well under-powered for that band without pushing most of the controls to 10 (loud garage-rock/Velvet Underground type group).

 

[Pearly Gator]

I own two of them. A '66 Black panel and a later 70's Bassman 100. The '66 sounds better for guitar than bass. But the Bassman 100... is amazing for bass.

 

[sunbeast]

Don't forget Traynor.

View attachment 7418961

AFAIK the YBA-3A Super Custom Special was rated 250W. Two of the YC-810 Big-B cabs were recommended. SVTs came out in 69...after the Traynors.

I shared a practice space with a guitarist in LA who used some vintage YBA head for guitar, and he let me play bass through it into my Berg NV610 whenever I felt like it. That thing cranked and really held together when pushed kinda like what HiWatts are known for. It wasn't as perceivably loud as my Mesa Prodigy (which I ran at 1/2 power most of the time), but I suspect that had to do with voicing as much as anything (the Prodigy had alot more midrange on tap, the Traynor was relatively scooped). Honestly if I were looking for a tube head to play both bass and guitar through right now it'd be an old Traynor! That guy also had a Verellen Meatsmoke amp (300 watt tube behemoth) that he used for guitar in a hardcore band= insane!

 

[micguy]

...really, AFAIK, no amps were really good for bass until the SVT came, basically. Especially for rock and for live performances. (Possibly some other stuff my side of the pond). That's why it has that reputation, really. It was the first high-powered bass amp paired with a cabinet worth its name.

The challenge before the SVT came out was that the speakers in bass amps didn't have enough excursion to do a bass justice. They are still a bit shy, on low frequency extension (even the SVT/fridge) but I digress. They were also very shy on power handling.

The SVT didn't really have any elegance in the solution to those problems. The first SVT's were not designed to work with a fridge cabinet - they were designed to work with TWO cabinets - 16 tens in all. That's what got them enough excursion and power handling to do a bass (sorta) justice. it was purely a brute force solution.

 

[Ostie]

Back in the late seventies and early eighties I played bass through a Dual Showman head into a 4x12 Sound cab. It was a big cab, probably 36" wide by 42" high by 16-18" deep. It was surprisingly loud. I never played through a Bassman so I have no comparison, but from everything I've heard or read, the Showman was superior for bass. The Bassman cabs were said to be okay for guitar, not so much for bass.

 

[flatwound62p]

I am honestly lost, can't find anything that just states if the bassman is for certain years are bass amps or guitar amps. I have been looking to get a tube amp for a while but there just seems to be nothing good/ used for me. If anyone can clear this up thank.

Well, of course, if you were of a certain age. Mine was the original "Top 40" AM station, WHB…

WHB - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Before I started listening to it in 1966, I defaulted to a station my mother would always listen to, which featured a weird mix…they had adult pop of the day, older vocalists, instrumental stuff like Bert Kaempfert and Herb Alpert, but also Roger Miller, Petula Clark and even the Byrds(but no Beatles or any Brit invaders). At night they played classic Big Band and a bit of straight ahead jazz, I found that fascinating.

Quite frankly, the Beatles didn't affect me that much, I was a bit too young to care about "teen music", but by '66 I figured I had better get with it so that the kids at school wouldn't give me grief. Good grief.

What a time to jump in, summer of '66…all that goofy Freddie and the Dreamers and Gerry and the Pacemakers stuff was gone(thankfully), in its stead was more serious sounding stuff, but more importantly it was the time of snarly, snotty, primitve garage rock, that's what would inform my later tastes. Plus, it was on the cusp of psychedelia. The Byrds had contributed with "8 Miles High", and the Yardbirds with "Shapes Of Things", but I had just missed that. However, I caught their exotic "Over Under Sideways Down", and then the way ahead of its time "Happenings Ten Years Time Ago", that was a mindblower, proto-psych and proto-metal. The Beatles were getting more hazy with "Rain", the Stones more sarcastic with "Have You Seen Your Mother", and so on.

In the next year, there was the onslaught of out there stuff, but then I kept reading/hearing about cool bands that the station would never play. I discovered freeform underground FM in the spring of '68, and I was done with AM, except later on when there was KAAY from Little Rock(which could be heard all over the midwest)who would play freakier tracks later at night, a relief if you were in a car that

I am honestly lost, can't find anything that just states if the bassman is for certain years are bass amps or guitar amps. I have been looking to get a tube amp for a while but there just seems to be nothing good/ used for me. If anyone can clear this up thank.

What are you looking to do with a tube amp?

You will get plenty of help around here if you can supply a few details like where you want to use it (stage, bedroom etc) style of music (classic rock, punk etc) and what you may already have in the way of speaker options.

 

[Hurricane Jimmie]

So Anyway, my first amp in the early 70's was a blackface Fender Bassman, 50 watts with a 2x12 cab. It would have been a good amp for a small country combo. I quickly outgrew it when I joined a loud rock band.
There were several guitar friends interested in it as a guitar amp, and I think something similar happened with Ampeg Fliptops.

The bass world had moved on.

 

[Paul New]

I used a Bassman reissue combo to amplify my double bass for a while back in the 90s. I did not buy the anp for bass, and know they're not supposed to work very well for it, but I've yet to find a better amplified upright sound. Wish I still had it.

They are killer harp amps after some simple revisions.

 

[blastoff]

pulled my 66 out the other night at band practice. very over- driven and not quite loud enough with a drummer, but sounded amazing!! i was only using 8 ohm bf 1x12". with two @ 4 ohms it probably would hang pretty well, but i doubt it would be very clean still. after a couple songs i went back to my orange tb500.
much better

 

[walterw]

I used a Bassman reissue combo to amplify my double bass for a while back in the 90s. I did not buy the anp for bass, and know they're not supposed to work very well for it, but I've yet to find a better amplified upright sound.

as i understand it that's what they were made for!

you plugged your '53 P-bass with its flatwounds into your hot new '59 bassman combo, put your fingers on the tug bar, plucked it with your thumb and basically recreated the volume and tone of an upright bass

@Jmeister13 nostalgia is a helluva drug but if you want clean, deep bass at anything above acoustic jazz combo volume then an old tube bassman is not for you

 

[djaxup]

I play a silverface 100 from 1977 through a fitting 215 Fender cab. It is plenty loud and sounds really nice. With the bridged sections it is powerful enough for everything I do. No stadium gigs or even larger open airs, so no idea how it would work in those settings.

 

[Bill the Cat]

Bassman hence the name for Bass. P bass 51
1952 Fender bassman little forgotten its seems. Sealed back and ported with 15" Jenson TV front style Cab. The Wide and Narrow style 4x10 came in 54
1954 was the 5D6 bassman with " Dual Rectifiers" for the 40 watt amplifier A new technology at the time was 9 pin dual triodes, and Fender used the new tech. Different Designer than the 1952 bassman. The approach was 4x10 speakers
9 pin tubes a big deal, space saving and lower noise and 2 triodes in one package. Also a center tapped heater so could work as a 12 series or 6 series tube for heater voltage.
Guess everybody forgot they were doing 1x15 ported and sealed 2x12 to do this new electric bass thing.
They switched to high power JBLs soon as the tech was available, much like switching to 9 pin triodes as soon as they came out.
Acoustic also predated the SVT the Cerwin Vega Cast frame 18" had a 9.5mm gap depth and 25 mm coil depth for 7.5mm of Xmax.
Fenders early solid state had FET preamp and a 3x12 cabinet. For modern use there is numerous 100 watt tubers from the 70's onward. Dont forget the 400PS with 3 power sections for 435 watts total tube power, Which required 3 cabinets also 18" Cerwin Vega with 7.5mm Xmax you be doing fine for SPL even today

 

[Benji bassman]

I have a silverface bassman 100 and a red knob dual showman (heads) I use for bass (I use regular bass cabs with them and not the matching fender cabs). I think they sound great, but they are incredibly heavy! They are wide too, so getting a bass cab they fit on isn't always so easy. I have a friend who plays a P through an old blackface bassman, and I think it sounds great too.

 

[frankie5string]

The challenge before the SVT came out was that the speakers in bass amps didn't have enough excursion to do a bass justice. They are still a bit shy, on low frequency extension (even the SVT/fridge) but I digress. They were also very shy on power handling.

The SVT didn't really have any elegance in the solution to those problems. The first SVT's were not designed to work with a fridge cabinet - they were designed to work with TWO cabinets - 16 tens in all. That's what got them enough excursion and power handling to do a bass (sorta) justice. it was purely a brute force solution.

Which explains why some PA providers had little side-hustles putting together bass-guitar rigs. Lee Sklar had a hilariously huge rig with bins and baffles, and multiple solid-state power amp to drive it all. Mo Foster did, too (for early Phil Collins tours)... and Entwistle was basically playing a PA rig with custom preamps for years. All tuned for bass guitar. Gas/cartage was cheaper back then.

Meyer Sound still does custom small rigs for musicians that want that sort of thing.

 

[JC BASS 91]

I have a late '74/early '75 Bassman 50 with a matching 2x15" cabinet. It works well for both bass and "guitar" (I have a split channel board that kicks up an octave, adds a 5th above that for a guitarish power chord kinda deal, ala Royal Blood). I do find that jumping the two channels is the best way to utilize it for bass, but will say that my '74 Ric 4001 absolutely shines through that amp, especially with the channels jumped.

 

[MadJack]

Last year I built an AA864, a 50 watt late '64 Blackface Bassman. I primarily use it with my Rumble 115 & 210 (V3) cabs. Big, beautiful, Fender bass sound. You can tell where the Rumble sound originated from, but in a purer, tube-ier way.

I also have a Rumble 200 V3 head. The Bassman with both cabs comes across about as loud as the R200h with just the 115 (140 watts @ 8Ω), but with a bit more compression and a slight bit of drive. (My sound is that edge of breakup for most of what I like to primarily play.) I could use the Bassman in small/intimate gigs. Sits well with guitar amps up to 15, maybe 20 watts, clean, and a drummer who can pad themselves well. Would I want to run this setup regularly? No, it's too bulky and heavy for such arrangements, when I could get a very similar sound and more volume from the much more portable R200h.

The Bassman with guitar, through guitar cabs is LOUD. If you're after big clean guitar, then this amp will do it. It will overdrive too, but it gets too painful in my house.

 

[2saddleslab]

Bassman hence the name for Bass. P bass 51
1952 Fender bassman little forgotten its seems. Sealed back and ported with 15" Jenson TV front style Cab. The Wide and Narrow style 4x10 came in 54
1954 was the 5D6 bassman with " Dual Rectifiers" for the 40 watt amplifier A new technology at the time was 9 pin dual triodes, and Fender used the new tech. Different Designer than the 1952 bassman. The approach was 4x10 speakers
9 pin tubes a big deal, space saving and lower noise and 2 triodes in one package. Also a center tapped heater so could work as a 12 series or 6 series tube for heater voltage.
Guess everybody forgot they were doing 1x15 ported and sealed 2x12 to do this new electric bass thing.
They switched to high power JBLs soon as the tech was available, much like switching to 9 pin triodes as soon as they came out.
Acoustic also predated the SVT the Cerwin Vega Cast frame 18" had a 9.5mm gap depth and 25 mm coil depth for 7.5mm of Xmax.
Fenders early solid state had FET preamp and a 3x12 cabinet. For modern use there is numerous 100 watt tubers from the 70's onward. Dont forget the 400PS with 3 power sections for 435 watts total tube power, Which required 3 cabinets also 18" Cerwin Vega with 7.5mm Xmax you be doing fine for SPL even today

My '52 Bassman, recovered by Sam Hutton, who worked in the Fender cabinet shop.