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Fender 'Blues Deluxe'

B

bhass

Oct 21, 2008
355
1
England, UK
#1
The old bassman amps from Fender were designed for bass yet used by many guitarists. The Fender 'Blues Deluxe' claims to be a Bassman with reverb:
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Would a bass work through this or would it blow it up?

Thanks :smug:
 
#4
bhass said:
ahh...I'm an idiot when it comes to technologies and things like that.
Can you suggest any vintage looking & sounding amps that would play nice with bass? (That dont cost a lot!)
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The Ampeg solid state 100 watt with a 15" whatever it's called is a vintage looking amp and has a warm and deep sound that the vintage guys like. It won't play very loud compared to a lot of the newe stuff out from GK and others, but if you're not playing at insane volumes with guitarists that can't play anything but wide open it'll do well. I tried one and liked it but opted for a Yorkville Sound instead because it could be heard better for the gigs when I had to play with a loud guitarist and drummer. Truthfully, I preferred the sound of the Yorkville when in context playing with a band. The Ampeg sounded better when playing solo at home. I don't know what they cost these days in the USA but up here in Canada about 5 years ago they were about $700 Canadian. There are a few other vintage looking and sounding amps out from Ampeg and a few other companies. Depends what year of vintage you want. Some guys think anything from the 70s is vintage but I started playing bass in 1961 so that era is vintage for me. But if you want 70s and 80s vintage looks and sound, there are tons of old Peavey amps you can buy used really cheap that still work well even though they're beasts to try to carry around. The old Acoustic stuff from the late 60s and early 70s is liked by some guys. They play really loud. I used them back then but never cared for the sound.

You'll have to figure out how much power and how much in the way of speakers you need before anyone can suggest anything more specific.

The old Fender Bassman from the 50s is indeed a good rock guitar amp, but it was a terrible bass amp to actually play gigs with unless they were very quiet ones. That open backed cabinet is not suited to bass and the speakers were very primitive and not designed for bass. Leo didn't know much about bass amps then.
 
#5
newbold said:
I would suggest that you change the speaker to a BASS speaker.

Loud low frequencies would probably rip it apart.
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Being an open back cab the driver would still get ripped apart, that's why the '59 Bassman was never any good on bass. As for good vintage amps, a V4 head with a modern bass cab can work quite well.
 
#8
I've tried a '59 Bassman reissue and a Geddy jazz together. It was't loud enough to go past a coffee shop gig. Another issue I had was that I couldn't find a usable tone. The bass was sweet too. I almost walked off with it.
 
#9
Well i'm definitely more of a hobbyist than a musician. I have one bass and a bunch of pedals, I just want to be able to get a nice vintage tone. I don't need much power and I certainly don't need more volume than I can yell at.

I'm still tempted to buy this, but I want to make sure that at 'practice' volume it will still last me a long time.

Thanks for all your responses.

Edit: Now looking at the Ampeg B100R it looks cheaper and better! (but no tubes :() Although still keep the responses coming please! :)
 
#10
I had one of those amps and I can tell you you won't get much bass out of it. The 59 bassman had 4 10's or 12's in it and would not get loud this has one 12 in it and wont do much more than normal talking level before it distorts . Will it make bass you can hear yes. Will you be able to talk over it if you keep it from distorting? Yes . One thing you could do that would help it out would be to cut a piece of plywood the same size and thickness as the back pannel and replace the open panel with a closed one . It might help that poor guitar speaker not self destruct as fast but it probably will still destroy itself eventually if you push the amp at all. If you are looking for vintageish bass tone without spending a fortune try the Ampeg B100R Or B200R Both have that vintage sound and will do Bass at decent levels.
 
#11
Yada yada... The age old issue of using a guitar amp for bass comes down to these things.

How loud is loud?
How hard to you play (not the same as volume!)
What do you want to sound like?

I used a very early version of the '59 Bassman Reissue one day. It sounded great. BUT, I was playing my VS '62 P with LaBella flats, we were jamming on some Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf songs, there was no drummer, and we were playing quietly enough that we could talk in normal conversational tones OVER the volume.

Even at that volume, had I been playing with an agressive attack, or slapping/popping, it would have been too much for the unsupported speakers in that open back cabinet. And if I'd wanted a more full range sound, it wouldn't have been up to the task- no booming low notes punching through with that rig.

The point is it can work, but most people don't pay enough attention to what the speakers sound like to do it safely. But it can work. Lots of Carol Kaye's and Joe Osborn's early recordings were done with Fender Concert amps- essentially a Super Reverb without reverb. "Son Of A Preacher Man" by Dusty Springfield is Tommy Cogbill playing his P through a Twin Reverb with only one speaker (the other speaker was blown so they disconnected it). It can sound very very good.

But, I wouldn't recommend anyone BUY a '59 Bassman RI, a Blues Deville, etc. for bass. Get a real bass amp nowdays.

jte
 
#12
I used my '93 Tweed Blues Deluxe for recording and as a reasonably
light grab and go jam/rehearsal bass amp for years.

You will want to change out the stock Fender Fart Tone™ Speaker
and that requires pulling the chassis, no biggy.

With the stock speaker and normal play the speaker starts getting
distorted above 3 volume setting.

With a guitar speaker and the open back, you're not going to get
any low end fullness, but the amp has enough to cut through the
mix at reasonable rehearsal volumes.
 

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