Fender twin type PR 266 amp
hi,
is anyone using a fender type pr266 ‘evil’ twin amp for Harp?
i am having trouble setting mine up. Do I need to Chang tubes?
Thanks jjudson, that answers a few questions as to why I am struggling to get a good sound.
My other amp is a Selmer truvoice treble and bass fifty, a vintage amp made in 1964. I will look at that, otherwise it'll have to be my fender blues jnr.
Thanks again
Scorny, my experience with the Fender Blues Jr. is that it sucks as a harp amp (YMMV of course). In fact, I kind of think it sucks as a guitar amp, too. I just never liked them. But opinions are like... well, you know. The Jr.'s been a standard for a while now, and some folks are fans of them. I think David was a bit luke warm on the Jr. in his review.
I've never played a Selmer Treble-N-Bass, but I've heard really good things about them. They were a bargan brand back in the day, but like so many of those, they've risen to a classic (and an expensive one, too!). Looking at the schematic, it seems you might get some good results out of that amp. Not sure which one you have, but folks say the Mark I is the grittiest, and as the model progressed through II, III, and IV, they became less so, but still good and raunchy. I think the Normal (treble) channel comes up a bit more clean, with the Bass input channel having the most crunch (again, I'm relying on a friend who-heard-it-from-a-friend, and at least one of those friends is a loon). Of course, your speaker will have a lot to say about that, too, so cabinet selection will make a difference in what you get out.
I agree with you about the blues jar, my son currently has it with him at university (in UK). The Selmer, to be honest has The best sound of the three amps. I have a box 2x 10” cab.
The Selmer is a mk1 with croc skin
The Selmer is a mk1 with croc skin
Sweet! That's a good one!
Hilton Valentine used that on his Animals' "House of the Rising Sun" riff. VERY classic tone!
At least one of my three amps is worth keeping lol. Next up which speaker cab?
I have a Vox cab with two speakers, 12" I believe. It's not vintage and I only paid £120 for it from a guitar shop. Is it good enough for harp?
BTW I only paid £40 for the selmer in the late '80's so I picked up a real bargain there!
What are the speakers inside the Vox cab? I’ve seen Vox cabs that have all kinds of speakers in them. The newer ones have Celestion Greenbacks which get good ratings. You should be happy plugging your Selmer into that.
BTW, if your Selmer’s in good shape, that thing could be worth a few thousand dollars now. I don’t know what that comes to in funny Brexit money... :o)
Great investment though!
I've never tried that amp with a harp, but I could see it being problematic. The Twin is known for having a LOT of headroom and a very clean output. It'll take a lot of cranking to get it to break up and get gritty, and at 100 Watts, that'll be LOUD. I think the '94 or '95 model (known as the "Evil Twin") has a low-power mode that'll drop it to 25 Watts, but I still think the headroom and cleanliness will make it a challenge for harp. Swapping preamp tubes would give you lower gain, which would make the breakup even harder to achieve. I've heard of people pulling two of the 6L6 output tubes to lower the power, but I haven't seen a schematic for that amp to know for sure. If you could do that, it might help push more grit to the output without too much volume.
Twins from the '60s are GREAT amps, and a lot of big names played them. But then CBS got in there and mucked them up a bit. I haven't played the "Evil Twin", but Fender has released some Twin reissues since the early '90s that have been nice. The "Evil Twin" was in the '90s, so it probably is nice as well.