Attenuator on a Fender Champ (70's siilver face 8w)

[wmalan]

Long shot question but... Anyone here used an attenuator on an older Fender Champ for recording? I've Googled a bit but not found a good referral or test.

 

[miroslav]

No reason why you couldn't...though I'm curious why you would need to, considering they are low wattage and break up pretty easily...?

Just try it...you don't need to get any input from anyone before you do.

 

[Deleted member 196982]

A clothes closet with a closed door makes a pretty good "attenuator" for a Fender Champ.

 

[RFR]

Long shot question but... Anyone here used an attenuator on an older Fender Champ for recording? I've Googled a bit but not found a good referral or test.

Why? It's not like its that loud. . I've recorded a bunch of stuff with a silverface vibrochamp. 7 is the sweet spot on mine. Any louder that sweet sustainy distortion turns a bit mushy. It sounds ok in the room but recorded, it's a bit too spongy.
At least with humbuckers.

Once I had a master volume installed in a champ. Haha! that was a waste. Part of the magic of the small tube amps is how easily you can overdrive the power amp section.

I've played played with attenuators on different amps and never really dug the sound. But that's just me.


So on your champ, just crank that baby up
And if it's too loud, do the closet trick as mentioned earlier.

 

[wmalan]

Thanks all for the suggestions. My first thought of using an attenuater was that even an 8 watt can be loud relative to my poor little home studio. It seems that at 10:00pm, The Champ at 7 does put out some volume. I don't currently have an attenuator so thought I'd hear from other users.The closet idea might be my best bet it seems. I'll try it out!

 

[RFR]

Ya wanna have some fun? Build an iso box. Put in a 8 or 10 inch weber. Unplug the internal spkr on the champ, and plug in the iso. Have the chp sitting right next to you, while the box is a distance away. Jam away hearing only what is being recorded via your monitors.
There's plenty of youtube videos on building isolation boxes.

 

[bluesfordan]

the difference between a silverface champ and say a non-master volume '67 plexi is you can hear the champ through my closed windows and you can hear the plexi through your closed windows. So I've been told by my neighbors. When I asked why didn't you tell me, they said that I had gotten much better and I sounded pretty good.

I had some great neighbors, I miss them very much. RIP Joan and Dave.

On the topic of attenuation, I tried a THD Hotplate on my '73 Princeton Reverb. It didn't sound very good. It worked much better on my JTM 45 and JMP 50. I think they're meant for larger amps and lower wattage amps don't put out enough juice to make them work well.

 

[Meclazine]

Ya wanna have some fun? Build an iso box. Put in a 8 or 10 inch weber. Unplug the internal spkr on the champ, and plug in the iso. Have the chp sitting right next to you, while the box is a distance away. Jam away hearing only what is being recorded via your monitors.
There's plenty of youtube videos on building isolation boxes.

I bought a 79 Vibro Champ, and the guy I bought it off had an ISO box. It sounded so good.

As for the attenuator, you wont need one with a 70's champ. A Marshall JMP-50 reissue, but it would be a waste of money on a Champ.