Fender Tweed Champ clone - audio clips

  • Thread starter Thread starter famous beagle
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famous beagle

famous beagle

Well-known member
I built this amp (a kit from Weber) about 6 years ago. It worked well when I first built it, but I wanted to clean up the wiring a bit (small chassis, and it was a real mess). When I did that, I screwed something up, because it wouldn't power on after that. I had other amps, and life happened, and I never got around to fixing it.

Fast forward 6 years, and I finally fixed it. So here are some clips in case anyone's wondering what these sound like. A few details:

1. This amp probably has about 30 hours of use. So it's not brand new, but it's probably not truly broken in yet.
2. I miked the amp with an SM57 a few inches from the grill near to the cone (but not aimed right at it).
3. The spring reverb is from my Biamp MR140 rackmount unit.
4. For those that don't know, this amp (and the one on which it's based), is as simple as it gets. You get a volume knob and that's it. It has an 8-inch Weber speaker.
5. Signal chain: SM57 ---> SCA N72 mic preamp ---> Tascam US-1800 interface ---> Reaper. (Reverb was added after the fact via hardware send.)
6. No EQ or other effects were applied.

The Tele is a Mexican standard, but it has a P90 (can't remember which one) in the neck and a Wilde (Bill Lawrence) single coil in the bridge.
The Hagstrom Swede is stock with two Hagstrom humbuckers.

I'm wondering is something is up with the amp still, because, although it sounds fine at low volumes, on the clips where it's dimed, there seems to be a bit of an odd compression/pumping thing happening. It wasn't really noticeable in the room, but I notice it on the track.

Anyway, enjoy.
 

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Hey man,
There's some great tones in there! Thanks for doing a full set of clips like that.
I listened before I read your post and, yeah, I was thinking something's off, mostly on Swede bridge and tele bridge @ 12, when you're going for it.

Initially I was just going to ask if you clipped your converters or something.
It could just be the small speaker thing, but you reckon it sounded fine in the room?
 
Steenamaroo said:
Hey man,
There's some great tones in there! Thanks for doing a full set of clips like that.
I listened before I read your post and, yeah, I was thinking something's off, mostly on Swede bridge and tele bridge @ 12, when you're going for it.

Initially I was just going to ask if you clipped your converters or something.
It could just be the small speaker thing, but you reckon it sounded fine in the room?
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm really not sure. I think it sounded ok in the room. It was really loud, so it was hard to hear subtleties.

And I don't think I clipped my converters, but I couldn't be in the same room while I was recording because the amp was in the living room. I had to record and then come back and check the levels. I did that a few times at first to set the level. And I did turn down the pre gain as I turned up the amp. But I'm not 100% sure. I know that the levels looked ok on the track once they were recorded. I don't think they peaked higher than -10db or so.

Anyway .. I might mess around and see if I can pinpoint exactly what's going on. I can't hear anything wrong on the clips with the amp at 8. So I'll try to see if I can identify exactly when the issue shows up. And this time I'll bring the amp closer to my control room so I can watch the levels as I'm recording.
 
Cool man.
Great work, either way. Glad you got that little amp up and running. :)
 
I just hit the p90 and felt that was just the small speaker. Which weber speaker did you get ? I went with the cvc8 in a 6v6 push-pull.
 
garww said:
I just hit the p90 and felt that was just the small speaker. Which weber speaker did you get ? I went with the cvc8 in a 6v6 push-pull.
Click to expand...

I don't think the issue is audible on any of the three p90 clips.
 
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