fender bassman

Refining a Traditional
Back round 1983, a harp-player pal had simply bought an early tweed Bassman combo, the sort with an open again cab housing a 15" speaker. Proud of his new toy, he urged me to plug in my bass throughout a jam session at his house-I refused. Granted, these early Bassman amps are splendid for gritty harp sounds and sprawling blues guitar tones. But for bass? At greatest, I used to be anticipating some bass farts and possibly a blown speaker when put up against a drummer. Time shift to late2009. Fender has once once more give you a tweed Bassman combo wrapped round a 15" speaker, but this time it’s a whole new animal: a rig that encompasses the guts and soul of my good friend’s old amp but adds a brand new configuration that actually works for bass.

Reviving a Ghost of the Past
The Bassman TV Fifteen’s spirit comes from a ’50s Bassman tone stack (proper down to the 12AX7 tube), a warm Celestion 15" bass speaker (no tweeter!) and tweed cosmetics. Sure, a TV front-style amp of this dimension (25" x 24") starts to look like one thing from Toontown, but from a number of ft back, the effect actually works. Complementing the vintage trappings are a couple of modern essentials. First, there’s the ability amp. Reasonably than the original’s wimpy-for-bass forty watts, the TV Fifteen sneaks a 350-watt Class D power amp contained in the cab. Class D amps are sweeping the bass world these days, providing lightweight power that sounds good, too. No, that doesn’t make this combo into a feather-mild rig, but the energy part does provide loads of juice whereas taking over a minimum of cabinet space. The TV Fifteen actually weighs a hair below 60 kilos-it can be carried by its single rubber dogbone handle-however Fender additionally incorporated pop-out casters for easy shifting, at the very least till you get to some stairs.

The second trendy essential is the cabinet design. At an off-the-cuff glance, the cab may look a bit insubstantial-the tweed back is simply about 3/8" thick-but that’s only a façade. Remove the backboard and also you’ll discover a trendy tube-ported cab (surprisingly, while the back board sports two spherical vent holes, one is just for seems to be). Inside the cab you’ll find some stout bracing and, not like the unique, the cab really does its job of providing full, stable bass. A purist might pause and dismiss the TV Fifteen as a nasty imposter of the original. Certain, if you'd like an all-tube amp part and an open-again speaker cab, it’s not there. However this mix of tube entrance finish, solid-state power section and ported cab actually does the trick, successfully blending the brand new with the old.

A TV Check Sample
To try out the TV Fifteen, I began with my ’seventy four sunburst Jazz Bass strung with mediumlight Fender flatwound strings. The Jazz is a relatively low-acquire axe, one where you need to push an amp’s preamp volume. Here’s where understanding the preamp of the TV Fifteen pays off. On a contemporary amp, tone controls are Cut/Enhance, with a setting of straight-up noon representing the middle point. But the TV Fifteen has the passive ’50s Fender tone stack, where Bass and Treble controls are increase-solely and the midrange is minimize-only. For a flat EQ, put the Bass and Treble rooster heads at about 3 and the Middle all the way in which as much as the full 12. Keep in mind that with the tweeterless cab the excessive end is not going to actually be full range at this setting, since the 15" speaker starts to roll off by about 2kHz. But this setting makes for a round, pleasing classic tone with a clean, properly-defined attack-an acquired style to modern ears, but one that works quite well in quite a lot of rootsier settings.

The gain sections of the TV Fifteen additionally depart from what you’re in all probability used to. With a modern amp, the goal of setting your volume stage is to steadiness gain stages: set the input gain to only under where a clip mild begins to flash after which adjust the grasp for the amount you’re after-cranking the Grasp Quantity provides hiss to your sound, so that someplace around plus/minus noon turns into a typical quantity setting. With the TV Fifteen, though, the Master Volume control cuts relatively than boosts the sound; the Master Volume may be left full-on without introducing hiss, while the Achieve management adjusts your total sound level.

How does this translate into actual playing?
I took the TV Fifteen and my Jazz Bass to a blues jam (two guitars and drums) in a dry sounding studio. I set the amp’s tone controls flat (3-12-three), with the master quantity on 12 and the enter degree around 7. Even in a room that inhaled bass, I acquired a delightful vintage sound, not overly deep or vivid, however with a stable punch and plenty of quantity that labored its manner into the general combine and sync’d up tightly with the kick drum. Counter to what I anticipated, this single-15" cab was not the slightest bit flabby and didn’t give a touch of struggling to keep up. Certain, neither guitarist was taking part in full out, but our volume degree wasn’t meek, either. For larger venues, the built-in DI (with ground elevate) will make this rig more versatile yet.

Make My TV Widescreen
To check the amp additional, I plugged in my lively G&L L-2500 five-string. Due to its hot signal, I turned down the enter stage a bit and then punched in the bass increase and treble boost. Positive, with no tweeter the TV Fifteen doesn’t have a contemporary, hello-fi chew to its sound, however there’s nonetheless plenty of edge that should please the occasional slap-and-pop player or funkster. Just for grins I went the other course, too, plugging in my Azola BugBass electric upright. With the amp’s warmth and punch, it was once once more a sonic success.

Downsides?
Nicely, the amp is a bit cumbersome to haul round, but no extra so than a typical 4x10 cab (other than no facet handles). The tone stack is ample, but even with the deep and brilliant buttons there’s solely so much variation it could possibly coax out of a 15" speaker. Despite the tube entrance finish, a passive bass won’t drive the preamp into distortion. And in the event you’re on the lookout for a excessive-quantity rig, this isn’t it-there’s no method to plug in an extension cab to move more air.