New Amp Day!!! 77' Silverface Fender Champ

LC7rock · 09-10-2011, 06:50 PM

My bro just bought this for me as gift. He walked in a music store and they had just bought the thing that morning, got it for $200 and I gotta say it's a pretty great little 6 watt. Though we looked in the back and the speaker has been replaced to something much bigger than the stock 8 inch (though the speaker looks like it's had some age to it too). It's got a beautiful clean tone and an insane crunchy rhythm sound at about 5. Anywhere above 5 it's all crazy gain. Not the best for leads, but it sounds awesome for rhythm guitars. I've never used a blackface so I can't compare the two, but I do hear that the Champ suffered minimal changes when CBS bought out Fender.

Anybody else have any experience with these?

**Rainer.** · 09-10-2011, 07:51 PM

Well, there's really not much to change on a Champ. Super simple circuit, if you ever want to open it up.

I have a mid-70's Silverface Champ, too. Sitting right here next to me, in fact.

Almost Enough · 09-10-2011, 11:59 PM

Those are cool little amps. I remember LOVING the clean tones on it, and the dirt was pretty good, too. However, I was using it out of necessity while playing with a drummer. Does not compete. At all.

LC7rock · 09-11-2011, 02:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rainer.

Well, there's really not much to change on a Champ. Super simple circuit, if you ever want to open it up.

I have a mid-70's Silverface Champ, too. Sitting right here next to me, in fact.

It's as basic as you can get.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Almost Enough

Those are cool little amps. I remember LOVING the clean tones on it, and the dirt was pretty good, too. However, I was using it out of necessity while playing with a drummer. Does not compete. At all.

Yeah, drummers blow it away, but I was surprised how loud it can get.

I've found it's super responsive to pickup outputs. My 14k Alnico V's make it break up at about 3, and your typical vintage PAF (7-8k) breaks up at about 5, but singles and my Danelectro take till 7-8 to get any sort of gain. lol

I might post some pics of the speaker, cause I have no idea what it's from. It's a 10 inch, I'm sure of that, but the originals were 8's and there are signs of where the old holes were.

Stratopastor · 09-12-2011, 11:09 AM

Fender. The mothership calls.

Plexi8759 · 09-18-2011, 11:00 PM

Nice amp! And awesome bro!!! 5 watts is still quite loud ... I'd find another and set one for clean and one for dirty with an a/b/y and then mic em independently. You'd probably be surprised by the y. Also I'd grab a boost to drive the preamp for lead tones. I think Jeff Beck recorded his last record with a couple of champs.