trinityamps.com

On the product page, I see this description of at least the Tweed mode of the Tramp.

"In Tweed mode, it's heritage is 3Fx series Tweed Princeton or Champ, with the additional benefit of Treble-Bass tone controls."

I have no idea what that means. What is 3Fx series?

As far as I know, Wide Panel Champs were 5C1 and then 5D1. These were followed by 5E1 and 5F1 Champs before the Blackface era took over.
Similarly, Wide Panel Princetons were 5B2, 5C2 and then 5D2. They were followed by the Narrow Panel 5E2, 5F2 and and 5F2-A (whatever that is) before Blackface.

The F makes me think late Narrow Panel, but I guess the 3 is the confusing part. Am I missing something obvious?

I suppose the Narrow Panel Princetons did have a volume and tone control. So treble and Bass on top of that, plus all the other goodies, sounds great.

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bumpity bump

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Not sure exactly but I'd say look at early Tweed schematics with 12AX7s (not octals or 12AY7s). These circuits are similar to the Tramp in Tweed mode with similar topology and components.

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OK. Thanks. I checked the Fender Amp Field Guide online and found this.


5C1 & 5D1: Wide Panel Tweed Champ, 1953-1955
- 6SJ7 Preamp Tube
- 6V6GT Power Tube

5E1 & 5F1: Narrow Panel Tweed Champ, 1955-1964
- 12AX7 Preamp Tube
- 6V6GT Power Tube

I guess as far as Champs go, you've answered my question!



5B2, 5C2 & 5D2: Wide Panel Tweed Princeton, 1953-1955
- 6SJ7 Preamp Tube for 5B2 & 5C2
- 12AX7 Preamp Tube for 5D2
- 6V6 (metal envelope) for 5B2 & 5C2
- 6V6GT Power Tube for 5D2

5E1 & 5F1: Narrow Panel Tweed Princeton, 1955-1960
- 12AX7 Preamp Tube
- 6V6GT Power Tube

I hadn't realized that the Princetons had different tubes for separate "halves" of the Wide Panel run. Based on the Trinity site, I'm guessing that the late Narrow Panel run are what they meant. They have those "F" designations. I'm also guessing that the F in the "3Fx series" description signifies the F in those late Narrow Panel Tweeds. I suppose the 3 was a typo and Trinity should've said "5Fx series". Makes perfect sense now.

So basically, a Tweed Princeton type amp with a bigger power tube and a Treble/Bass set instead of simple Tone control is pretty darn cool on the Tweed mode. The solid state rectifier is another departure, but that makes great sense given the idea of the bigger power tube and the 'Tude mode.

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Single ended (Class A) amps are basically constant current source devices, the output tube is operating full out 100% of the time. This is unlike a push pull amp where the tubes sit at idle until you start playing. Also notice how we bias single ended amps at 100% plate dissipation or more while push pull amps we bias to around 70%.

Because of this there is no different between having a tube rectifier or solid state rectifier in a single ended Class A design. You will not experience sag, brown out or the other benefits of a tube recto in a single ended (Tramp) design.

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Thanks. Good to know!

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I've never owned any sort of Tweed style amp in my life. Oddly enough, I've often tried out guitars in stores into various flavors of Tweed circuits and have always liked the tone. This includes obvious choices like the Fender Bassman Reissue. But I've also liked the way guitars sound into amps like the Custom Vibrolux Reissue (which I'm told is Tweed-like, despite the modern Blackface cosmetics) and the Pro Junior.

Guitars just sound very good into those kind of amps. To me anyway. But here I sit with 30 years' worth of tube amps and pretty much one at most has ever been in the Tweed vein.
- early '80s Fender Super Champ - sort of a souped up BF circuit
- 1994 Fender Twin - obviously BF, but with a dirty channel too
- '90s Mesa Boogie Nomad 45 - Fender inspired clean with Marshall inspired dirt
- '90s Trace Elliot Velocette - sort of a Vox type 15 watt EL84 circuit (one of my favorite tones all time)
- '90s Mesa Blue Angel - I guess this was sort of a Tweed type circuit with the choice of 6V6 or EL84 power tubes
- Marshall JVM 410H - obviously not a Tweed!
- Allen Old Flame - BF Super Reverb type
- Trinity 18 watt sIII v6 - duh!
- Allen Chihuahua - sort of beefed up BF Champ type circuit with a few extra goodies

Other than that one Boogie, no Tweed anywhere. Most of my clean has always been in the Blackface realm (bright highs, big lows and scooped mids). There's a certain mid thing that you hear with Pro Juniors, Blues Juniors, CVR and Bassmans. Does the Tramp do that too, or do you have to step up into a bigger amp like the Tweed Deluxe?

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To my ears the Tramp definitely does have an unmistakable Tweed voice when in Tweed mode. That's where I run my Tramp almost always, I just like that Tweed tone in both the cleans and the lovely breakup tone from around 7 on the dial and upwards, definately a Fender voice. In typical Tweed fashion if you lay back it cleans up and if you go harder it goes with you and breaks up, I love it.

Also, just a note on the "Custom Vibrolux Reverb" you mentioned, it is not actually a "reissue" of any Fender amp, it has it's own thing going, kind of a "Brownface" era tone, more mids, thicker tone and earlier breakup than the typical Blackface Fender and the reverb is weaker. So you are right about the Blackface cosmetics on that amp, taken at face value they communicate a different vibe about the amp than what it actually serves up. It tends to be an amp that people either love it or hate it, because of the above plus some view it as a molested Vibrolux with the changes also making it a bit noisy/hissy.

Snowy

Thanks for the response!

As far as the CVR, I knew it really wasn't a reissue of any amp Fender actually made. I knew it looked Blackface, but didn't really sound Blackface. My assumption, given the warmer tone with more mids, was that it was a Tweed type design. Kind of interesting that it's described as more of a Brownface design. Cool either way!

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None of those are Tweed circuits really.

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Bear in mind that your choice of power tube also affects the tone. With a NOS 6V6 you'll get great Tweed Champ tones when you run it in its Tweed mode - it basically becomes a Tweed Champ circuit when you flip the switch. Then just dial down the VRM voltage down a notch to get it righ there. Or put in a 6L6, and running the VRM at full voltage you'll be getting some more brownface/blackface flavour. Then flip the switch into 'Tude mode for more of a Bassman/ early JTM45 vibe.


Very true.


Looks like some kind of a typo to me. In Tweed mode it's close to a 5E1/5F1 circuit, plus the treble/bass tone controls. So maybe that also makes it somewhat like a 5E2/5F2ish Princeton.

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That was sort of what I was trying to say, with the only question being the Blue Angel. I have no idea what sort of circuit that was supposed to be...

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Thanks for that explanation.



Thanks for this one too.



I suppose the thing to figure out is if a little Tweed like a Champ or Princeton has that same allure as those amps I described in the beginning of the thread. There's a very obvious and identifiable difference between the way a Tweed Bassman sounds vs. a Blackface Twin Reverb, Super Reverb or Deluxe Reverb. I guess I need to find out if the smaller Tweeds like the Champ and Princeton also have those basic characteristics or if that only "happens" in larger Tweeds like Bassmans or even Deluxes.

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Using a 6L6 power tube gives it more of the vibe of a bigger F*nder, and a quite respectable 10 to 11W of power output. And make sure to use 12" speakers to get a nice big sound. The original Champs had a 6V6 power tube that got pushed pretty hard, and a real small speaker. I forget if it was an 8" or a 6".

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Well, I had the opportunity to kill some time at a local shop at lunchtime today. I spotted a new Fender Eric Clapton Tweed Vibro-Champ. I didn't even know such an amp existed, but I thought I may as well try it out.

First off, yikes! $999 for a modern Tweed Champ with tremolo? Crazy. But trying it out was free...

As the hang tag said, it's basically a 5F1 circuit with added vibrato and a Hi/Lo attenuation switch. Yeah, that's right. Low power for a 5 watt amp. I figured that with the trem switched off and the switch set to High, I was trying the closest thing to an old Tweed Champ.

Man, even with that tiny speaker it sounded pretty darn good. I was trying it with a Strat. I had heard for years that the Layla album was created with a Strat and a cranked Champ. In my 1980s mind, I pictured a SF Champ or even something like my old Super Champ and I could never understand it. But now I do. Crank that thing up and it's basically the Layla album.

I'll be curious to figure out how they pulled off that attenuation switch too. Took off "just enough".

If the Tramp sort of splits the difference between this and a Tweed Deluxe type thing, it must be something.

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Yeah, a Tweed Champ has quite a different vibe to an SF Champ. Probably a lot of that is related to voltage - the SF version runs at higher voltage. The Tweeds are browner and compress more. With the Tramp you just need to turn the VRM down a tad to get it into true Tweed territory. The Super Champ isn't really a Champ at all IMO.

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Sorry I missed the post. Typo corrected in various places! Thanks.

$999 for a modern Tweed Champ even with tremolo, agree, it's crazy, but you have to pay for the endorsements, and big mag advertizing, distribution, middleman and the right to use the Fender name. Wonder where it's made? North America, Mexico or China? Anyway, you can figure it cost them 25-35% of that price to build it.

To get the Champ tone out of a Tramp, max the Master Vol, use the Volume only, set the Power level to 7-8, set 'tude & fat to off (pushed in), and B-T control to middle. That should give you a hint about versatility! Now, with the MV control, and Power level, the Tramp has 2 ways to "attenuate".


Build a real good, versatile amp, the Tramp, or get it built for less than a Fender. If Fender made this amp the Trinity way, they would probably double that price.

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Stephen
Web: www.trinityamps.com. Facebook: facebook.com/trinityamps. Twitter: @trinityamps

Thanks for the replies.

Coco,
I did a bunch of internet poking around after playing that little Champ. The arguments about the price at a few of the bigger forums were pretty interesting. On one hand, I think $999 for a tiny little amp with a handful of parts is absurd.

But on the other hand, in fairness to Fender, look at what the boutique competitors are charging for basically the same amp. I'm pretty sure that companies like Victoria or Kendrick (and probably a handful of others) make 5F1 knockoffs that cost MORE than the $999 Fender charges. FWIW, Fender actually makes them in Corona. They are hand-wired just like the old ones with the main difference being some labeled test points on the board (turrent, not eyelet) and the addition of a biasw trimpot. I think there are also a few out there that make 5F1 clones for a bit less too. But that's without the addition of the one knob tremolo control and the little attenuation switch. So, if I was the type of guy to blow a giant wad of cash on a tiny boutique take on a 50 year old Fender, I could pay someone $1500 for a fancy copy or pay Fender $1000 for a copy with two extra features. And for the odd makers that charge a one, two or even three hundred dollars less, they don't have the tremolo or attenuation. Plus, try reselling one. The Fender amp with the fancy little EC signature endorsement will probably sell for a lot more. And don't even get me started on what a pristine real vintage 5F1 Champ would cost (ancient caps and all). Ugh!

But I'm not that guy anyway! For the cool vintage, hand-wired circuits, I'd rather learn from some experts on the forums, buy a quality kit and have the fun of doing it myself. I'm happy to say that my Trinity 18 sIII V6 cost about half as much as a Marshall hand-wired reissue or an Ebay vintage gem, probably has better parts than the reissue and doesn't have ancient caps and scratchy pots like the vintage ones.

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$1000 Fender. Handwired???

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[quote="kurtlives"]$1000 Fender. Handwired???


Fender Factory Tour: How to Build a Handwired Amp

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=54sNv1Ck6dc&feature=player_embedded

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