I agree with your choice. The harmonic tremolo was much better. Very 3D. Love the sound. Please, please, figure out a way to get Cardinal Black to the US! If you're anywhere near D.C., I can guarantee 4 ticket sales!
right choice? i dunno, but i'd have done the same: more body/grunt/warmth in the low mids: beautiful sound, likely more sonically flexible... and there oughta be no problem getting it to cut in Cardinal Black. plus? it's different! good to have some amps of noticeably differing characters, especially when ya love 'em.
Bring an A/B stomp box (purchased or easily homemade) when amp shopping. Makes it so cool to instantly switch back and forth between two amps under consideration without pausing to unplug/plug in. Very worthwhile.
@@AndrewJanusson It's not a matter of waiting, man. Come on. OK, sure, if you're gonna strum a G chord, unplug your cable, plug it into another amp and strum another G chord. Fine. But that's not what I'm referring to. I'm talking about really digging in, playing continuously, taking solos, etc. THAT'S when flipping seamlessly back and forth from amp to amp with no time delay in between really makes the differences apparent.
@@anthonyc1883 A/b-ing is overrated. Too much focus on little details, too little focus on what, in this case, an amplifier feels like, what it does to you. The best gear is where you stop thinking about all the details and just plaaaayyyyyy.
Wow at first it was going to be a Bill Frisell tribute! I love that wobbly reverb / tremolo. I can’t believe what a repertoire you have as a young man. So refreshing, always surprising. Oh, and top marks for buying at Greggs!
Don't forget though, Chris, that Fender did actually make the Super Amp during the brown panel era! 2x10 rather than 4 and no reverb. Fairly rare piece, but they did exist. While the Super Reverb would take the place as Fender's large 4x10 offering in 1965 in the black panel line, the front portion of that circuit was available in the Super Amp. Super cool that you're showcasing the Concert, though. I bought a '63 6G12-A Concert Amp during the beginning of the pandemic in museum clean condition, for a price that would make you cry.. you cant buy a Vibro Champ reissue for what I paid if that tells you anything.. got very very lucky. Enjoy your new toy!!
This is pretty much what I did when I bought my 1967 Deluxe Reverb. I even took my DR reissue with me and got to compare 2 1966 and 1 1967 DR with my reissue for a couple of hours. Ended up buying the 1967 and am absolutely thrilled with it!
Awesome video Chris and I never knew this shop existed. I have a Marshall 80's Silver Jubilee 2554 combo that hasn't been used since the 90's that I need an expert to look at and service. These guys look perfect :) cheers
Awesome! Huge congrats. Both of those sounded great. I’ve found that using two amps that are slightly different blends very well. I have a ‘68 SFSR with stock vintage alnicos and a ‘67 BFDR. 6L6 + 6v6, 410 Alnico + 112 ceramic….they really fit with each other in a cool way.
There were 2 different version of of the brown face concert models 6G12 and 6G12A each had a different tremolo circuitry. 6G12 used 2 preamp all 4 triodes. 6G12A used 2 and half preamp tubes using 5 triodes. This was expensive to produce. Leo must have moved to the photos cell circuitry and bias tremolo in the black face fenders because it was cheaper to produce. Thank you for sharing your experience buying that amp. Congratulations!
I recently picked up a Koch the Greg amp. 2 10” Jenson’s. Built in tube driven Harmonic tremolo. Absolutely love the amp. One of a very few made amps with harmonic tremolo
Hello Chris! You made the right choice. Both amps are the right choice whether you chose the '61 or the '60. I preferred the sound of the '61 and the appearance of it also.
I have an early Concert-Amp. It is a 1960. I love it. I had it looked at by an expert and it is a strange amp. Not much about it matches up with the published schematics. But it is is no doubt all original. Mine looks like the one on the right with the dark grill cloth. I love that gooey vibrato it has. Sounds so good. And, there are not making em anymore so get it while you can.
I have a 63 model concert amp. I’m its second owner, and it’s in very good condition with original everything including the speakers it’s got more mid range than other fender models, which makes it quite a nice amp. The tremelo is something special.
I traded a piggyback Bandmaster for a "64 Concert in 1967 and gigged it heavily with a Tele for 7 years. Club gigs, recordings, and some sizable shows, it never let me down and was plenty loud. Great amp.
Played though a vintage amo the other day for the first time. A 73 silver pannel twin reverb, and man it was sweet. Volume at 5, master at 2-3 it would start to break up just a bit with my 2010 ibanez single cut. And I get it, these older, somewhat bigger fenders just got something to them.
That trem is so rich at first I thought you were playing through a vibe pedal! - ok, after a bit of research I now realize that's a "harmonic tremolo," never heard of that before! And yeah, the one on your amp was definitely deeper and more univibey.
I recapped and refurbished a brown Concert for a customer some years ago, and one of my technician friends asked "is there any way I can make the vibrato in my reissue Deluxe Reverb sound like that"? Uh, no.....😉
My main amp has the same Brownface circuit. It’s a 62 Bandmaster in a 2-10” combo cabinet. It’s loaded with a pair of AlNiCo Celestions. The amp is a keeper.
Clever, clever shopkeeper! Suddenly it's not a choice between buying a vintage amp or not, it's a choice between a '60 or a '61... Mind you, I don't suppose you drove all that way to not buy something.
Thanks for youre share. What I can ear on the white face one is that there's one hp that is in opposite audio phase. The black face has a more open sound. I prefer the black one.
Sounds a bit like a Leslie, without the hassle of rotating the speaker. Or maybe more like a UniVibe. Lovely sound anyway. Yes, definitely better sounding in the one you bought Chris.
both of these amps would have been the right choice 😉 but yoú're correct, the trem in this one sounds better...stocked to hear it in person at the gig in vienna in a few days time! 🤘
I preferred your choice too at least with the position of the camera mic position to the amp on the left. More warmth and punch with less brittleness than the amp on the right. Both great amps though.
I have a 1960 Fender Concert, it’s a phenomenal amplifier and the other piece which I was interested in is that 1960 models like these share the same output transformer as the ‘59 Bassman!
Beautiful amps! i just wish i could play well enough to justify owning one. Oh. I forgot. I'd need the money too. Duh! Congrats on your new amp! You deserve it!
These had the same output transformers as tweed bassmans and is why so many get robbed and have replacement OT's. They're great sounding amps and you made a solid choice! Your normal channel can definitely be easily serviced and likely needs electrolytic caps replaced in that channel or maybe just a new tube. The 12AT7 phase inverters in these get hit hard and seldom replaced as well, can wake up and restore a lot of character so get em tested. Congratulations, nothing beats a brown trem!
Shhhhh. LOL. I just said the same thing. My Concert was a September built one. It uses all 12AX7's and 5881's. No mention of a 12AT7 on the tube chart that I recall (I will have to look). Love my early brownie. Fenders long lost secret amps.
@@jppagetoo good call, they moved around a lot. Some are labeled as all 7025, so a mix of 12ax7/7025, some 12at7 equipped but maybe that was later on. It's a cool amp!
@@zeroamplification Now that you mention it, I do believe they are all listed as 7025's and 5881's. The Brown circuits were tweaked a lot until late in 1960 when they settled in to a final design. My Concert has a 6g12 board with a 6g12a circuit built on it. It also has completely different values in the tone controls. All original solder joints, so it came that way from the factory. I think this was one of the 1st 6g12a's Fender ever made. That seems plausible. Why the different tone circuit? That is a very good question. It was obvious Leo was still experimenting with the Browns at this point, but his cheap side prevented him from wasting anything.
The “a” model Browns are very special amps. I have a ‘62 concert and I will keep it forever. There is a big tonal difference in the two channels for sure and the normal side starts to sound really good when it is anywhere from 5-7.5 on the volume but that is LOUD! The Harmonic trem side is brighter since the harmonic part of the trem manipulates the tone even when it is turned off which makes the difference in tone between the two channel. There is an interesting thing with the trem side in that it has an unused side of a 12ax7 that can be tapped into and used as an extra gain stage on the normal side and it really wakes up that side. Since the amp you bought is already not stock it could be a thing to do.
Here is a 16 second clip of the Normal channel at 7.5 and the treble and bass at noon. m.ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-y0osxFYYblM.html
So jealous of that purple jewel light! I recently bought one to put on '65 PRRI, turned out the original Fender part does not fit the original Fender amp..... :-/ Harmonic trem sounds lovely.
Cool Concert you got! But don't you ever miss the Victory Copper? It made sense to my to use it along the Fender to fill out the mids. 15 years ago I gigged with a vintage Fender Quad Reverb along with a Vox AC30 and they sounded great together. Of course, I also other thought other stuff sounded awesome back then, that in hindsight wasn't so awesome 😅
The trem in the 61seems to throb a bit harder (it's wicked good) while sounding (to me) a bit more mellow and full than the 60. They're both spectacular. I'd certainly have a tough time choosing.
The Concert Amp just increased by $500+ today and $1000 come Tuesday because you’ve got a twitch for it..!!! You need to play a Carvin Belair or BEDROCK BC-50 (both USA made) and then my amps will be ready to sell.!!!!
Cool. I've owned a brown Princeton for ages, and it's fantastic for recording. I find them a bit less forgiving amps. I remember a time when these browns sold at a huge discount to blacks because of the lack of reverb. But my thinking was you could just put a high quality reverb pedal in front of it? So I grabbed the Princeton for cheap.
I wish you would have looked in the back of the chassis to see whether the 1960 Concert is a 5-preamp tube model or 6 preamp tube model. I'm no expert but my 1960 is the 5G12 circuit and indeed its trem sounds like the one in this video. The '61 in this video is likely a 6G12-A 6-preamp tube circuit and that harmonic trem does indeed sound richer, better, what-have-you. The cool thing about the '60 is that it has the same transformers as the 5F6-A Bassman and Jensen P10Q alnico speakers. Regarding the buying experience, yes, try as many as you can. When I bought my Concert in 1991 at Ax'n'Hand in Dekalb, IL, USA I had my pick from 6 white bassman sets ( my first choice) and 5 brown Concerts (my 2nd choice). I blew up one amp after the other and was feeling guilty about it but the shop attendant ( not the owner) was grinning, saying "thanks for sorting out the amps in need of repair" My '60 5G12 Concert was clearly the best and healthiest amp and I still have it and use it regularly. Great amps.
