Saturday, March 29, 2008

The Mighty Fender Twin


Few guitar amps are as classic as the Fender Twin. After years of wandering in the digital wilderness I came back to tubes about a year and a half ago with one of the newer Twins - the ProVerb Twin Amp (yes, Amp is officially a part of the name).

Years ago I bought a '67 Vibrolux for $150.00. Around '89 or '90 I foolishly traded it for a Crate digital amp. I know - I was crazy! It is extremely painful to see them going for over $3,000.00 these days!

Anyway, I decided to get out of digital amps and am I ever glad I got one of these beasts. It's 100 watts of pure and glorious tube tone that sounds truly amazing. There are several versions of the Twin on the market, but this is one built for modern times. It has an effects loop (very handy and I use it all the time), a tube-driven reverb and tremolo, a 1/4 power switch (why would we want to turn down?), preamp out, power amp in, and best of all - a gain control on channel two. And man, what a great gain control it is. You won't get super heavy metal distortion of the Slayer variety (who wants to listen to that crap anyway) but you'll get all the wonderful tube crunch you need (and if you do need more, just stick a pedal in the front or in the effects loop). Oh, and it comes with wheels (which you'll need as this thing is a back breaker) and those cool tilt back legs.

I have a couple of recommendations to make this amp even greater. First, change out the power tubes. Mine came with 4 Groove Tube 6L6 tubes. I had it retubed with the Sovtek tubes not long after I got it. Do they make a difference? Well, to my ear I'm not sure, but my understanding is they are very reliable and have a great life span. Second, change out the stock speakers. Though it comes with some great Eminence speakers (and Eminence are the only kind of speakers you should use) I changed mine out for a set of Eminence Redcoat Tonkerlites. The difference was very dramatic. My main guitar is a PRS CE24 that has a Seymour Duncan Pearly Gates pickup in the bridge position. It is one HOT pickup with a huge amount of gain. With the stock speakers the sound was a little harsh but the Tonkerlites are amazing - they roll off the harsh high end and make all my guitars sound beautiful. My Strat and Telecaster keep that great Fender snap but the difference with my PRS is amazing. If you own a Twin, you should get a pair of Tonkerlites. By the way, special thanks to my good friend and bandmate Anthony Lucas, resident speaker guru and electronic genius at Eminence Speaker, and all around good guy who made the recommendation for the speaker change. As usual, he was right (just don't tell him or he'll get a big head about it).

The bottom line is this - the Twin is one of the most iconic amps in rock history, and this version of the amp makes a great amp truly amazing. I wouldn't trade mine for anything.

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