Comments about Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 40W 1x12" Combo Amp:

I ALREADY BOUGHT A LIMITED EDITION SMOKEY TWEED ONE NEW, SO THIS IS NUMBER TWO. DOES THAT SAY ENOUGH? I COULD HAVE SENT IT BACK BECAUSE IT WAS CRACKED ON THE BOTTOM SIDE PANEL WHERE IT MEETS THE FLOOR PANEL. THE SHIPPER WAS PACKED POORLY AND IT GOT ROUGHED UP BAD THIS TIME. I JUST REPAIRED IT BECAUSE THE ELECTRONICS AND TUBES WERE FINE EVEN BEFORE I FIXED IT! SO IT WILL BE TOUGH AS A GIG AMP, AND IT'S LOUD, CLEAR, AND WARM.

Comments about Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 40W 1x12" Combo Amp:

I've owned this amplifier for more than two years now and it really isn't as great as the reviews portray it. The constantly appearing topic of discussion is the linear taper. The older non-reissue blue deluxe amps where the same way, so I suppose its accurate as far as that goes. This taper causes the amps volume to noticeably jump from "faint bedroom volume" to "drum set noise canceling volume" right after 2 on the 1 too 12 fender volume pot. With the premature volume jump in mind, the clean channel on this amp can sound quite tasty when turned up around 3. I really have no complaints as far as the clean channel goes. The overdrive channel however... very disappointing. Its simply not manageable. Lets put it this way, if you like Keith Richards and want to sound like Keith Richards 24/7 this is the amp for you. The drive dial doesn't do a whole lot to the od sound unless its turned all the way left, off. The od is too muddy to sound like a breaking up clean and not dirty enough to sound... good. the quality of the od is nothing to brag about as well, its very muddy. Despite all the negativity the spring reverb is magnificent. One of the recent no so serious problems is the stock speaker. It kind of breaks up for a couple minutes when I turn the amp on. The fender blues deluxe reissue is a chunk; be sure to hit the gym before you go out and buy.

Comments about Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 40W 1x12" Combo Amp:

This amp can do anything from jazz to rock. This amp is so clean you can hear every single string in a chord. The fender blues deluxe also takes pedals as if they were part of the amp. With pedals this amp can even play metal music. I recently purchased this amp and was pleased with it the moment i turned it on. Only Bad thing is it weighs about 50 pounds and the reverb is not enough for my surf music. But for anything other than surf guitar this reverb is more than adequate.

Comments about Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 40W 1x12" Combo Amp:

Great tone - crips cleans, breaks up nicely on the drive channel, seems to like pedals, and has great reverb. Easy to dial a good tone - simple, non-nonsense panel. Reasonably light for such a powerful (loud) amp. I fell in love with it as soon as I played one, and had to have it! Nothing else (except maybe the DeVille 4x10) even came close!

Comments about Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 40W 1x12" Combo Amp:

I have a spare room full of vintage Marshall and Fender amps. I've been a tone hound for 40 years. I make a living playing top 40 classic rock and modern country. I LOVE this amp. I love how it looks, sounds, holds up, is easy to repair, costs so little, fit's in my trunk, doesn't break my back, needs no modifications, is louder than I'll ever need, and I love that it's a Fender.
I bought this amp because I needed an amp I wouldn't be afraid to use in a club. My vintage amps stay at home!
This is the most popular club amp right now, and was a big reason as to why I dared to buy one. Listening to some You Tube videos was another reason. I bought it used and for cheap, and so I figured I could always sell it for little to no loss if I didn't like it. Out here in this desert town we don't have music stores that carry this amp. I would have had to drive a hundred miles to test one out.
But it wasn't love at first strum! I thought the harshness made the amp unusable. I was livid. "Cheap Fender modern junk!" But I'm a tinkerer at heart, and so I just kept twisting knobs trying to get a decent tone out of it. It drove me nuts, because no setting sounded anywhere near pleasing.
What I finally figured out, after about a twenty hours of tinkering, is that it's not a harsh amp AT ALL, but instead, a very BRIGHT amp. That's how some vintage amps are. And that brightness sounds like harshness to us modern amp players who are so very used to having our guitar tone knobs on 10 all the time that we can't even begin to imagine it could be the cause of harsh tones. THE TRICK (you are so fortunate to be learning this) to loving this amp is to actually adjust the tone knobs on your guitar!
Who would have thought? IMPORTANT, turning down the treble on the amp doesn't cure the harshness! Leave the treble knob at 5, and use your guitar's tone knobs instead. Start at zero, strum a chord and then slowly turn the guitar's tone knob up until it sounds like the virtual blanket has been removed from the amp. You'll find that it's close to only 3 or 4! Shocking!
Once I learned to actually use my guitar's tone knobs, the amp lost all it's harshness! In fact, what an awesome feature, for now my tone knobs are actually useful! What a concept! It's a whole new plateau. Like discovering whammy bars. So cool!
I did try a cheap power soak attenuater on it, and it did wonderful things for the amp. It instantly sounded very vintage, like a 1958 Fender tweed Deluxe. If all I played was blues I would use the amp just like that...full volume! The harshness was gone and the mids shined like a vintage tweed. I didn't even need to close my eyes to think I was playing through a fifties tweed deluxe.
But a stand alone 50's tweed deluxe is not going to work on 3/4 of the songs we do, and so I whipped out the Boss ME-50. Oh my gosh! Pure tonal bliss! I now set the amp to it's normal channel, tone knobs to 5 and presence around 3, a touch of reverb and then set the volume to only 2. I BOOST the volume with the ME-50. This is pure magic! The amp is dead silent when I'm not playing, and when I am playing, the sound it incredible. Beautiful traditional vintage Fender clean tones and then with the Tube Screamer I have S.R.V. creamy solos, and nice crunchy chords. Switching to an MXR Distortion+ or Pro-Co Rat, and I hear very deep tight bass when making palm muted crunchy chords! Yes, DEEP TIGHT BASS! For a while I didn't think the amp was even nearly capable of it, but set up like this, the bass was shockingly rich. Heavy metal on a tweed??? Almost! I wouldn't be afraid to do a Judas Priest cover with it, but no, I wouldn't recommend this amp for a ferocious metal band.
A Tube Screamer is the way to go here, and boost that signal! But the noise gate and compressor are also part of the magic, although not nearly as important. Try a Power Soak if you like vintage tweed tones.
Use your guitar's tone knobs, a Tube Screamer with the level cranked. Oh and set the tone knobs on the amp all to 5. That's where I like them.
Wow! The guitar's tone knobs! I always thought the tone knobs on my guitars where there just in case I wanted to play some cocktail jazz! LOL
My amp is about 5 years old, dirty, sticky, torn, beat up, ripped and smells like a bar, but it's completely original down to the factory tubes and speaker.
The Boss ME-50 works great with this amp. The other guitar player in our band has a $3000 amp and a $2000 pedal board. He laughed at my cheap rig until he heard it. My set up sounds way better in all way and is far more reliable. He marvels at my clean tone, bass and silence when not being played. When I solo, the band room is filled with glorious tube amp sonic bliss. The sound seems to ooze from the walls. That's one other really great thing about the stock factory speaker. It disperses the sound well.
What else? Set it flat on the floor. Use a rug if the floor is concrete. Don't set it on stands or risers. Don't tilt it back.
Use the number 1 input. Using the number 2 input just makes the amp noisier between songs.
It has an effects loop! No doubt an EH Holy Grail Reverb would sound awesome in there.
There's a jack for a second cabinet! I bet a second cabinet would be great.
No need to modify anything. The drive channel is shockingly weak. Maybe 5db of boost. Maybe someone can make that better. It's definitely only good for the bluesiest blues guys. The Tube Screamer is a match made in heaven for this amp. I normally hate Tube Screamers because they are too weak, but with this amp it works. Endless sustain, sweet feedback, focused and tight solos, warm crunchy chords, cleans up nicely when the volume is rolled back down. Just make sure to crank the volume (not gain) on the Tube Screamer way up, and leave it on. Turn it off only between songs because you won't have much volume with it off. If that doesn't work for you, then get a clean boost. Better yet, use a Boss ME-50. I love mine. It does it at. 50 effects all in one pedal! It doesn't sound good with a cranked amp, but on a clean tube amp.....it's magic.
Since I'm giving away all my secrets, lol, nothing beats a guitar that is properly tuned and intonated. After 40 years of playing I am still mastering these things. Nothing has done more for my tone than learning how to properly adjust and maintain my guitar. A guitar is like a vintage race car. If one can get it to run right, it's awesome to drive, but it's not going to run right for long, it needs constant adjustments and fine tuning. 90% of guitars are intonated poorly. That's my opinion. When my guitar is properly intonated and tuned it's an awesome moment. Tuners only get you half way there. The rest is by ear.
Don't fall for boutique guitar cords. Buy the kind you can step on a thousand times. I use 25 foot cords I bought back in the 1980's! I've had to resolder the connectors but they still sound great and cost maybe only twenty dolars back in the day.
Dimarzio HS-3s pickups sound great and are very versatile. My Strat has three of them.
Pickup height is so important! Too close and they screw up your intonation! Too far and they loose gain and clarity. It's an art. Also, they all need to be balanced. With the strings fretted at the 22nd fret....important!.....I set the poles on the upper and lower E strings 0.070" away from their respective pole pieces. I use two Fender medium picks sandwiched as a 0.070" feeler gauge. That's the magic spot for me. It makes all the difference in the world.
Make sure your nut is set up right. Do you even know how far your strings are from your first fret when you fret your second fret? I didn't think so! Your guitar will play like a dream with a new nut that's been properly filed. Learn how to do it yourself.
There are many new bridges on the market.Especially for the Tele and Strat. The stock Fender bridge ain't all that. Find one that locks the saddles in place after they are adjusted.
Top and polish your frets often. The difference it makes is incredible.
Don't use petroleum distillates on your guitar. They're poisonous! Not all Lemon Oils are the same. Read the label. Don't use poisonous oils. Think! Your fingers absorb the oils. I use cooking oils on my maple neck. It takes very little to make a neck slippery as butter, and taste delicious.
Use a dishwash sponge scrubby side to roughen up the back of your guitar's neck. This too makes the neck slippery. Do it often. Your hand will polish out the neck again in just weeks and then will feel sticky again.
Amp sounds bad? May be your home's voltage! Slight voltage changes can really alter tone. Know your voltages.
Keep your nut's string grooves cleaned and lubricated!
Learn to sing.
Don't use drugs.
Don't work a job you hate forever.
Call your mom often.
Good bye!

Comments about Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 40W 1x12" Combo Amp:

This is not a tweed, sonically. I don't care what Fender's website says. If you are looking for the tweed Deluxe sound, a la Neil Young, look elsewhere. Basically, this is a half-power twin reverb, with channel switching, minus the tremolo. It has great bass, and clear highs. Midrange, by default is slightly scooped--very blackface. Warmth is there. And when you crank the volume on the normal channel, you get oh so subtle compression, with not a whole lot of breakup. Crazy country tones/Jerry Garcia tones. This is actually the amplifier that made me fall in love with fender amplification. It's just too much juice for most situations.

Comments about Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 40W 1x12" Combo Amp:

This amp is probably one of the best sounding amps I have ever played. The Clean Channel is simply amazing. It captures the best of the "Fender sound", with plenty of headroom, shimmering highs, strong bass, and luscious reverb. The Drive Channel sounds almost as good, and I actually like it better for blues type leads, but I marked it as a con because you really cannot get any more gain than a Rolling Stones type sound. However, this amps takes pedals so well that all you need to do is through a decent distortion/overdrive pedal in front to get the gain sound you want. The amp is very loud, loud enough for any venue, but it can be hard to tame, meaning that combined with the weight it is probably not the best option for smaller gigs. Part of the problem is the linear Fender volume pots. Essentially, the amp goes from silence to roar in the space of 1 to 4 on the knob, and then doesn't seem to get any louder after that. As long as you are aware of this, however, it really isn't a problem.
The only real problem I have had with this amp is tube rattle. I looked online and apparently this is a common problem. I fixed it by swapping the preamp tubes and tightening all the screws on the cabinet, but it was obnoxious and at worse made the amp unusable.
Overall, this amp is simply gorgeous, and everything you could ever want from a Fender amp. You might have to swap the preamp tubes and put a Tubescreamer in front of it, but it can play anything short of metal and keep pace with any drummer. I would caution that this is not for the bedroom, and if you won't be using it to play larger gigs I would invest in this amp's little brother, the Blues Jr.

Comments about Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 40W 1x12" Combo Amp:

I bought this amp back in the early 90's. I still have it and it still puts out great sound. I now let my son use it in his heavy metal band. He was like, "Wow! This is a blues amp?" 'Cause it is hot. And for only 40 watts, it will hang in any small venue.

One little thing, the output tubes will blow. And there's no rhyme or reason about how and when. So always carry a spare set.

Comments about Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 40W 1x12" Combo Amp:

This is just another fine, fine Fender amp in a long line of fine amp products. Ok, so I like my 1973 Fender Deluxe Reverb better, so what? The DR has more reverb & maybe a few more sweet spots, but this one has more controls, volume, & tweed tones. It is a close competitor for country & blues. My 1991 Fender Vibro King is bigger, heavier, louder & came with a 50% greater price tag; but offers nothing more that I need. There is every reason to believe that this amp will hold up to all I can dish out, because every other Fender amp has over the last 25 years. Although it has more controls than I actually need to get some great tones, it's nice that they're there. One thing I've noticed also is that there is less "subtle hum" than any of my other Fenders OR my botique amps. A fun amp to enjoy at home or gigs; a relieable amp; a heavier [but not TOO heavy] amp than most of my others; an extremely versatile amp; & loud enough to work some volume & sonic changes with my guitar dial. And it looks fantastic all dressed out in those classic tweeds!! As amps go, it's a great value/ a true bargain. Don't be afraid to buy a used one; I'm not sure they can be worn out. THE perfect amp in the $500 - $1,000 range. None better.
I can't think of another feature I'd want on it. Maybe tremolo; but that's something I rarely use. It certainly isn't a dealbreaker - a pedal can solve that. There are plenty of knobs to dial; and the main thing I wanted that my great Blues Junior did not have was a standby switch. I play country, blues, & some jazz. This amp will do honor to all of these. It will dish out a larger helping of overdrive than I require, but the classic Fender warmth & grit are there for the music I play.
I got this amp used, but it looks & feels new. The ONLY thing I haven't been 100% satisfied with so far is the reverb. What's there is wonderful. I was expecting more lush/long hall levels when dialed to the max. It's a bit short of that. My Blues Junior had a bit more reverb. To be fair, this one has all I would ever require anyway.
Fender tube amps bring out the best in my guitars, especially my solidbody Cp Thorntons. I own amps that cost over twice as much as this one & they really are no better. In my opinion, they acrually are worth what THEY cost & Fender is the best value in the world of amps.

Comments about Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue 40W 1x12" Combo Amp:

I bought mine a couple of years ago as an alternative to my Mesa Boogie Mark IV.... the Mark IV weighs 80lb. while this one is about 45...makes a big difference when you're schlepping gear around, up stairs, etc.

it's a great amp...lots of balls if you want, can play it turned up and not kill anyone [in my opinion, it is almost too loud for my needs]. My thought was that if I needed any more power, I'd just mic it.... Nice clean sound and a nasty tube distortion if you want. plenty good for small clubs, jammin, and rehearsals. I play a strat and a tele and both sound good [tho I like the tele a little better]

Don't like the volume pot they used, or some of the other ones. the gain is not evenly distributed on the rotation [when turning it up]... seems like moving it a micron increases the volume 10-fold. Everything happens around 1-2 on the dial]. I strongly reccomend replacing it if you buy one. If they make any improvements to it, I sure hope they put better pots on it. That's the reason I'm giving it an 7 vs. a 10.


Given what it is [and what I've bitched about], it's still a good small amp to have in your arsonal.......
cheap pots

Great sound...