'62 Princeton Amp - Chris Stapleton Edition - Ask Zac 100

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask Zac today we're going to
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take a look at brown fender amps and
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specifically
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what i call the fire breathing brownie
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this is the Chris Stapleton 62 brown
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Princeton
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which i think is just a
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killer killer amazing little amp uh to
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the point that
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i asked Fender to to send me one you
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know I'm not really a review guy
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but uh every once in a while something
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you know gets the best of me and i
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really i love brown Princeton's and uh
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had kind of been looking for one and
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then fender came out with this and i
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thought
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well
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let me check one out so now i i don't
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want to give it back so it's uh
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really really great so we're going to
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talk about talk about the the Stapleton
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Princeton a little bit about the you
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know the the lineage of the Princeton up
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to the the brown version uh what makes
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the brown amp sound different than other
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fenders
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and
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yeah and just have a little fun and of
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course hear hear what it sounds like so
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while you're thinking about it if you've
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been enjoying the show
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that so let's dive in so
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my first exposure to uh
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brown amps was i had a
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62 brown deluxe
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and i got that when i was in high school
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and
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it was a cool amp but i could not get
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along with it because the brown deluxe
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is kind of different from the rest of
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the brown amps in that it is very
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percussive and woody sounding and
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guys specifically get them
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because they want that kind of a mini
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Marshall plexi sound
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so because of my experience with that
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with that brown deluxe i kind of rode
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off brown fenders so all through the 90s
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and 2000s whenever I'd see a brown amp i
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was just like no no thank you no thank
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you no thank you
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so that was up until uh my good friend
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Austin who I've talked about on the show
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before uh he started getting all sorts
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of brown fender amps now you got a brown
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deluxe and i was like who cares but then
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you got a a brown Princeton that i
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played through and a brown super and a
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brown pro
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and all these amps i was just floored by
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them because
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they were kind of like the blackface
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amps except the high end was kind of
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pulled back and it had more mid-range
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and now in hindsight i can say okay
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that's what I've been trying to do to my
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blackface deluxe reverb i clipped the
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bright cap and put a celestion vintage
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30 in there why because I'm trying to
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tame the high end and give it more mids
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so
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the brown amps kind of have that in
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spades
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they they they do that quite well they
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have kind of a raw
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uh mid-range kind of mid-range ford kind
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of sound but they're still close to me
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they're closer related to the blackface
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amps than the than the tweeds
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so uh
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yeah they have a and they're
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super uh yeah they really cut through
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the mix well again because they have you
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know a nice uh
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forward mid-range
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so just to cover a little bit of the
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lineage of the of the Princeton and how
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it kind of changed in the lineup was
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originally it was the step up from the
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champ which of course the champ was the
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bottom of the line you know student
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model that had a single output tube was
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five watts had a volume control and a
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single input that was it
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the Princeton the tweed Princeton was a
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step up from that they added a tone
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control and had a bigger cabinet
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but it was still basically the same you
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know five six watt amp
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uh then the amp above that starting in
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the mid 50s was the Harvard and that was
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the lowest amp in the lineup that had
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two output tubes so they could put out
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more like 10 watts
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and that was kind of the way it was
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until
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the brown tolex amps came out and all of
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a sudden the Harvard disappeared except
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for a few stragglers that are actually a
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mix of prince tweed Princeton and tweed
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Harvard parts and so you have these
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Harvard's that just have a single output
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tube and they're
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quite rare but the the Harvard was
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pretty much eliminated
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except for those stragglers
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and the Princeton took its place with
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two output tubes and they added tremolo
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so it's kind of like a tweet vibralux
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really
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but uh
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yeah and these amps
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are wonderful
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they they just have a wonderful sound
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and
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Dave hunter who uh who's written many
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guitar books and writes for vintage
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guitar magazine and
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men in guitar player and on and on he
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wrote a full article on the brown
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Princeton and in it he says the only
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thing that holds these these amps back
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from being great
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club and stage amps is the speaker
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and he even says get a new baffle for it
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and put a 12 in it
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and boy howdy that makes all the
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difference in the world
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once you play through one of these you
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know whether it's an old one or the
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Stapleton you know with a 12 inch
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speaker in it it's
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it's a whole new animal i mean it just
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really
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the amp has so much more power and
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authority and volume you know it's just
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able to uh you know to play with a
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drummer and able to be so much fuller
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sounding
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so yeah then then you know of course you
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go from this to the blackface amps which
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kind of
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go down in volume and of course they add
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verb um
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but
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these amps kind of have a following
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besides Stapleton's also like jimmy
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Vavino has been a big fan of these and a
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lot of guys really love these amps and
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uh
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they're great so let's just let's just
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hear it some so I'm going to play a
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little bit of uh
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let's hear that tremolo and the tremolo
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is the bias variety so instead of being
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like the the little opto
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you know cell that's like in the
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blackface amps it's actually changing
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the bias of the power tubes to create
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tremolo and what you get is just a much
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more
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uh
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sophisticated uh
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you know nicer sending tremolo
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[Music]
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and of course I've only got the
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intensity on like four you know about
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three and a half three and a half so if
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you turn the intensity all the way up
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you get crazy
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[Music]
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[Laughter]
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and you can get really fast
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[Music]
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[Music]
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[Laughter]
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really
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beautiful tremolo on it
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uh you know I've got the volume at four
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and the tone right up in in the middle
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uh you know of course you turn these
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things up they're uh like i said they're
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kind of fire breathing dragons you can
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get a really great so
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I've got it up to about eight and a half
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here
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[Music]
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[Music]
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what's not to like about that
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we're gonna get it back to four now uh
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tone control is great you know you can
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uh you know
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so
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[Music]
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[Music]
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i think it's kind of best at the at the
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five position and i don't really miss
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having separate treble or bass controls
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and it's it's kind of one of these
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things where five is what you would call
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kind of more flat as far as the eq and
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you get darker as you go down to one and
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you get brighter of course as you go up
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to ten so five is a really
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nice position on this
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again they they just did a really
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stellar job on this it's got a
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a signature uh
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you know speaker in it from imminence
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and it is
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hey it's like you know the speaker
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itself is pretty much it's 10 pounds
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and the efficiency on it is uh is very
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high where most speakers are have an
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efficiency rating somewhere in between
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95 and 99 this has one of 101.
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so again it's taking the power from the
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from the amp itself and it's really
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using it in a more efficient
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uh you know cleaner way so that you get
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more volume out of the amp
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yeah nice big ceramic magnet speaker i
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think they they did an amazing job
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uh i did with not this amp but with
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another brown Princeton i did experiment
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with some different speakers at one
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point and uh if you're wanting to push
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it more like less less mid-range you can
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put like a wgs g12
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cs that's the smooth cone
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their ceramic speaker that will kind of
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uh
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pull back the mids a little bit i think
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you have to take into account that Chris
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plays a jazz master and uh
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and therefore
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you know that's kind of a wide sound but
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not a lot of mid-range so i think you
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know this you know the speaker even adds
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some mid-range to it so i like it but if
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it's too much mids for you you know you
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can always you know do a speaker swap
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which is a really quick and easy way to
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you know kind of dial in an amp to uh to
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what you
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want it to be like
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yeah
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really cool solid pine
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comes with a foot switch comes with this
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uh
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this filson cover
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this is the nicest cover I've I've ever
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seen come with an amp
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and uh
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and kudos to to Chris and defender
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because you know no offense but a lot of
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amp covers are kind of glorified shower
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curtain material and for them to put a
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really high quality
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amp cover is really a nice touch so
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kudos to them because many times with
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with my amps i end up buying new covers
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i get you know padded covers that will
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actually protect the amp when i put it
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in the back of my car or in a van or
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something like that so
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you know mega kudos to Chris for uh
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making them put a nice cover with the
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amp
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and the amp is you know it's it's hand
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wired um it's got you know it's got a
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reproduction of the old blue Mallory
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caps
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uh
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you know it's uh it's it's 21.99 which
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you know
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is
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you know
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pretty pretty fair price for a hand
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wired fender amp with a
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solid pine you know cabinet a signature
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model speaker and a beautiful cover and
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it's imminently uh you know giggable and
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wonderful sounding you know probably the
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only thing i would add to it is uh
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you know you know you could add a delay
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puddle or a reverb pedal to it just to
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finish it out some so here's here's what
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it sounds like with a little bit of verb
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on it
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[Music]
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and then this is what it sounds like
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with a little bit of slapback delay on
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it
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[Music]
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you can tell it takes pedals fine you
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know even drive pedals or whatever you
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throw at it and just has a nice fat
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sound and uh
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you know yeah it's it's a match made in
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heaven with a with the telecaster so uh
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mega kudos to uh to fender for uh making
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this this really really cool amp the
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fire breathing brownie
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all right guys well i hope you've
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enjoyed today's episode today's look at
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the uh
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the brown Princeton the Chris Stapleton
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signature model amp uh
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yeah hope you will go check it out it's
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a it's a great one
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see ya bye