Fender '68 Custom Vibro Champ Reverb - Ask Zac 78

well hello friends and welcome to
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another Ask Zac
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we are going to talk about fenders
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student models
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the the champ and such and then we're
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also going to talk about this uh
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new amp that uh fender is making now and
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and uh was gracious enough to to send to
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me
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so yeah we're gonna do a little history
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on the champ
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and then talk about this amp and but
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first we've got a little uh
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a little you know housekeeping house
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cleaning i guess
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uh so in past episodes one
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people asked about um
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in the buck Owens episode i talked about
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how buck and the band would all tune
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down a half step
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so they would tune to e flat instead of
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e on their guitars
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and i didn't know the reason why and so
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Casper Rawls who's an amazing
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telecaster player in Austin Texas and in
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fact hosted
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uh buck Owens birthday celebrations at
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the continental club back in the day
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before buck's passing he chimed in
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and he was there when Dan forte
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interviewed buck for guitar player
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magazine in 1988
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and in the interview buck indicated that
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the reason they tuned down was because
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the original steel guitar player in
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bucks band before tom Brumley
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was a guy named jay McDonald and so jay
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when he was doing
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uh when they were doing some of the
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songs and he was using the pedals on his
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pedal steel and of course they're
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pulling
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up the pitch uh he was having a really
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bad problem with
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one of the strings was popping all the
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time
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and so they tuned down a half step
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and the problem was fixed it didn't pop
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the string anymore so they just did that
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for a while
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and they well they did it for a long
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time so
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anyway so that's the answer to that the
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other you know housekeeping thing is in
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the flood episode
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i had told of how there was an art
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gallery in Leiper's fork
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that was filled with these amazing
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vintage instruments
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and i didn't say what happened to them
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you know because of course the area
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you know flooded well joe glazer who is
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the curator
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of the uh vintage guitar exhibit that
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had
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Lloyd lore signed l5's and f5 you know
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mandolins and guitars and it had
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Marty Stewart's Clarence white guitar
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prototype fenders all sorts of stuff and
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if you want to learn more about that of
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course watch the flood episode
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but anyway joe stayed with those guitars
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and when there was a tornado warning and
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all this other stuff going on he stayed
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with them
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and uh yeah and those guitars were fine
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so there you have it joe glazer giving
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his life
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for uh you know risking his life i
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should say
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for uh vintage guitars all right so
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let's talk about champs
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well the first champ came out in 1948
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and it was you know kind of fenders
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entry level
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uh student model and that's kind of what
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it's
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always been to a degree uh
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the amp you know originally you know was
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well the classic champ is
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single-ended which that means it only
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has one power tube and that kind of
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limits the power
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and it usually was a 6v6 which again
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that gives you
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four to six watts tops
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so the champ originally had a six-inch
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speaker then it got an eight-inch
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speaker
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uh you know of course it went through
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the uh the different
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uh iterations of you know the different
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looks of the tweed amps when you know of
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course you get to the narrow panel
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tweed and uh interestingly enough
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uh you know we don't think of it this
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way but
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the the Princeton was also a student
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model hence the name Princeton also
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another you know
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amp that was part of the student lineup
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besides the champ and the Princeton
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was the Harvard which of course I've got
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my 59 Harvard
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you know back there and it's a little
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different in that has
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two power tubes while the tweed
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Princeton still only had one but it had
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the addition of a
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second input and it had a tone control
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where the champ just had a volume
5:07
control in a single input all right so
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then uh the champ
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uh you know kind of stays the same
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uh except for maybe some cosmetic things
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you know of course when
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when the rest of the tweed amps go away
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uh
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it it stays tweed for a while and then
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it actually goes to black
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tolex but still has the top mounted uh
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you know volume control but it also gets
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the uh
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you know the grill cloth like the black
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face amps
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then finally in 64 it goes into
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the you know forward facing
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controls like this new Vibro champ
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and you you get you know the champ and
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the
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introduction of the vibro champ which
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you know one
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you know the the champ gets a volume you
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know
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and and you know and tone and then of
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course you get volume
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and you get uh you know the speed and
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intensity for the
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vibrato and those amps kind of stayed
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the same until 1983.
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uh of course they changed cosmetics to
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where you get like this drip edge
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in 67 to early 69
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and then you get to you know the regular
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silver face
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look um but then in the
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in the early 80s uh Paul Rivera
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completely revamped the line
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and you get the champ two that had two
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power tubes and you get the super champ
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which of course is very uh
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desirable and uh you know it had a
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you know a little 10-inch speaker and it
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had reverb
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and it had uh you know a lot more you
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know power it had you know like 18 watts
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instead of
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you know instead of five or six watts
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then you get you know you get these like
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when
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when fender you know changes hands in 85
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you get the red knob
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champ 12 which had a 12 inch speaker and
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12 watts
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then you get the weird hybrid amp like
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the champ s
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e 25 se which had a
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solid state preamp and then had a
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tube power amp it had two 58 5881s and
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had 25 watts
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really interesting amp very short-lived
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then you get to where the champ is kind
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of being used for these
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transistorized models and
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and then it didn't until finally you
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know we get the the tweed
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champ you know reissue and we get like
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the Clapton
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you know vibro champ that was still
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tweed and
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top mounted controls but this guy
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is fenders you know kind of first foray
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into the you know what you would call
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the uh
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the forward-facing tube era
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of champs you know the from basically
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from
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you know 64 through you know the early
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80s
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and it's it's a really neat amp and so
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i have to kind of say first off that
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fender sent this to me out of the blue i
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didn't ask for this
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and at first when the box showed up one
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i was surprised that you know offend
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you know a big you know well relatively
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big box
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you know showed up with you know fender
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you know in
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you know all over the box um
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and two when i saw on the label that it
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was a you know the vibro champ
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you know reverb i was a little concerned
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because
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you know to be perfectly honest i do not
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like champs
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i do not like single ended amps which
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amps with one power tube and the reason
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why
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is because of the small speaker the
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small cab
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and especially because of the one power
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tube
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they tend to sound well small
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really small and you know for being a
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tele guy and i like to play on the back
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pickup
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uh when i play through a champ the only
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way you can get a decent sound is to get
8:58
pretty distorted and that's
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i mean if you watch my show you can tell
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that i tend to play kind of clean or
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maybe on the edge of breakup
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so at first i just let the box sit there
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and then finally i thought well you know
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i ought to take it check it out
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so you know i hadn't looked on the
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internet about these things or anything
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so it was all kind of a surprise
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so i i looked at it and i was like wait
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a second they actually put a 10 inch
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speaker in this thing
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so instead of the normal you know eight
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inch speaker that was in it they put a
9:30
tin and it's a and it's a celestial
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speaker which
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i you know I'm a big celestian fan i
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think blackface
9:37
and you know silverface you know fenders
9:39
just sound better with a celestion type
9:41
speaker uh then the other thing was they
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had added verb to it
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and uh then of course i found out it was
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digital and i was a little bit dubious
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about that but then
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you know i plugged in and i was very
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pleasantly surprised
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so this is probably the first you know
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single-ended amp that I've ever
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uh really really cared for at all so
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uh yeah it uh you know it has the really
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cool
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you know late you know mid 67 through
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early 69
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uh drip edge cosmetics which i i like
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uh and then you know of course again the
10:17
addition of the tin
10:18
and tube tremolo but with the digital
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verb it's a
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hall sound uh you really get a nice
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sound
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and you know of course i was playing at
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the beginning doing kind of
10:30
i guess kind of like a variation of bill
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justice's uh
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what is that raunchy
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hopefully you can notice how you know of
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course I've got it set at
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a little about five and a half that even
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the clean has a little bit of hair on it
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which i
10:55
i like it's it's very nice sounding and
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that was on the bridge pickup
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and I'm going to turn the oh maybe I'll
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go to the neck pickup and show you you
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know what it can do on the
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on the neck it can you know you can do
11:08
good r b stuff
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[Music]
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so you got the nice tube tremolo and
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you've got the uh the
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hall the digital hull reverb sound which
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is really nice
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uh you can uh you know take the tremolo
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off
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go back to the back pick up you can get
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good you know twangy full sound again
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because of the tin
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two
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[Music]
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no charge for the clams uh yeah
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it just it has a big you know it has a
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pretty big full sound it's not the uh
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the near
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it's not your dad's champ as it were you
12:29
know the
12:30
the little sounding guy and and right
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now i have the bass on 10
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okay so if you turn the bass down
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you know especially down to like four or
12:39
something like that you get
12:41
kind of you know more of what i think of
12:43
as the old champ sound
12:52
still sounds you know better than the
12:55
you know the eight inch speaker and such
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but
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still you kind of get that that smaller
12:59
sound so
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while I've got the bass down I'm going
13:03
to turn the volume up because right now
13:05
i have it at like five and a half
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I'm like let's just put it up to nine or
13:09
oh we'll just go
13:10
up to ten so then you can get you know
13:16
[Music]
13:18
more
13:21
of course i didn't turn the verb down
13:23
which you always have to turn the verb
13:24
down whenever you uh
13:26
turn a fender amp up hot so yeah
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[Music]
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so you can see it has you know just that
13:48
that old school
13:49
overdriven you know fender sound
13:52
which you know of course the you know
13:54
the little guy has a little bit more of
13:56
that
13:56
fizzy you know kind of uh papery thing
14:00
going on
14:01
you know here I'll play just some single
14:03
note lines using
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[Music]
14:29
nice let's bring it back down
14:33
you know five and a half I'm gonna bring
14:34
the base back up
14:36
let's let's hear the uh the verb and
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just so you can really hear it I'm gonna
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turn all the way up to ten
14:44
and here you can hear they they put a
14:45
little modulation on the
14:47
on the verb which is nice you know
14:49
because at low settings you don't really
14:51
notice it it just kind of fattens things
14:52
up but of course you turn it up high you
14:54
can really hear
14:59
[Music]
15:07
and that's uh really nice for doing like
15:09
volume swells you mean
15:13
[Music]
15:24
[Music]
15:33
really uh yeah pretty sounding amp and
15:36
the one of the real strengths of this is
15:39
that
15:40
uh you know you have this little you
15:42
know six watt amp
15:44
that has verb and trim on it and so you
15:46
know you could really
15:48
you know go and play like a little a
15:50
little rehearsal or a little you know
15:52
kind of
15:52
coffee house you know gig and not have
15:54
to bring any pedals if you didn't want
15:56
to
15:57
you know because it you know it kind of
15:59
has everything that you would need
16:00
uh you know because you know i like you
16:03
know using my Harvard but usually when i
16:05
bring the Harvard you know i
16:06
kind of like to have verb and tremolo so
16:08
it's nice to have something that already
16:10
has that it really is kind of grab and
16:12
go it could take a
16:13
a telly in the vibro champ to play uh
16:15
kind of a
16:16
a low volume kind of thing and again
16:19
because it's got the tin
16:20
doesn't have the little the little sound
16:22
and uh yeah
16:24
looks nice sounds great uh i think they
16:27
i think uh fender did a great job on
16:29
this uh
16:30
vibra champ reverb amp 68 custom i
16:34
believe
16:35
and of course the the blue the blue
16:37
light doesn't hurt
16:39
all right guys well that's uh that's
16:42
kind of it it for today
16:44
uh i did uh play my uh i know this
16:47
guitar hasn't seen uh
16:48
and asked zack in a while this is my
16:50
1967 uh
16:52
tele late you know late 67 you know
16:55
because it's got the uh
16:56
you know the cbs era logo and the reason
16:58
of course i got it out was
17:00
you know to go along with this amp with
17:02
the cosmetics but uh
17:04
you know it's funny i've been playing
17:05
that esquire back there so much that i
17:07
forgot what a great guitar this one is
17:09
and and what uh
17:11
great sounds it has it has it's
17:14
its own thing and then just that thing
17:16
at the beginning
17:18
again i i was just really playing got to
17:20
turn the verb down
17:23
yeah two and a half's good uh
17:27
that's just a good exercise for for your
17:29
kind of your pick and finger things
17:30
you know because it's
17:45
[Music]
17:53
[Music]
18:03
[Music]
18:07
all right so uh you know if you're
18:09
working on your pick and fingers things
18:11
uh yeah
18:11
work on that a little bit to get you
18:13
kind of doing that kind of alternating
18:15
between the pick
18:16
and the fingers that really kind of
18:17
fatten things out
18:19
all right guys thank you for watching
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see you next time