![]() The former drives the output tubes a little harder than the lower-gain 12AT7 that Fender switched to for the blackface amps of ’64, inducing a slightly earlier breakup and a little more grit even in so-called clean tones. With all that said, the blonde 6G6B Bassman was still a little like its tweed predecessor in its use of a 12AX7/7025 preamp tube in the phase inverter and a presence control common to both channels, which provided a final means of adjusting the signal’s high-end content at the output stage. Plug a six-string electric guitar into the Bassman’s Normal channel, though, and you’re tapping into a simple three-knob sensation that countless players have recognized as a toothsome and inspiring tone generator. Its Bass channel was an entirely different beast and quite an oddball, representing an early effort to enhance the low-end. It’s worth noting that this analysis (rectifier aside) applies primarily to the Bassman’s Normal channel. The new Bassmans also replaced the tweed Bassman’s tube rectifier with solid-state diodes, a change that helped firm up the low end and the amps’ overall punchiness and tightness. They ushered in a whole new classic that was still entirely Fender. In place of the chewy, midrange-pronounced sonic signature of the tweed amps, the Fenders of the early and mid ’60s sounded tighter, glassier, and more mid-scooped. More important than how it’s all done, though, is the tonal shift that results from the circuit change. The signal hits the tone controls after the first gain stage, then passes through the volume control before entering another half-a-preamp tube used as a gain-makeup stage to bolster signal levels depleted on the journey through all the circuitry thus far. The setup in these brownface amps, and those with black control panels that followed, is almost the reverse of that. ![]() Part of the key to “the tweed sound,” for the bigger amps at least, was a signal chain that hit the volume control right after the first gain stage (which comprised half of a preamp tube), followed by a full tube configured as a gain stage and cathode follower, which drove a tone stack placed after it. (Image credit: Heritage Auctions / HA.com)
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