FUQ (eff -yu - cue) - FAQ's with an EDGE

Tagged As: Fender Vibro Champ Amp

Question:
I'm trying to beef-up the sound on my Fender Vibro-Champ for lead guitar work. I want something that will give me some sweet bluesy gain/overdrive and not disrupt the tone. Let's me know.

Answer:
You may want to try a different 6V6 power tube, and if the pre-amp tube is tired, you may want to try a new (current production or new-old-stock) pre-amp tube and see if this helps any. You didn't mention what guitar and pickups you are using currently. A humbucker will have more gain out of the box than a single coil guitar. To push the amp a little, you can try any number of overdrive pedals; set the volume high and the drive low and it will give your amp a hotter signal. All overdrive pedals don't sound the same and aren't created equal, so it boils down to taking your Champ and guitar to your locally-owned store and trying some pedals to see what you like (what your ears like). I am very fond of the Barber Electronics Tone Pump overdrive pedal because of the larger variety of tonal options the pedal gives me, and because it sounds very good to my ears. Putting your Champ on a chair so it can hit your guitar with the projection of sound will also help your guitar to take off, and increase sustain. Part of my personal rehearsal schedule is to play through an amp that is cranked, with my Tone Pump pedal. In the same session I try to also get time in playing with no pedal and the amp pretty clean, so I can work on my technique without the masking effects of distortion, etc. You may find with a few experiments that your Champ is a pretty good practice amp for you (I own two) and you may not want to use a pedal with it for part of your practice. A nice mod is to have your tech install a speaker jack that accepts a 1/4 instrument cable, so you can also hook your Champ up to another speaker cab that is a 4 ohm cab. An analogy that illustrates how a Champ benefits from better and bigger speakers is to think of a really thin garden hose and then changing to a larger diameter hose, using the same water pressure. You get a lot more out.