Ultra rae 1962 fender band master amplifier found

[barnett468]

.
Thought I would post this for anyone here that is into electric guitar and vintage instruments like I am . This is one of the Holy Grails of amplifiers . It is a brown face, blonde tolex, Fender Band Master that someone spray painted the original tolex black on.

I saw it advertised in an ad for an estate sale 2 months ago but they didn't have a price . The sale was postponed until today . I had called and texted the manager of the sale numerous times during this period and she finally told me yesterday that there were several people interested in it and finally gave me a price for the amp and a speaker cabinet . The price was way more than I wanted to pay and she said they would not sell the amp separately . The sale started at 9 am today and I showed up at around 2 pm figuring the amp would still be there because of the high price . Well it was there and no one was even looking at it so I asked one of the sales staff about it and made him an offer for the amp only and it took him around 1/2 a second to say yes which surprised me . I will be going back for the speakers on Saturday when everything will be 1/2 off and I'm guessing they will also still be there since the amp was the real prize and speaker cabinets are easy to come by.

I am going to take it apart over the next few days and check to see what, if anything, is not original . I only got as far as the tubes for the moment and they are very rare 60's or early 70's era REALISTIC 6L6GC from Radio Shack/Tandy . These were made by Mullard in Great Britain.

Feel free to post any instruments you have if you want.

..................................https://images.craigslist.org/00q0q_gI5bDSxRdEr_600x450.jpg



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[Caminofeld]

Old fender tubes paired with either a Strat or Tele are a sound that's hard to beat. I'll never sell my Fender Twin!

[fieldy]

Great find there. Those old tube amps do something i cant find the words to explain.

[barnett468]

Old fender tubes paired with either a Strat or Tele are a sound that's hard to beat.

Great find there. Those old tube amps do something i cant find the words to explain.

You mean like this . Best enjoyed with your volume knob on 11.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=An4uDegHB8s



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[RIDE-RED 250r]

My dad's uncle has a Fender Twin Reverb amp I'm pretty sure he bought new in the 60's. Back in those days, he plugged his Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman into it and ran an old school tape type Echo-plex. Uncle Bob is one hell of a "picker" much the same style as Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed, a self taught phenom, the guy is amazing.

These days, the old Echo-Plex has worn out and nobody knows how or has the ability to source the parts to re-furb it. Now he uses a Boss digital delay and plays a Gretsch White Falcon. But he still uses that old Twin Reverb. I LOVE the sound, nothing like an old tube amp.

[barnett468]

My dad's uncle has a Fender Twin Reverb amp I'm pretty sure he bought new in the 60's. Back in those days, he plugged his Gretsch Chet Atkins Country Gentleman into it and ran an old school tape type Echo-plex. Uncle Bob is one hell of a "picker" much the same style as Chet Atkins and Jerry Reed, a self taught phenom, the guy is amazing.

These days, the old Echo-Plex has worn out and nobody knows how or has the ability to source the parts to re-furb it. Now he uses a Boss digital delay and plays a Gretsch White Falcon. But he still uses that old Twin Reverb. I LOVE the sound, nothing like an old tube amp.


Cool story and very cool that he still plays and still has his original amp . That amp model was hugely popular and I had one for many years that I bought used out of the old weekly Recycler magazine . I also had an Echo-Plex EP3 model but I only used it for vocals . I think the Beatles may have used one on some of their songs . You can hear something like it when John Lennon sings the bridge in the video below . George Harrison says the sound was achieved by using a double track but it's hard to know exactly what he meant since both can achieve virtually identical results.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7TeqyovfJzE

As far as repairing it goes, almost anything can be repaired, and in fact, I know a few people that can probably do it and will gladly give you their contact info if you want, however, one of the problems with repairing this old equipment as you may know is that some of the parts that affect the type of sound an item makes like the capacitors are no longer available . These can be changed to a newer type but in some cases they alter the sound . The change is sometimes extremely small and barely noticeable to even a trained ear and sometimes it is so much than most anyone can tell.

As with many things, these old Echo-Plex's are still available at vintage instrument stores and on Ebay if he wanted to get another one, however, also as with most vintage instruments and amps etc, these units are substantially more expensive than they were back in the day as you know.

They even have the schematics for them online and yaegerb will be very happy to know that I did use Google to find these schematic's. :)

http://s94114604.onlinehome.us/ep3.jpg

http://www.tylergrund.com/images/ep3_conversion_schem.jpg



.............................................https ://1.bp.blogspot.com/_R0jcDRd6Nxg/RY8dww5IwzI/AAAAAAAAAKU/PvdcKv2GyQY/s400/southpark-happyholidays.JPG



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[RIDE-RED 250r]

Thanks for the tip, didn't mean to jack your thread. LOL!

Uncle Bob has been using the digital delay since about 2001 when his Echoplex died. He managed to get the sounds he likes and still uses it. I'm not sure he would bother with trying to fix the Echoplex any more, he's one of those "retired" guys that seems busier now than he ever was when he was still working.

I was in a band with my dad and Uncle Bob for a few years awhile back. If I had some digital media of us playing I would post it up. Most of what we have is on VHS or mini DVD. We had alot of fun, made a couple CDs at a studio for demos to get jobs and whatnot. One of my favorite instrumentals we did was "Sleepwalk"... man how Bob can make that Gretsch cry on that song! There are dozens more instrumentals we did and had alot of fun doing it..

Cool find on that old amp :)

[barnett468]

Thanks for the tip, didn't mean to jack your thread. LOL!

Uncle Bob has been using the digital delay since about 2001 when his Echoplex died. He managed to get the sounds he likes and still uses it. I'm not sure he would bother with trying to fix the Echoplex any more, he's one of those "retired" guys that seems busier now than he ever was when he was still working.

I was in a band with my dad and Uncle Bob for a few years awhile back. If I had some digital media of us playing I would post it up. Most of what we have is on VHS or mini DVD. We had alot of fun, made a couple CDs at a studio for demos to get jobs and whatnot. One of my favorite instrumentals we did was "Sleepwalk"... man how Bob can make that Gretsch cry on that song! There are dozens more instrumentals we did and had alot of fun doing it.

Cool find on that old amp :)


No worries, it was not a hijack at all . I'm happy to hear any stories of vintage instruments and playing them etc and happy to help people out that need info or repairs done to them if I can . As far as the VHS tapes go etc, there are several paces than can convert them to DVD and Google says that Costco is one of them . Feel free to post some if you ever get any converted or download your CD onto youtube and post it here if you want . It would be fun to hear, and never stop playing . I'm sure you make others besides yourself happy when you do. http://www.mustang.org.au/forum/Smileys/smilies/thumbsup.gif

Also feel free to post photos of your equipment . It doesn't necessarily need to be vintage to qualify.

http://www.costcodvd.com/



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[3 Wheel Drive]

Did you get the speakers? Post up a video of one of your jam sessions!

[barnett468]

Did you get the speakers?

Well since you asked, I did get the speakers yesterday and I will tell you what happened . I went back yesterday to see what the new price was on them since some of these sales are more than one day long and many of them reduce their prices every day . They had a price of $500.00 on the speaker cabinet and the owner told the sales staff that it contained 2 JBL and 2 Altec Lansing speakers, so I felt through the grill cloth and could only feel 2 holes which suggested it only had 2 speakers, so I told a sales staff member that if I could take the back off and it had what the owner claimed it had, I would give them $300.00 for it . The owner said he did not want the back removed and would not take less than $350.00 . I decided to take a chance on it because I knew that at the very least it was a vintage Fender cabinet which had a little value, plus I needed a speaker cabinet anyway to be able to play the amp I bought the previous day because neither of my other amps have a dedicated external amp input for the speaker so I offered him $300.00 and he decided to take it.

Well my driveway is long and uphill and narrow and curved and I had the amp in my Dodge dually which is too wide and long to get up it so I backed the truck into the entrance then backed my Lexus up to the truck then slid the speaker cabinet onto the back of the Lexus and too it up the driveway with that . Once I got the cabinet inside I immediately took it apart like a kid opening a Christmas present to determine exactly what it was and what speakers it had and saw right away that the speakers were not jbl's or altecs and there were only 2 instead of four and they were both different . They looked like Fender speakers to me but they used so many different ones over the years that I didn't know exactly what brand they were or what year they were so I simply searched on Google (that's twice I used it for this deal yaegerb :)) to figure out what everything was . This actually took me several hours which was WAY longer than I thought it would but I finally came up with the answers which are below.

CABINET - 1971 Fender Bassman.

SPEAKER A - 1971 UTAH which is one of the original speaker types used in this cabinet.

SPEAKER B - 1964 OXFORD which is one of the original speaker types used in the 1964 Fender Bandmaster and Fender Bassman cabinets.


I have located another 1971 UTAH speaker that I will probably buy to change out the OXFORD with so the cabinet will be correct for 1971 . The 1964 OXFORD speaker is actually fairly valuable because they used it on the 62 thru 64 Bandmaster and Bassman cabinets with the Bandmaster one being worth up to $2000.00 IF it has the original OXFORD speakers which are as rare as hens teeth.

Anyway, there is more to this story . I took the amp apart and when I turned it over, an old Fender guitar pick fell out along with an 18 KARAT GOLD RING WITH 3 DIAMONDS . Well, it may sound to some like I hit the lotto and that I should keep it since they grossly misrepresented the speaker cabinet and that thought did cross my mind for a second (or maybe a few minutes), however, I sent the sales staff a message this morning informing them that I found a personal item in the amp and would return it if the owner could describe it . For all I know, it could have been in there for decades before they bought it and even they didn't know it was in there, and after being misinformed (lied to) about the speaker cabinet, I am not in the mood to give them a free gift if the ring it isn't theirs . As far as the cash value of the ring goes, it is probably only worth around $200.00 at the most anyway, so if it turns out that it is not theirs, it's more like hitting the jackpot on a nickle slot machine than hitting the lotto, however, it will make the deal more worthwhile and will pay for that 1971 UTAH speaker I want to buy.

The cabinet with the correct speakers isn't worth much anyway but the 1964 OXFORD speaker has some fair value . I will probably sell the cabinet after I install the correct speaker because I no longer "need" huge speakers or dual stacks, and then have a smaller cabinet built and put the single OXFORD in it so the setup will sound more like it originally did . I can get reproduction tolex and grill cloth to cover it with and the original style hardware and emblem is reproduced by Fender so I can make it look period correct even though the size will be incorrect.

There is still even MORE to this story . When I went there yesterday, there was a 1973 Gibson L6-S Custom guitar next to the cabinet that the owner put out because he decided to sell it so I am working on that today, unfortunately he thinks it is worth WAY more than it is so I doubt I will be able to get that so I may go buy a post 1974 ATC90 that is a another sale not to far from me or I may just work on one of the Mustangs I have to get it ready to sell because the 90 isn't a great deal and I could use the money to go Christmas shopping with!



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[3 Wheel Drive]

I think I saw you on an episode of storage wars bidding aginst Jared & Brandy down in Ranco Cucomongo.

[barnett468]

.

I think I saw you on an episode of storage wars bidding aginst Jared & Brandy down in Ranco Cucomongo.

I guess you mean Rancho Cucamonga . Never watched that show but am aware of it . I don't do the storage thing . I have only recently looked into the estate sale thing because there are several near me and they sometimes have cars for sale and cars are what my main business is, however, if I see something else at the sale that interests me then of course I will go to it . As far as the amp goes that I bought, there is one similar with the original speaker cabinet for sale on Ebay right now for $5500.00 and the seller doesn't even know if the internals of the amp are original . The amp has the most value and I paid WAY less than 1/4 of what he is asking for both, and since this exact model is an ultra rare collectors item and nearly impossible to find at any price, I am quite happy that I got it and that I also only had to drive 10 minutes away to do so . You yourself do a lot of looking on Craigslist for things and have asked me about many of them so you seem to like shopping for deals too.

BANDMASTER FOR SALE ON EBAY

http://www.ebay.com/itm/132024580691?_trksid=p2055119.m1438.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT



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[barnett468]

.
Checked out the amp and fortunately it is 100% original which is virtually unheard of on one of these.

............................https://images.craigslist.org/01111_2eKfLASPx9s_600x450.jpg


Been looking for original grill cloth for the amp which is also ultra rare since someone "updated" it with the incorrect color and may have found some on Ebay or it may be correct for the earlier amps . The Ebay photo isn't good enough to tell for certain if it is correct but for only $30.00 a yard I figured I would take a chance . If it does turn out to be correct I may buy all he has.

.................................................. ....................http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/d/l200/pict/322342891458_1.jpg



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[3 Wheel Drive]

Yeah don`t let that hater diss on Rancho Coocamungee .....barn you sure are kind and courteous these days ......and i think your coming along nicely .......answering questions .....posting schematics ......and befriending those who thought otherwise of you .....and yes please do post a video of your jam sessions with your new amp ....thank you.....Dr. Glamy ...


https://youtu.be/3H50llsHm3k

I think he could head this ship in the right direction! Its time to drain the swamp! :lol: Barnett for mod 2017!!!

What geetar does the great kawasaki engineer jam with?

[barnett468]

.

Yesterday I was lucky and scored an original Fender UTAH speaker on Ebay which is dated the same year as the speaker cabinet I bought so I can now replace the one that is incorrect with the correct one and the cabinet will then be period correct.

There is also an original 60's cabinet advertised that is correct for the amp I bought but it has no speakers, however, I can use the incorrect speaker from my 1971 cabinet in it and buy anther period correct speaker for the 60's cabinet and have a complete period correct bandmaster setup if I want but that would be way more than I need these days.



..................http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/jP8AAOSwA3dYUJyO/s-l1600.jpg



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[barnett468]

.
Hope everybody had a good Christmas!

Just got lucky and scored a cheap deal on an adjustable voltage transformer on Ebay . The amp I bought is designed to run on 110 - 112 volts and my house voltage (in somewhere USA :lol:) is 122 . The extra voltage not only changes the sound of the amp slightly, it can also damage the irreplaceable 54 year old capacitors or some of the other components . This transformer cost around $200.00 when it was new and I got it for $40.00 which includes shipping . Once I have this I am ready to fire the amp up and see how it runs.

The grill cloth for the amp should be here tomorrow or Thursday.

Gotta love shopping on Ebay.


.................................................. ............... http://thumbs.ebaystatic.com/d/l200/pict/122278180710_1.jpg



PREVIOUS KAWASAKI INTERNATIONAL R & D PROJECT ENGINEER AND ATV DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR

[Jd110]

There is little difference between 110-120v. Standard was 110. Then power companies realized they could run a little higher voltage using a smaller conductor, to accommodate the voltage drops that where occurring. It's very common today, to find voltages between 115v-125v, depending where it is from the sub-station. I'm not 100%, but your amp should work fine if your within 10% of the applied voltage.

[barnett468]

Hey Jd110, thanks for the comments . I am definitely not an electrical guy and know very little about transistors and capacitors etc so I greatly appreciate any comments regarding it although I may not understand some of them . The comments I made about the higher voltage possibly damaging some of the components were what I found online on vintage guitar amplifier forums and the Fender forum and also from what a friend of mine said whom knows electrical stuff extremely well and whom also plays guitar . As far as the different voltage changing the sound goes, I have noticed that on other amps but it is minor and most people can't notice it . I am not all that concerned about that though . My main concern is that it could damage some of the components due to age and I don't want to take any chances because things are only original once and this is one of the only amps like this that I have seen that has every single original part and there is a lot of value in that for myself and vintage amp collectors even if it has lost a little sound quality as long as it still works properly.

I have two other very small modeling amps that I recently bought that work perfectly for what I do now so I'm not concerned about the Bandmaster having perfect sound, plus the Bandmaster needs to be turned up pretty darn loud to make it have some nice distortion and I doubt my neighbors would appreciate that as much as I do, especially since I am definitely no Eddie Van Halen . The other amps have are a mint VOX Valvetronix AD15VT which has tubes in the pre amp section and an new discontinued Roland Cube 20GX that I got for a smokin deal on Ebay at only $60.00 . I bought both of them around 6 months ago after I decided to start playing a little again . I had stopped altogether for over 20 years and was surprised how rusty I got and how hard it was to get my fingers to work properly again, not to mention how much my finger tips hurt now because all the calluses I got from playing are gone.



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[Jd110]

Hey, your welcome. I feel your right for being cautious about firing it up. I applaud you for trying to give it an extended life. It's a cool piece. Thank you for sharing it here. I haven't seen a step down transformer like that. Very cool.

[Jd110]

It doesn't look like that transformer can be set to 110v. I would not use it for that amp. That's just me. Hard to see the picture as I can't click onto it and zoom in.

[barnett468]

It doesn't look like that transformer can be set to 110v. I would not use it for that amp. That's just me. Hard to see the picture as I can't click onto it and zoom in.

Thanks Jd, here's a better shot of one that is new . Yes it can be set from 0 - 120 or 0 - 140 based on the switch and knob position . The knob is scaled in percentage so 100 equals 100 percent of the current based on the position of the switch so one needs to check the output voltage with a volt meter then turn the knob until they reach the voltage they want . They can also easily be modified to read voltage with the addition of a digital volt meter . The volt meter in the one below is Chinese and costs $6.00 on Ebay . His knob is on the 96% mark and the switch is on the 120 volt position so if he turned the knob to 100 it would read exactly 120 volts . These are high quality units that were often used in the medical field . Some of their new models have volt meters built in.


http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/MTIwMFgxNjAw/z/B3QAAOSw5HJXJ~2-/$_57.JPG?set_id=880000500F


http://imagizer.imageshack.us/a/img903/7595/uU7b4C.jpg



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[barnett468]

Been busy with other stuff but here's a brief update . Plugged the Bandmaster amp in with the variac set on a low voltage then slowly brought the voltage up to 110 and everything was fine...for around 30 seconds when a capacitor smoked, lol . Looks like I will have to get new ones installed, so that amp is on the back burner for a while.

Stopped at Guitar Center to get a new chord and took some photos of their huge wall of guitars but I can't find the photo . They had a small used Marshall amp I am interested in but have been way too busy to go back their yet.



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[barnett468]

What geetar does the great kawasaki engineer jam with?

My first guitar was a Fender acoustic F1050 that my brothers friend, whom worked at Fender, bought me for Christmas when I was around 14 . I wanted a drum set because I really wanted to be a drummer but my parents wouldn't buy me one and he didn't have enough money to buy me one so he thought the guitar would be a reasonable temporary pacifier, lol . I still have that guitar and have used it for some recordings and it sounds killer . I only use D'Addario Phosphorous Bronze strings on it . I also have a Takamine 12 string and a US made Fender Strat Lace Sensor model that is Maple with a natural finish that I bought out of the old Recycler Magazine around 25 years ago for $300.00 with a hard shell case, and last but not least is a Carvin CM130 Maple with natural finish that came with their version of Humbucking pickips, but I had my friend make a 60's style strat pickup and put it in the forward position in place of one of the Humbuckers . I saw a picture of the Carvin guitar in their ad and drove down near Vista in my old 55 Chevy to see one at their factory and bought it direct from their factory for around $300.00.

This is the ad I saw for the Carvin and is the same style I bought.

http://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/keQAAOSw~bFWIDXM/s-l1600.jpg

http://www.carvinmuseum.com/images/yearbyyear/1979/79_cm130ce-large.jpg


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[barnett468]

Post up a video of one of your jam sessions!

Saw this a while back but forgot to get back to it as I was waiting until I got the bandmaster amp working so people could hear it, but since it is going to be a while I'll probably do something on my Roland GX20 amp . It's not a tube amp so it won't sound quite like one but it is a modeling amp and actually does have a tube sound replicating circuit in it which sounds pretty tube like under some conditions if you listen closely, so I figure that might be somewhat interesting to some here, however, don't expect any fancy pickin or screamin Eddie Van Halen geetar solos, and ya might wanna have some ear plugs handy cuz I was just a B grade player at best when I was playing a lot and haven't even picked up a guitar for nearly 20 years until I bought the Bandmaster, so be prepared to be amused! :lol:



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[barnett468]

Post up a video of one of your jam sessions!

Well, I finally made a short video....but I have no idea how to post it cuz I'm computer illerate so I guess your just gonna wailt until somebody can tell me how to do it. :rolleyes:




PREVIOUS KAWASAKI INTERNATIONAL R & D PROJECT ENGINEER AND ATV DEPARTMENT SUPERVISOR...AND COMPUTER TARD :lol:

[fabiodriven]

Well you can upload it to YouTube very easily directly from your smartphone. It's so easy in fact, that those are your instructions right there. Then you just copy the link and paste it here.

You could also use photobucket if you're uploading from your computer. Photobucket will compress your video and make it able to be viewed. Again, copy the link and paste it here.

[barnett468]

Well you can upload it to YouTube very easily directly from your smartphone. It's so easy in fact, that those are your instructions right there. Then you just copy the link and paste it here.

You could also use photobucket if you're uploading from your computer. Photobucket will compress your video and make it able to be viewed. Again, copy the link and paste it here.
Thanks for the info fabiodriven, however, "The Great Barnett" is still living in the dark ages so he only has a stupid phone that half the buttons have fallen off of that is 20 years old . I downloaded it to my computer from my digital camera but have no idea how to move it to a file or convert it to a link that I can post.

All the engineering drawings we did at Kawi were done by hand . We only got a CAD program the last year or so that I was there . When I was in grade school and high school you would get suspended if you got caught using a calculator . The year I graduated they changed the rules and you could not go to math class unless you had one . Now 5 year olds know way more about computers than I do. :(



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[barnett468]

Ok, I figured out how to move the video to different files but the site won't let me download a video from my computer so I guess I will have to see if I can get it from my computer to youtube or photobucket when I get time.



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[barnett468]

Ok, I uploaded it to you youtube and this may or may not be the link . Keep in mind this is NOT an exhibit of my playing prowress cuz I ain't got none no more . Plus I hacked the crap out of a finger on my left hand with a razor blade a few days ago so it was hard to play, then I had to stop cuz it started bleedin on my geetar. :lol:


https://youtu.be/ufrT8OFm2Ko




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[fabiodriven]

Look at you Barn! Nice job! I envy your talent. Learning guitar is on my "to-do" list once I hit the road. I have a crappy Washburn acoustic and I've been practicing here and there, but very little. I'll have more time once I get on the road.