Blackface Bandmaster Clean and Restore = AMAZING!!!

hicksjd9 · Post by **hicksjd9** » Saturday Jun 04, 2011

I bought a 64 blonde bandmaster with the blackface ab-763 circuit off of Xero (another member on here). When I got it it was all original, but looked pretty rough. The tone of the amp as it was impressed me, and I decided to clean it up and do some service work on it.

After a lot of elbow grease cleaning the dirty tolex and the rusty hardware, I found that most of the amp's cosmetic issues were due to just being REALLY dirty. The front grille had a stain on it, so I cleaned it with dawn dishsoap and hot water. The amp as a whole came out looking about a 9/10.

After a few days of playing the amp, it developed some scratchiness when I hit a loud bass (G and E) note. I started reading up and found some fixes. I retentioned the internal pins in tube sockets that they would grab the tubes tighter and I bought some Deoxit faderlube from musicians friend. I hit all the tube sockets with deoxit and then got all the pots. That took care of one of the pots that was a bit scratchy. The deoxit and the retensioning took care of the low-note issues, but I decided to go a bit further.

I retubed the amp with JJ tubes and replaced all the electrolytic caps with sprague atoms and fixed a common problem with how they used to wire the power tubes on old fender amps (they crisscross pin 7 and 2 on the power tubes and it causes feedback). Biased the amp to 25 mv per tube and also properly replaced the two prong widow maker cord (death cap and all!!) with a nice heavy 18ga grounded 8 foot computer cable.

All this to say that the amp now sounds amazing. I've played through and heard a lot of incredible amps over the years, but these amps really take the cake. It absolutely destroys my 59 bassman reissue. I'm not sure if it's the hand wiring or the combo of a 412 marshall instead of the 4 10s in the bassman, but this thing is probably the nicest sounding amp I have ever heard.

Great for blues, loves pedals, and can get a heavier almost modern rock distortion when cranked to 10. Not great for metal though unless you use a pedal.

Power tube distortion is the best. Nothing really compares. And I am sold now on handwired circuits vs. circuit boards. There is a serious mojo going on here that I've never heard on a circuit board amp. I'm sure part of it to is the connection I feel to it because I took part in bringing it back to life. I've heard that John Mayer tours with one of these, and I can see why.

If you get a chance, buy one of these old amps and clean it up. I can promise you that you won't be disappointed. It's a hand-wired gem.

Has anyone else ever restored an old amp? What were the results?

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Sunday Jun 05, 2011

I'm glad to hear that you're digging your amp, J.D. I think you'll be very happy with the JJs. They have a little more of a glassy top-end that I personally like.

hicksjd9 · Post by **hicksjd9** » Sunday Jun 05, 2011

I've heard good things about SED tubes, too, but the JJs seemed to be reasonably priced for the quality. I have them in my prosonic and it sounds great, too. Thanks for commenting, Paul. Do you have, or have you ever used, any tube bass amps? What do you think about them?

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Sunday Jun 05, 2011

hicksjd9 wrote: Do you have, or have you ever used, any tube bass amps? What do you think about them?

I have two all-tube bass amps, a Mesa/Boogie Bass 400+ and an Eden E300T. The Mesa is a rack-mounted amp with 12 6L6s in the power section and 4 12AX7s in the front-end. I've occasionally switched out the phase invertor 12AX7 for a 12AU7, as it affords you some more headroom in the output and the EQ is a little more responsive. The 400+ was actually designed due to a vertical integration issue with Mesa. The 400, which was the 400+s predecessor, was built around a power section using 6 6550s. Mesa's supply of cheap 6550s went bust, so after using lower output tubes as a substitute for a little while, they decided to design a bass head based on 6l6s. The 400+ was Mesa's last all-tube bass amp before going to all hybrid designs.

I really dig the Mesa. I'm not certain of the year, but it's one of the first 400+s, since it has a hardwired power cable. The later 400+s have a removable power cord. However, as typical with Mesa amps, it has a ton of EQ options that take some getting used to. It has an interactive three-band parametric EQ with push-pull pots and a defeatable 7 band graphic EQ. When it's dailed in, it sounds great, but somtimes, like a lot of Mesa equipment, it needs some tweaking to get it to the sweet spot. It's not a very consistent sounding amp from room to room, which is probably my biggest complaint with it (since again, it takes some tweaking). It's a more hifi sounding amp, very mid-range focused with a lot of upper-harmonic detail (though not as much as a high quality SS amp). It's overall attack is a bit sharper than a typical SVT, and it has a very distinct sound when the power section is driven into clipping. It has a high impedance DI that takes the signal straight off the output transformer, so you're still getting the power section at the desk if you don't want to mic the cab.

The Eden's actually a very controversial head. It's Eden's second all-tube amp, after the VT300B, which was a rack-mount built by Koch, who also built the Sadowsky SA200, and before the WTB300V, which is basically the same amp as mine, only with a metal grill and some tweaks to the DI. The E300T is actually built overseas by a company called Smarvo, who released a couple of similar heads under the names Fame and Ashton. I've compared the power sections of all of these amps, and to my nonelectrical engineering eyes, they're definitely the same. The Eden's front-end, however, is a bit different from the other amps built by Smarvo. Supposably, David Nordschow did a lot of design on the Eden's preamp section. With that said, the preamps among the amps don't look THAT different from each other. But again, I'm not an electrical eningeer.

It's loaded with 6 KT88s and 1 12AX7, 2 12AT7s, and 1 12AU7...I think.

I've overbiased the power tubes a little bit. It really opens up the amp. EQ-wise, it's the complete opposite of the Mesa - simple three-band tone stack with a mid-shift button. Unlike the Mesa, it's pretty easy to EQ and fairly consistent from room to room. The sound would be more close to a Fender Bassman, if you wanted a reference point. The low-end is big and bloomy, the mids are pretty smooth, and the highs are somewhat subdued. I used it on the gig Friday night and was really digging it. "Real" Eden or not, I've found it to be a quality amp. A lot of cats actually prefer it over the SVT-CL. That's all personal taste, though.

At the end of the day, there are things I love about a great tube amp, but there are things I also love about a great solid-state amp. On a gig last week, I used a small solid-state combo amp with a 4x10 extension cab, and old sKool, the sound engineer, and I were all diggin' on it.

...and there I go writing another novel on RP.

What would Witchhunt say? *lol*

RamRod 1 · Post by **RamRod 1** » Sunday Jun 05, 2011

What a score and you didn't even post a photo! SHAME!

Here's the closest I've got. Bassman I forget the year. Got it recapped a couple of years ago .After almost 50 years, it needed it.

hicksjd9 · Post by **hicksjd9** » Monday Jun 06, 2011

I'll post a pic tonight. Sorry about that! Don't know what I was thinking.

xero380 · Post by **xero380** » Tuesday Jun 14, 2011

Where is the picture? I'd love to see it...glad you really enjoy it and was able to bring it back to life even more. Nothing like getting rid of something so useless to yourself and unloading it to someone who appreciates it alot. Great Work Man and glad you're happy.

hicksjd9 · Post by **hicksjd9** » Wednesday Jun 15, 2011

Holy crap, Ramrod! That bassman is awesome! Right between the tweed and blackface versions. I believe they are called brownfaces.

The knobs are a dead giveaway.

That is a very valuable amp, especially with the matching cab!!!

I have yet to get a pic up. I can't find wife's camera cord.

lonewolf · Post by **lonewolf** » Wednesday Jun 15, 2011

Still waiting for a pic!!!!

Ramrod, your's is purdy!

hicksjd9 · Post by **hicksjd9** » Wednesday Jun 15, 2011

OK. Finally found the cord. Here are the pics. I'm glad we made the deal Xero. I really love this amp.

hicksjd9 · Post by **hicksjd9** » Wednesday Jun 15, 2011

Paul,

I somehow missed that post above. Very cool. The nice part about the Eden is that the questionable heritage will bring down their price on the used market (nice if you bought it used to begin with, not so nice if you bought it new). I'm a used car/amp/guitar/younameit guy, so I always look at things from a resale standpoint.

Either way, a good amp is a good amp. I've used a lot of jems over the years that were overlooked masterpieces, such as the carvin x100b, a sovtek mig100, a fender prosonic (two of them actually, a custom shop red snakeskin combo and a production head), B52 at100, and finally this bandmaster. There are some great deals out there if you just pay attention to reviews.

Checked out some online clips and both of those bass amps sound awesome. If you ever want to sell either, look me up first. I need a good bass head for the studio.

mjb · Post by **mjb** » Thursday Jun 16, 2011

very nice! yours is too andy!

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Thursday Jun 16, 2011

dude, you got that amp really clean. It looks awesome.

Where did you end up finding knobs for it?

lonewolf · Post by **lonewolf** » Thursday Jun 16, 2011

mmmm. creamy!

hicksjd9 · Post by **hicksjd9** » Thursday Jun 16, 2011

Mitch,

Got the knob from this awesome parts distributer called amplified parts. They have a website and you can access them through amazon. Thats where I got the tubes (actually cost me less than factory direct from eurotubes) the knob and the sprague caps.

I'm getting ready to build some tube amps. I'll let you know when I get the parts in. I'm feeling really confident about this. It's much easier than the circuit board preamps I've build over the years. My plan is to clone a few old classics and put them into head units. I'm going to start with a turretboard handwire of my epi valve jr. and a new output transformer. From there, i'm going to move on to a complete amp build by dave hunter called the two stroke. Then, a matchless spitfire or lightning clone. Not using kits. Just sourcing and cloning. Should be fun!

MeYatch · Post by **MeYatch** » Thursday Jun 16, 2011

That sounds awesome. I have a couple ideas for some cabs I'd like to build too, and possibly recover some cabs I have.

hicksjd9 · Post by **hicksjd9** » Thursday Jun 16, 2011

I have tons of woodworking tools and a fair amount of cab building experience. It's too bad you don't live closer.

bassist_25 · Post by **bassist_25** » Wednesday Jul 06, 2011

hicksjd9 wrote:The nice part about the Eden is that the questionable heritage will bring down their price on the used market (nice if you bought it used to begin with, not so nice if you bought it new).

Totally! I bought it used from a really nice cat from Vermont right before I left North Carolina to come back here. It was waiting at my father's when I got home, and I used it on a gig the next night. These heads are killer deals on the used market.