Clean but WTF? | Strange Things Are Afoot in this ‘66 Bandmaster
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- Опубликовано: 5 фев 2025
- Usually amps have been changed a lot over the years as parts give out, things fail, and trends come and go. Such is life.
Occasionally one comes in completely as it left the factory - I love those.
This one is the latter category, except for the strangest addition I've ever encountered in an amp.
Part 2:
• Diving In | Bringing t...
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These are things I get asked about a lot :
Amp Tech Gear Used :
Hakko FX-951 soldering station
Weller SPG 80L soldering iron (chassis work)
Rigol DS1054Z digital oscilloscope
Thsinde 18B+ digital multimeters
Kester 60/40 solder
Techspray #4 No-Clean Desoldering Braid
Below are things that make this channel possible that people don’t usually think about. If any of these companies want to send me new and wonderful toys, I’m open to that. I can’t take free stuff when it comes to the amps I review, etc, but for the stuff below, bribe away!
Microphones/Audio Equipment :
Guitar Amps : Royer R-10 Hot Rod and/or Shure SM57 (noted in videos)
Voiceover Bench : sE Audio sE8 (small diaphragm condenser)
Voiceover Streaming : Shure SM57 with shockmount and windscreen
Voiceover Mic Arms : Elgato Wave Mic arms
Guitar Mic Stand : Gator Frameworks short weighted base stand with boom
Mic Cables and Guitar Cables : Mogami/Neutrik
Mic pre : MOTU M2
DAW : Logic Pro X on MacBook Pro 16 running Sonoma 14
Plugins : No effects other than level matching/normalization unless a recording
specifically has reverb etc added in post (rare, various Waves plugins)
Monitors : Yamaha HS7s
Monitor Stands : Gator Frameworks Desktop Clamp-On Stands
Monitor Isolation Mounts : IsoAcoustics Iso-Puck Minis
Headphones : Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro (main)
Headphones : Sony MDR-7506 (alternate)
Video Equipment :
Camera : Sony ZVE-10 with SmallRig Cage (main)
Lens : Sigma f2.8 18-50mm (main)
Lens : Sony ZVE10 kit lens (rarely used)
B Camera : Apple iPhone 13 Pro (rarely used)
Tripod : SmallRig 71” with SmallRig Fluid Video Head
Streaming Mount : Elgato Master Mount S with SmallRig Ballhead
Bench Light : SmallRig RC 120D
Bench Light Diffusor : SmallRig Lantern Softbox
Bench C-Stands (light and overhead camera) : Neewer Pro SS Heavy Duty
Streaming Light : SmallRig RC 120B
Streaming Diffusor : SmallRig Parabolic Softbox
Streaming Light Mount : SmallRig 148CM Wall Mount Boom with Triangle Base
Various Other Lights : Neewer LED Panels with Neewer Softboxes
Video Software :
Davinci Resolve 18
Paul Leeming LUTs
Adobe Illustrator 28
Adobe Photoshop 25
Ecamm Live (streaming software)
“Time to paint the living room, bring in the amp honey” - LOL
🤣🤣🤣
The amount of amps I saw with white paint on them over years is really something. It’s like they were used by painters to play trought during painting or something 😂
I'm old enough to remember when everybody in a garage band had a second hand Fender because it was what we could afford and we all lusted after new amps with channel switching and high gain stages and maybe built-in effects. I'll never forget when my bandmate traded his brownface Vibrolux in towards a Pignose solid state amp! We didn't know how good we had it with those old Fenders.
I always amazed to see old Fenders and Marshalls with a few extra holes courtesy of Magoo's chassis mods....
"Where's the confoundit cigar lighter in this crazy thing!"
Uncle Doug, has also remarked about the paint and fender amps a number of times. It must be a thing
They are sturdy and just the right height to reach the top of the wall.
@@tickmagnet , Presumably more paint ended up on the painter's shoes than on the top of the amplifier, and was subsequently tracked through the house onto the shag carpet!😉
seeing the light from the vibrato made my day
I noticed that light. What is it and what does it do?
@@pccougar895The "vibrato" circuit, which is actually tremolo (Leo Fender's confusion is why guitars' vibrato bridges are called "trems".), is optocoupled.
@@RobstafarianThanks I'll have to look that up.
50k, Congratulations 🎉. Loved seeing another sweet amp!!! Appreciate all the updates to Camera and sounds on recent videos!! Thanks
I'm amazed at the condition of that head . I was in third year of school in Manchester England when that was manufactured , listening to the Beatles , Gerry and the Pacemakers and Cilla Black on AM mono radio . LOL
Wow! ...Very nice camera shots Lyle. Love the "To do list:" also. Thx 👍
The production value of your content just keeps getting better 👍
I had that same Bandmaster head in the '80s and it had *great* sound! The only maintenance I ever had to do was to swap out the tubes.
My immediate thought for those jacks is preamp outs to go into a larger power amp, it was a common mod at one point and the 2 jacks were likely for each channel. Infact these mods are what inspired the reasonably famous almbec F-B2
Mine is a 45th week of 66 and was in untouched, pristine condition with failed screen resistors.
Guitar RUclips world needs your input on the new Gibson Falcon amplifiers
I had one of those! Played my high school gigs with it.
Oooh 50k, nice!
Its always fun looking into one of these old 60s amps and finding WTF wires. At least it was entirely original other than that. I bet its going to sound killer when you're finished with it.
Excellent content! i have 2 66' Bandmasters and i love them! bought them in late 90's for no more than $295 a piece, got them to our local, reliable amp tech and he performed the exact same measures as you did, I love their big fat Fender tone with a Strat plugged straight into. OMG! I see they are worth $1200-$1300 apiece nowadays! Simply devine! thanks for your review
I have a 65 just like this. Finally R/R the caps last year sounds glorious
This is going to be a fun one!! Great looking Fender BandMaster!!
It's always nice to get an easy one...
What a beautiful amp for its age!
Nice and easy! Bummer on the chassis holes, but could be much worse as we know
Congratulations on the 50K subs. 100k will be here soon.
I really love the little to-do list!
Awesome amp Lyle, thank goodness the WTF modder didn't get any further. Keep the sweet content rolling
On old amps there is simply patina, while other amps carry a paintina.
Your videos are the best. Thank you.
What a beautiful amp.
Bandmaster amps are really great amps,40 watts of fantastic Fender tone.
Someone gave me 4 old tech specials last year, one of which was a 67 just like this, but not so clean. A local mechanic he knew found it in the trunk of a car he was scrapping. I made an initial video but never got asround to the follow up. I replaced the electrolytics and it had runaway hum! That was also a solder connection undone, in the bias voltage circuit. Worked, but still rough. I wound up replaceing all of the resistors, the optocoupler and only a couple caps, all of the audio chain caps are original. I put a couple Penta 6L6s in it that came in the tech specials, the rest all vintage, I think a couple USA. It turned out so quiet! No hum, no crackling, so super clean! If I want to know what a pickup sounds like uncolored, this is it! I appreciate your videos. My dad was a ham since the 30s and my training in the AF was about 90% hollow state. We spent the last two days of Basic Electronics on transistors, lol. Thanks!
Maybe the WTF wire guy had a change of heart vacuuming up his wonky jack swarf.
Or perhaps the meth wore off.....
My first amp was one of these. Such a nice old beast. The other guitar player in my band had a JCM800 2x12 combo, and he complained my guitar sound was better than his, while I lusted after his amp. Ah, youth is wasted on the young.
Remove the WTF wires, I nearly spilt my coffee…………
Same here!!!
What They For ...plugs
Well Lyle this aught to be a straightforward repair compared to some of the other "works of art" that have come in lately.
Great video, as always!!! Thank you!!
I bought a used ‘68 drip edge around 1972. The faceplate was silver, but the circuit was blackface, down to the cloth wiring. The normal channel always sounded better, as the tremolo photoresister knocked down the gain too much. Still got it!
They use the amp to keep the drop cloth from blowing away. That's my theory, anyway.
Now I know where the stories of amps picking up broadcasts come from: Internal aerial WTF cables!
Listen to Hendrix at the isle of Wight and you can hear the security guards' radio calls come through his amplifiers.
Needed to stand on the amp to reach something when painting.
I wonder if those jacks on the back were an old mod to add even more inputs - but aren't there already 4? Seems like it was a fad back then to be able to plug the whole band (guitar, bass, keyboards, vocals) through one amp.
It's so true that people would treat that '60s gear with no respect back then because it wasn't "vintage" yet. People stole the hardware off them, lost the original screws or lost the back entirely. I have to admit I've used a cabinet as a step ladder a time or 2.
More likely a preamp out socket, using the bandmaster into a big power amp for more stage volume without having to chain multiple heads and deal with all the associated complexity and redundant preamps that involves
This just reminded me that I need a blackface bandmaster back in my life… maybe a mids pot in one (or both) of those drilled holes ?
What is flickering red while testing, just to the right of the 3rd electrolytic from the right? basically Center screen. Can you inform me ?
I would say, since the atrocity has already been committed, use the jacks for something.
I’ve never painted my house (I rent) and always end up with paint on black tolex somehow. It’s weird
i thought i saw a spark when you flipped the standby. optical trem?
Yes
What’s the red flashing (led?) at around 7 mins next to the orange electrolytic in the dead centre of the screen? Looks like it had some heat shrink over it!
That’s the neon bulb in the vibrato circuit.
@@PsionicAudio 👍👍
@@kjbunnyboiler , There's also a cadmium photocell underneath the heat shrink along with the flashing neon bulb, and the two of them together form an LDR or light dependent resistor that flashes to the rate of the tremelo setting. Some people call it a "roach" because there are 4 wires coming out of it and it looks vaguely bug like.
@@goodun2974 👍👍
White paint spots are a way to tell real from fake vintage amps.
Could the jacks have been for something foot switchable?
All the original solder joints were untouched. I can only assume a planned mod was abandoned after drilling before completion.
Those two mystery jacks appear to not be factory original; they have different wire insulation compared to all the other wiring. Or am I mistaken?
20 seconds into the video he says someone has been inside the amp before him and added two jacks that aren't drilled on centre.
Excellent and informative as always! I just got a new '65 Super Reverb Reissue yesterday, and already its emitting a strange hissing sound. I want to say WTF too. I plan on returning it. Come on Fender! I know you can do better than this......
Don’t return it until you’ve made sure it’s not just a noisy preamp tube.
@@PsionicAudio Thank you for the tip! I will take your advice.
It seems new fenders are just noisy, I tried a Princeton 68 and it was bad hissing the whole time, guy at the store said they were all like that. I expected it more with the 2 channel versions due to the bad design but it seems they all are inherently noisy
68s are noisy. 65s usually aren’t.
@@PsionicAudioI returned a bassbreaker 15 and a super champ due to excessive background noise...put the money towards a plainjane '74 champ instead and somehow it does more with less, both quieter and better tone
Hmm.... An effect loop would have been nice but something stopped whoever to complete it... Not sure one going down the wabbit hole?? I would've...
Mahalo Lyle
I found signs of purple paint on my 68 Deluxe reverb??!?
SWEEEEET😃👍👍
😎✌👍❤🖖
Have a banana! Nice job!
Why is there always so much crusty flux on these old solder joints? Is it because of the type of solder they used? I always cringe when I see holes drilled in good ole' amps like that.
Any good quality lead-tin solder with rosin flux core will do that eventually over time, especially if the solder joint is large and is exposed to heat. You'll even see it in old solid state stereo equipment as well, especially on and inbetween the large solder pads for the leads of the output transistors.
Those are the ones you like to see. 98% stock or better, what few faults you find are entirely routine. Those make up for the brain-benders. I've said before, I remember when you could buy 100 of those for $125 each if you wanted.
"Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone?".....
@@goodun2974 Very true. In most of the cases where I owned great guitars, I knew what I had but I simply didn't have enough money/capital to hang onto it. 1957 Strat. 1958 Strat. 1966 CAR Strat. !948 Epiphone Triumph, museum grade, gorgeous 1960 Telecaster,1963 brown vibroverb, so many others.
During your playing sample there appears to be a flashing red light just to the right of the orange cap in the middle of the board... is that just a reflection of the camera light or something going on with the amp?
That’s the neon bulb in the Vibrato circuit.
who let the dogs out??? whoot whoot!!! (doghouse joke......I know, I know....)