Fender Musicmaster Bass Amp

This is a great little amp. No date stamp, the serial on the transformer wasn't much help, but seems to be a 74, or a 79. Who knows. Silverface with volume and tone, two inputs and a separate on/off switch. It is what it is. A 12w 1x12 Fender tube amp with simple controls and hand-wired. Two 6v6's and a 12ax7 preamp. A 7 - not higher because there are of course better amps with more features, but not lower because for what it is and the avg. cost, it's pretty good.

As most others have written, it's rubbish for bass. But a nice little guitar amp all the same. Not loud enough for gigging, but a good practice/at home amp, maybe some mild recording. I used it with a tele, no set style of music, but combined it offered a range from extremely bright and clear to lower and warmer tones. With the treble cut(tone) down it has background noise, but touch a string and that's gone. Above 5 on the volume and it starts to go into overdrive, and it sounds pretty good up to full volume. The distortion is there, but it's not so overpowering that you wouldn't wanna push it.

12watts rms is obviously not loud enough for a gig unless you were in a real pinch, or you were playin a quiet set somewhere, for some reason. And maybe for light recording it'd be ok. It never gave me a problem, ever. I've had it since 1996. The tubes have not been changed by me(they work fine and they add to the sound,) but I believe they aren't original. It has sat without being used, and it's been pushed to the max. Say what you will about silverface amps, but this thing is a tank.

Never tried, never needed to, and servicing it is pretty easy since it is so bare-bones. Everyone sells Fender, it'd be easy to find someone to help with a problem though. Can't give an informed rating on this one though.

Overall for what it is, it's a great little tube amp. I have some other bigger amps, solid state. And I CAN match the tone exactly with those because I've tried. Honestly, if I had the money I would buy another one now, and of course if it were lost or stolen. It's simple, but I love it because it's fairly versatile, and it's so light and small it can store anywhere. I did not choose this amp originally, it was given to me(free is the best price), but given a choice I probably would've settled on this one because you can still pick them up cheap.

1975 Fender MusicMaster Bass amp. I know that its listed as a bass amp but this really is a guitar amp.
Single channel, point to point wiring.
It has an On switch, a Volume knob and Tone knob. And the tone knob doesn't really do anything. Its not a very versatile amp. There are two tones. When the volume is under 4 it has a very nice wet clean sound. With the volume from 5-8 it has a very nice saturation, kinda like 'Cinnamon Girl' Neil Young tone. Last time I turned it to 10 i blew some resistors and capacitors. Its a 12 watt amp so its pretty much a practice or recording amp. It has plenty of power for me because that is what I want it for. I can use it at home without bothering the neighbors. It would have a hard time keeping up with all but the quietest of drummers. Its a real simple amp, no bells or whistles. But it has great tone.

This amp has had the tone stack re-wired to match the Princeton but it still doesn't do much. It also has a Weber 12F150 speaker that sounds great to me, but I haven't heard it any other way so I don't know if that affects the sound of the amp much. I assume that it is a big part of the tone though because the reading I have done on this amp shows that everyone hates the stock speaker.

I love the tone from this amp! I can play jazz/blues on it all day with the volume at 3. I can play classic rock all day with volume at 6. It even takes to pedals surprisingly well. the clean is great with a little reverb (EHX holier grail) and chorus (Ibanez CS-9). For me this is the perfect bedroom amp. I go through a lot of gear, but this is a keeper.

This one is a bit of a Frankenstein. The cabinet is from a different amp. The tube sticker inside doesn't match the actual tubes. I am saying that its 1975 because thats whats on the transformer but with 6v6 tubes in it it could be as old as 1971. It's such a simple circuit that it is pretty easy to fix so I am not too worried about its reliability. Again, this is a practice/bedroom amp to me so its not going out gigging or anything like that. I'll dock it a couple of points because it has broken down on me, but its 30+ years old so its better than average in my opinion.

Customer support is really just the local amp tech and hes great!

If you're looking for a bedroom amp this is perfect. If you something to gig or even jam with this probably isn't the right choice for you. You can think of it like a vintage blues Jr. Its better than the blues junior in my opinion, I have had one of those too.