Fender Vibro Champ

Volume, Treble, Bass, Vibrato Speed and Vibrato depth dials.

Luv it.

This is why I decided to submit a review. I'm 42 now. Got my first guitar when I was 12. Must have been my 14th birthday when my parents gave me the Vibro Champ. It was somewhere in the late 70s, early eighties. (While I'm writing this, I suddenly remember how it smelled when I got it.)

Anyway, I played guitar a lot until I was about 30. Got into electronic music then and stopped playing the guitar. Then, when I was 40 I got a son, and decided I would stop doing electronic music, but because I couldn't quit making music altogether, I picked up the guitar again to just jam a bit. Got my Champ from the basement. It had become, literally, rusty. Fearful that wouldn't work after all these years, I switched it on. It still worked!

The point of this story: I hope I can give my son a present that he will still use 30 years on.

Never even switched the tubes, perhaps it will sound even better if i did...

Never needed any.

Read the above.

Mine is a 1969 Vibro-Champ. It has every feature I would want in a single-ended, class A tone box. I use the #2 quieter input jack for cleaner playing and the hotter #1 jack for earlier breakup. All original, with RCA tubes and an 8" Oxford speaker. This amp's simple circuit works great for checking out differences in tubes and guitars. Its best feature is that it has no tone-killing stuff mucking up the circuit. The Vibro in mine sounds really cool, I can slow it way down for a phasing effect or make it sound like I'm playing through a Leslie. I have fun trying different mic positions, running it into a board and then cranking the headphones...I've hung it from the ceiling, hung it in a well, took it to bed with me. It whispers, it screams. A must for any serious guitarist.

I typically use old pre-CBS Strats and Tele's (i know -- they make any amp sound great). My '69 is kind of "sparkly" and really touch sensitive, which is OK for me 'cuz i play with my fingers. It likes analog pedals, hates digital stuff. It doesn't get a 10 because the old Oxfart speaker can't deal with heavy stuff. I rig a speaker line out to a 4 ohm JBL 2x12 cabinet and stick in a "hot" JJ 6v6 with "hot" recto tube when it's time to bring the thunder. The circuit can't do tight, crunchy modern distortion because of tube rectification. It's really good at sloppy, bluesy stuff like early Zep or spanky sounds like Clapton's opening riff to Layla...which was played on a Champ, of course. Keef liked to use them a lot, too.

The hand-built Fenders of the 60's are legendary in their durability and reliability. They have no equal amoung tube amps. Champs are especially kill-proof due to their simplicity. Mine tolerates all sorts of abuse.

Vintage amps are Fender's biggest competitor. Seriously, though -- there are lots and lots of people who know how to work on Champs. I would consider that plenty of support if you are considering buying a vintage Champ.

People are complaining that paying through the nose for a old Champ is making them not such a good value. I look at it this way -- a modern practice amp, no matter what you pay, drops in value by half as soon a you take it home. Same goes for the boutique amps. Get a vintage Champ, though, and you own an amp that actually appreciates in worth. Why? Because its the best-sounding, most versatile, durable, easily modified, portable tube tone machine you can get. That isn't going to change. Take it from me, I've been playing since the freakin' 60's. Get yours, and you'll be playing next to it in your rocking chair someday.

I just noticed that the story I posted below got chopped off at the end. This is a corrected version with the ending.
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Features are about as basic as you can get. On/Off, volumn, a few tone pots. That's all you get. That's all you need.

This is a tragic story. Be sure you have a box of tissues handy.

It was the summer of 1980. I lost my job and got turned down for unemployment benefits. Or at least they put an 8 week hold on it. After a few weeks I was at a point where my only friend in the world was a knickle that I have refused to spend. I actually ended up selling my blood twice a week for a pathetic $14 just so I could have something to eat. I ended up moving into my mom's basement.
Yeah, I was singin' the blues and feelin' em too.

Finally my unemployment came through. I had enough money to go pick up my rig from the pawn shop. The guitar was a Vantage Ghost. The amp was a Yamaha 50 112R that got me ridiculed on many occasions. It sounded like garbage. But my luck was about to change.

There in the pawn shop stood a sad looking little Fender Vibro Champ. It didn't have a speaker so they had paired it with an off brand 14" bass speaker. Oh, yeah, the guy who did that was a genius. But they were priced at a paltry $50. I wondered, "What would this little Fender sound like plugged into the input of my Yamaha?" I bought it and took it home to find out.

Hooking it up was as easy as pie. It had the right kind of jack since the 10" speaker had been replaced by the bass unit. I just ran that into the front of the Yamaha and plugged it in. I didn't know what to expect. Maybe I would blow up my Yammy. So I turned the volumn knob all the way down. I turned the Yammy on about half way and then dialed up the Champ about half way to 1. And it sounded good. It sounded REAL good.

I messed with the settings on the two amps looking for the best combination. And that's why I got hit by about 1000 watts of pure electricity. It knocked my *** across the room.

No, it wasn't harmful but it was dangerous. It wasn't current it was tone. I had created a monster. I'd never heard sounds like that in my life.

How can I describe this for you? The closest thing I can think to describe it is to say it was like the sound Hendrix got on "Band Of Gypsies" only it was a Fender sound not a Marshall. Which would make it a lot like a Mesa but even more radical. It was the sound of raw electricity. Like that downed wire you're not supposed to touch. It crackled. It sang. And damned if that little sonuva***** didn't scream like Hell had opened up and was trying to drag me down. I had found my signature sound.
I soon learned that if I kept the volumn knob on my guitar at about 3/4 I could get bell-like feedback by kicking it up with my little finger and adding some finger vibrato. That Vantage Ghost would sustain forever. And it had the vibro unit which was fun as Hell to play with. The concrete walls and floors added a reverb you can't get from a spring unit. So I took the spring unit out and made a stand for it where I could just ******* kick the thing when the urge hit me and I'd get special effects you can't imagine. WAAAAANNNNNNGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I took a reel to reel tape deck and recorded sounds from shaking a piece of sheet metal in front of a microphone. This sounded a lot like thunder and could be played thru the amp by stepping on a foot switch. CCRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSHHHHHH!!!!! It was kind of a "Whole Lotta Love" thing. I thought about going by the name, "Thor - The God of Thunder". I think someone else ended up using that one.

-------------------------------------------
There are known to wear like a friggin' tank. Hard to believe but there seem to be lots of them around from the '60's that have have little to nothing done to them. They just keep soldiering on.

I sat down in that basement for about 3 months. I'd get up after my mom went to work and the only thing I'd stop for was to watch Leave It To Beaver and have a sandwich around 1:00. And I'd turn down once in a while when the cops showed up. But then it was right back at it until my mom stood at the top of the stairs screaming her lungs out for me to stop. Its truly a wonder I didn't go deaf. After a few months of this I had an pretty good act together. It was just me but I decided to go to the local college town and see if I couldn't hook up with some like minded players.

Then my luck turned bad again.

---------------------------
Never used them so I dunno.

I was in the park in Lawrence Kansas one afternoon when somebody asked me if I wanted to buy some acid. I was willing to play with my brain cells in hopes that it might make me a better player. "Just do half" the guy said, "its REALLY strong."

Well to make a long story short by the time it was all over my guitar and amp were gone and I was bouncing off the walls at the mental hospital in Osawatamie Kansas.

Well that was about 27 years ago. And I've blown up more amps than I can count trying to get that sound back. I tried it with Fender Twins, Ampegs, Music Mans, Carvins, even a Mesa Mark IV with a 4 12 cab. When that one failed I launched a search and found a Yamaha 50 112 and Fender Vibro Champ hooked them up the same way and sounded just like...

dog crap. I have no idea what was so special about the first ones I'd strung together but it never worked again.

So how do I rate this amp for tone? About a 15 on the first one and a zero the second time around.

Features are about as basic as you can get. On/Off, volumn, a few tone pots. That's all you get. That's all you need.

This is a tragic story. Be sure you have a box of tissues handy.

It was the summer of 1980. I lost my job and got turned down for unemployment benefits. Or at least they put an 8 week hold on it. After a few weeks I was at a point where my only friend in the world was a knickle that I have refused to spend. I actually ended up selling my blood twice a week for a pathetic $14 just so I could have something to eat. I ended up moving into my mom's basement.
Yeah, I was singin' the blues and feelin' em too.

Finally my unemployment came through. I had enough money to go pick up my rig from the pawn shop. The guitar was a Vantage Ghost. The amp was a Yamaha 50 112R that got me ridiculed on many occasions. It sounded like garbage. But my luck was about to change.

There in the pawn shop stood a sad looking little Fender Vibro Champ. It didn't have a speaker so they had paired it with an off brand 14" bass speaker. Oh, yeah, the guy who did that was a genius. But they were priced at a paltry $50. I wondered, "What would this little Fender sound like plugged into the input of my Yamaha?" I bought it and took it home to find out.

Hooking it up was as easy as pie. It had the right kind of jack since the 10" speaker had been replaced by the bass unit. I just ran that into the front of the Yamaha and plugged it in. I didn't know what to expect. Maybe I would blow up my Yammy. So I turned the volumn knob all the way down. I turned the Yammy on about half way and then dialed up the Champ about half way to 1. And it sounded good. It sounded REAL good.

I messed with the settings on the two amps looking for the best combination. And that's why I got hit by about 1000 watts of pure electricity. It knocked my ass across the room.

No, it wasn't harmful but it was dangerous. It wasn't current it was tone. I had created a monster. I'd never heard sounds like that in my life.

How can I describe this for you? The closest thing I can think to describe it is to say it was like the sound Hendrix got on "Band Of Gypsies" only it was a Fender sound not a Marshall. Which would make it a lot like a Mesa but even more radical. It was the sound of raw electricity. Like that downed wire you're not supposed to touch. It crackled. It sang. And damned if that little sonuvabitch didn't scream like Hell had opened up and was trying to drag me down. I had found my signature sound.
I soon learned that if I kept the volumn knob on my guitar at about 3/4 I could get bell-like feedback by kicking it up with my little finger and adding some finger vibrato. That Vantage Ghost would sustain forever. And it had the vibro unit which was fun as Hell to play with. The concrete walls and floors added a reverb you can't get from a spring unit. So I took the spring unit out and made a stand for it where I could just f***ing kick the thing when the urge hit me and I'd get special effects you can't imagine. WAAAAANNNNNNGGGGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!! Then I took a reel to reel tape deck and recorded sounds from shaking a piece of sheet metal in front of a microphone. This sounded a lot like thunder and could be played thru the amp by stepping on a foot switch. CCRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAASSSSSSHHHHHH!!!!! It was kind of a "Whole Lotta Love" thing. I thought about going by the name, "Thor - The God of Thunder". I think someone else ended up using that one.

I sat down in that basement for about 3 months. I'd get up after my mom went to work and the only thing I'd stop for was to watch Leave It To Beaver and have a sandwich around 1:00. And I'd turn down once in a while when the cops showed up. But then it was right back at it until my mom stood at the top of the stairs screaming her lungs out for me to stop. Its truly a wonder I didn't go deaf. After a few months of this I had an pretty good act together. It was just me but I decided to go to the local college town and see if I couldn't hook up with some like minded players.

Then my luck turned bad again.

I was in the p

There are known to wear like a friggin' tank. Hard to believe but there seem to be lots of them around from the '60's that have have little to nothing done to them. They just keep soldiering on.

Never used them so I dunno.

I think I answered all that above.

vibro is killer. vibro effects pale in comparison. the footswitch seems forward-looking for the time it was made. i will add a mid knob to the front plate if i can bring myself to drill a hole in it. there actually is a mid control - it's just a fixed resistor in the tone stack the way they made it.

the champ is aptly named. for workaday recording jobs, it is pretty hard to beat. this is the ultimate amp for larry carlton/robben ford type sound. it is the ultimate platform for pedals. it is the ultimate clean sound. it has no nuts when overdriven in the lowest register, but that's what marshalls are for. or pedals - this thing with any boutique modded DS-1 gets that job done, you just can't have the champ's own breakup if you need those low notes to be fat. the response curve of this amp is perfect - any mic pre can really grab ahold of it and shape it to fit a track. if i had to live the rest of my life with only one amp, this one might be it. BTW try it with different cabs. that little 8" POS is not the only speaker in the world

hand made by the WWII generation. it is a tank. who know - whoever assembled it might have actually built tanks before going to work at fender in fullerton

been playing 25 years. still playing new stuff, still teaching teenagers, still arranging for up-and-comers. if you don't "get" the champ you suck. why any studio or session player would be without one is beyond me.

My Vibro Champ was made in 1973, apparently one of the last to use pine cabinets prior to using plywood. It does sound different than other later model Vibro Champs I have encountered with ply cabs. I got really lucky with this amp because it is 100% stock. RCA and GE tubes plus the original Oxford speaker. I checked out the guts and everything there appears to be original as well. The features it has are very simple; volume, bass, treble, tremolo speed and intensity. It is a single ended 6V6 design with a single 12AX7 driving a two stage preamp section. Another 12AX7 drives the on-board tremolo and it has a 5Y3GT rectifier tube to complete the tube compliment. Like many others, I do wish it had reverb, but I plan to get a Fender outboard tube reverb unit in the near future so no problem really.

I know many people think that these amps are all hype. I know this because I used to feel the same way. I mean, how good can a basic student amp from the 1960-1970s rated at 6W really sound? Well the simple truth is these little guys are tone monsters. Of course, you have to like Fender amps and you have to understand that these will now be powering your next club or arena gig. But it will be great for a coffee house gig or better yet, your own enjoyment at home in in your home studio. The amp itself has three sweet spots in my opinion. The first is at 4 on the volume dial where you get just at the edge of breakup tone with single notes sounding like a piano note tone. Then at 7 you get nice edgy low gain breakup with a bit of speaker breakup thrown in and you are in early Led Zeppelin land without splitting your eardrums. Finally at 10 this little amp is giving you all it has and it is fabulous - rich in harmonics and overtones. For the record, I use all Fender guitars, most American made and all with vintage type single coil pickups. I have also recently tried putting my Fulltone Fulldrive II MOSFET and/or Fulltone OCD in front of the amp with excellent results as well. But really, you just don't need any pedals at all with this amp. I'd also like to gush over the on board tremolo in this and all Vibro Champs. Granted I am a big lover of tremolo, but this one sounds absolutely wonderful. It uses a bias vary type circuit as opposed to the optical coupled type found in other amps. I like this type much better myself and it really is smooth and seductive in it's effect.

Well let's see, it is a 34 year old amp with original parts still in it. I'd say that qualifies for a high reliability rating. Even if it goes whack on me I can work on it myself.

As I said, I am strictly a Fender kind of guy. Never had any problem with any of their stuff so I can't say how the company is to deal with but if you define customer support as also providing excellent products that work as advertised and are consistently high in build quality then you have to believe they are willing to stand behind their products. benefit of the doubt in my mind anyway.

How can I NOT rate this a perfect ten? It sounds awesome, works flawlessly and is light weight and has stood the test of time. I am the third owner of this particular amp. The first used it for many years in his guitar instruction studio as a practice amp. The second owner is a friend of mine who also took excellent care of the amp. The silver face has some scratches where instrument cables missed their marks, but other than that it is pristine really. I shined up the tolex and it is remarkable how good it looks. I was never a big fan of a silver face look, but I'll live with it to save the $$$ it would cost me extra to get a black faced era Vibro Champ in this good of a condition and all original. I feel I got an excellent deal all around and I am glad that I didn't get one of the new Champion 600 amps (made in China) that Fender came out with this year. Those run $200 and this one ran $300 and in just terms of build quality and mojo, the Vibro Champ is clearly superior. If you are wondering which way to go, I strongly urge you to at least try to find a SF Vibro Champ before "settling" for some modern day poser. I'm sure glad I did.

1973, vibrato option, 2 channels, great studio/practice/in the living room amp. Great tube tone.

The sounds are just as everyone has said. Fantastic. I play a 63 Fender Jazzmaster and it suits the guitar just perfectly. It's also fun to run a ricky 12 string thru it for giggles. This amp sings, and yes crank up the volume of the amp and use the guitar for sound. It came with RCA and GE tubes in it which i got lucky on, they're probably from the 70's. The Jensen speaker sounds great, i actually for fun ran it through one of the 12 Blue Alcinos in my AC-30 , man, that is unexplainable!

Never has broken on me, i've been thinking about replacing the output tranny and the power. It will probably open up the amp about 10 times as much, always use the ones made by mercury magnetics if you ever consider this. Basically this amp is as reliable as a 6 watt fender amp from 1973 should be.

Don't need it.

It's good for what it is. Practice, studio, living room.

Made in 1977. The amp tech I took it too (Heights Guitar in Cleveland Heights, Ohio ... awesome!) gave it a clean bill of health and told me that the 70's models were basically the same specs as the 60's model. (So save yourself a bundle on e-bay and get a 70's model).

A simple, basic, beautiful amp. Two channels, vibrato -- and that's about it. I play for fun and stress relief -- jazz, blues, rock ... basically whatever strikes my mood at the time I'm playing.

Life is complicated enough. It's good to have a simple amp.

Oh ............. my goodness!

A previous reviewer wrote about plugging in the Champ and having it give him an in-service in tone. That reviewer couldn't have been more correct.

Beautiful tone, and serious volume. I think this amp is rated at 6 watts. Had a friend come over with a 40 watt SS el-cheapo amp. My friend and I both agreed that the fender sounded louder.

I thought I knew what a great tone on an amp sounded like. I had no idea until I plugged in this baby.

Tone is completely subjective of course, and I'm a complete tone snob. This little bad boy fits the bill for me.

The amp tech I took it to wouldn't touch it ... said there was nothing wrong with it.

What other 30 year old product is sitting around your house that still works?

This baby is a work horse!

No idea. Bought it off ebay. Wouldn't bother Fender with a 30-year old product.

Been playing 25 years (yikes!)...strictly amateur and just for fun.

I run an Ibanez AS-80 (ES 335 semi-hollow clone) ===> (boss DS-1 distortion; Boss SD-1 overdrive; Boss CE-2 chorus depending on the sound I want).

AS-80 ==> Champ : gives a great, almost jazz box sound

AS-80 ==> SD-1 ==> Champ : I can get pretty close to B.B. King's blues sound. (but not his style! He's the Master Yoda of Blues, and I'm a freakin' padawan learner! ;-)



If it were lost or stolen, I'd buy another one in a heartbeat.

1976 USA. SIlverface model. Specifications are easy to find.
It is NO versatile amp, as it only has one channel, and few controls to tweak.
Wish it had reverb, but i can absolutely live withou it.
Forget high gain or metal. It was not designed for that. It was designed for sweet sounds... that can be crancked to a mild overdrive if you use medium or high output humbuckers.

This is the strong part of this amp. Its sweet tone. Nothing beats this little beast of tone. Stratos with medium output single coils makes this ample whistle bell-like tones. Wonderfull
Starts to breakup around Vol 6... and with absolute response to picking dynamics.
In Vol 10 you sound crunchy with stratos. Overdriven with humbuckers.
I use it for room practice mainly. Can hold very well stompboxes... BUT you can't get a great bottom-end, cause of the 8" speaker.

1976, still running flawlessly.
Bought it used, and has no problem at all. No scratchy pots, no unwanted noises.

Live in Chile...
All my amps are serviced by two local guys (brothers) that work together.

I've been playin for 13 years. Almost regular daily practice since i started playing in 1994.
Own JCM 900, JCM 2000, Bassman, Bandmaster, JC 120, Champ 12, Vibrochamp, and have had others. ALso Fender stratos, G&L, Les Paul studio, Flyng V, ESP Eclipse, and others.
This is a REALY MUST HAVE amp.
Has everything you need in a good amp... BEAUTIFULL TONE.
And doesn't need anything else

This is a 1977 model modified into a head only by the previous owner who expertly and professionally cut off the speaker part of the amp. He wanted ease of cartability to recording studios plus the ability to plug into any speaker he might want. Everyone who sees it thinks it's cute and it is. Since it was already modified, I decided to have reverb added by Torres Engineering as well as a midrange booster on the treble knob. Wow! Many who own VC's say "If it only had reverb". I'm here to say that with reverb added, it's incredible. Since I also have a stock 1977, unmodified Vibro-Champ, I was OK with modifying this already modified amp. You can read my review about my stock VC earlier on in this forum. This amp works well for all my musical styles which you can read about in my earlier VC review. The ratings here are for the modified amp.

I will make a little joke and say that you can do some "Jimi Hendrix Junior" stuff with this amp by overdriving it into distortion. I am not kidding, it is a hoot and it's real. I once jammed with a young whippersnapper for about an hour doing just that. He was very impressed as I slid my guitar's neck string first across the mic stand, playing with and shaping the feedback. But it won't give you permanent hearing loss like the Big Boy Marshall stacks might. It really sounds good through my Marshall 1x12 loaded with a 12" Eminence GB-12 speaker, which is the speaker I use most of the time with this amp. I've daisy chained it with my stock VC with its 8" speaker with a 12" speaker on this modified VC and it's quite astonishing. What you can get out of these little amps is really mind boggling. The only effect this amp has is tremolo which I use a lot. This tremolo is really the bomb, easily comparing to my '65 Fender Twin Reissue in terms of quality of tremolo sound. And far better than my Silverface and Blackface Princeton Reverb's tremolo which pretty much suck by comparison. The distortion can get quite brutal, and it's a bit muddy, but using an Eminence GB-12 speaker gives more clarity and punch. The GB-12 is a copy of the Celestion Greenback which I think sounds better and costs a bit less as well. I also have a 2x12 Marshall 1936 speaker cab loaded with two Greenbacks, so I have a good basis of comparison. Didn't mean to get off track with the speakers, but when you hook good speakers up to this little amp, it truly rocks. Plug it into a 4x12 cab and you'll be surprised at how good it sounds. It's not a noisy amp, I think because it's so low wattage. It's a Class A amp, and that gives it a bit of a bite for a teeny little amp. It has teeth. The reverb added by Torres Engineering is really high quality and sounds just like Fender reverb on the bigger Fender amps. Very nice mod and really rounds out the sound quality on this amp. The midrange boost added gives you a nice fat sound if you want it. With the boost on, it seems to get more sensitive to fingers across the guitar strings as you play. However, it gives the amp some more flexibilty and a greater range of expression.

Torres Engineering checked the entire amp out and tuned it up when they did the mods noted above. As a result, the tone is better and the amp sounds stronger, more kick, a bit more top end, which is very nice. I'd say this amp is good to go for another 30 years. This amp has never broken down, but I've only had it since May 2006 when I bought it. Being modified to a head only amp makes it real easy to schlep around. Because of that, I use this as my back up amp. You can easily plug it into your combo amp's speaker and carry on if your larger/other amp dies during a gig. Just put a mic on it and you're there. For church, I play it with the speaker facing me so I can always hear it, and a mic on the speaker feeds the P.A. system.

This is the N/A section for a vintage amp like this. I've been told Fender won't touch these old amps. Not to worry, Torres Engineering or other qualified and experienced amp tech can easily take care of these amps. But make sure whoever works on your amp is good at what they do. I suppose an unqualified/inexperienced tech could ruin it. They are very simple and uncomplicated amps, which is why they sound so good! Warranty? The warranty of this amp most likely expired in 1978, a little while ago...

You can see my other reviews (Dr. Sound Good) for the gear I have. I have a lot of gear and I use it all. I've played guitar for 42 years. Played for audiences for 21 years, mostly church. Played in a commercial Country Western band for a year and a half. Played blues in a couple of bars.. If this amp were stolen I might get a little upset since with everything that's been done to this amp, I've spent a total of about $650 on it, including shipping to Torres and back, and initial purchase, tiny as it is. But to me it's worth it. A little package that makes a big and high quality warm, round, all tube sound. Can't beat tubes, in my opinion, for musicality. I have 2 vintage Fender Princeton Reverb amps, a stock VC, and you can check my other reviews for a complete listing of my gear if you want to.