Fender Bassman Head

This has no real features, just unmatchable tone. It's strickly a clean amp. Just plug in and take off. The EQ works well, and there are BRIGHT and DEEP switches, but all in all, this is a very simple head.

AMAZING! Nothing like the clean sound you will get from this amp. I recently installed Groove tube in this baby and the sound is incredible. I use a 60's reissue Strat with a Fender Lace sensor in the neck (Blue) and a Duncan Hot Rails in the bridge. I also use a 1971 Gibson Les Paul Custom with stock pickups. The tone is unreal. With a good overdrive pedal (I use a Proco Vintage Rat) you can get the most amazing distortion on this planet. Very smooth with tons of low end. I play emo music (like sunny day real estate, jimmy eat world, appleseed cast) with a touch of alt rock (weezer, ultimate fakebook) and a little bit af art rock (radiohead, built to spill) and it suits my style wonderfully. I use a Boss TR-2 Tremolo, the great EH Q-Tron, Proco Rat, and various other effects in my pedal board, and this amp works with all of them very well. It can get a little dirty sounding at high volumes but thats to be expected. I also have single coils in my Strat so thats a big factor too when dealing with excess noise. Through a good cabinet ( I use a marshall 1960A or an Orange 4x12) it is very clean for the most part. If I were to have a complaint, I'd say it has too much bass (I love alot of low end, but this guys has too much even for me). But then again, its called a BASSMAN for a reason.

I bought this amp used 4 years ago and have only had to replace the tubes once. I have (and ussually do) play shows with no backup. I trust Fender products with my life. They never let me down.

I take all my repair and service needs to the same place. The guy i deal with there does Fender, Gibson, Hiwatt, Marshall, and Crate. He tubed this amp and it has dounded superb ever since.

Great amp, great valuse. i've been playing for about 5 years. I own a Crate Blue Voodoo Head (ewwwww) and a Marshall JCM 800. This is my baby. I can't compare it to the JCM 800 (it is strickly a Distortion amp) but it (obviosly) blows away any Crate I've heard. I've also had a Hiwatt head. It didn't have the low end I like. This amp has it, and more. If you are looking for a GREAT clean amp, and are willing to use a Pedal to get your distortion, this is the amp for you. It is also a very pretty amp (silver face). I put a cool blue jewel light in it, and it is gorgeous. I love this amp, and will never let it go.

PAID 300 SHEKLES FOR THIS '65 BF BASSMAN AND MATCHING 2 12" CABINET SEVERAL YEARS AGO.HAS TWO CHANELS (BASS & NORMAL) WITH INDIVIDUAL VOLUME,TREBLE,AND BASS CONTROLS FOR EACH.HAS A LINE-OUT JACK FOR EXTERNAL SPEAKER ALSO. USE THE AMP EXCLUSIVELY FOR BLUES/ROCK HARP WITH A LARGE VARIETY OF VINTAGE BULLET MICS. CHANGED THE 12AX7 PRE-AMP TUBES (BOTH CHANNELS)TO LOWER VALUE 12AU's TO ELIMINATE SCREAMING FEEDBACK PROBLES ASSOCIATED WITH MIC/HARP PLAYING. DOES EVERYTHING I WOULD EXPECT FROM A GREAT VINTAGE FENDER BLACK FACE AMP. PLENTY LOUD FOR PLAYING LARGE INDOOR VENUES. I'VE BEEN PLAYING FOR 37 YEARS. THE AMP/CABINET IS VIRTUALLY INDUSTRUCTABLE BUT HEAVY TO LUG AROUND. ANY TECH QUESTIONS I'VE EVER HAD WERE ANSWERED FROM FENDER INSTRUMENT E-MAIL WITHIN A COUPLE OF DAYS. THIS AMP USED TO BE MY WORKHORSE AMP, BUT AM NOW USEING A '59 TWEED BASSMAN (4 10"'S MAKE A DIFFERENCE),SO THE '65 IS NOW USED FOR BACK-UP (GIVES ME A GREAT SENSE OF SECURITY. VERY DEPENDABLE AMP.). -PATRICK CAFFEY, MOBILE,AL./CINCY,OHIO

USEING SHURE 545S BUTTERFIELD,520DX & 520SL GREEN BULLETS,ASTATIC JT-30,200S,AND 335H. DIFFERENT TONAL QUALITIES FOR EACH MIC.ACHIEVES THE FAT,BROWN TONES WITH THE "SHURES" AND THE CUTTING, RAZOR-EDGE WITH THE "ASTATICS".

VERY DEPENDABLE. NEVER LET ME DOWN. NEVER HAD TO CHANGE TUBES OUT OF NECESSITY, ONLY AS A PERSONAL PREFERENCE.

WHAT'S A WARRANTY? TECH SUPPORT, HOWEVER, HAS BEEN PROVIDED IN A FAIRLY TIMELY MANNER. AND WAS WORDED-FRIENDLY.

37 YEARS PLAYING. IF SOMETHING DRASTIC WERE TO HAPPEN TO THIS AMP (STOLEN, FIRE,ETC.), I'D TRY TO REPLACE WITH A SIMILAR BASSMAN. HAVE THE '59 TWEED, AND A '64 1482 SILVERTONE ( FOR THOSE SMALL GIN-SOAKED, SMOKE-FILLED ROADHOUSES.)

This Amp is an ALL tube amp from the early 1970's. It has two inputs: bass and normal. This is only a clean head but if you crank it enough and have some hotter pickups in your guitar you can get a great overdriven sound. I only wish that it had a mid knob for the bass input.

Currently im using a les paul into a Boss Ns-2, DOD compressor, Ibanez Ts-9, Boss os-2, DOD eq, DOD stereo phaser, Line 6 delay modulator, and a morley a/b/y switch box into the bassman and a showman combo. With just the amp by itself it would be unusable for me becuase it has no true overdrive channel, but if you are a fan of overdrive and distortion pedals like me this will suit you well. The amp is not very noisy at all except there is a little noise when turned up to ten but thats expected. I think i'm one of the few pop punk and alternative guitarists that uses this amp. I went out and bought it because green day used this amp on there new recording and i loved how it sounded. Vintage gear is the best!

I use the amp about once a week for either practice or gigs. I shouldn't have to replace the tubes for a while but so for it is holding up great.

Never dealt with fender. This is the first fender product I have owned but im sure that their service is good.

I have been playing for 3 1/2 years and have been in a band for over a year. Im starting to learn what sounds good and Tube is definetly better that solid-state anyday. I like some of the digital amps but sometimes they sound a little too harsh. If it were stolen or lost I would be upset but I would probably go and buy a marshall jcm900 off ebay.

This is an early '64 Blackface, aa864 circuit (chassis and tranformer date codes confirm this). It's the sound that got Jim Marshall and Pete Traynor on the copycat bandwagon. The lack of features is part of it's beauty. I won't re-itterate what has already been posted. Simplicity is the hallmark of genius. Versatile in the sense that country, blues and rock players can enjoy this amp. For metal, better get a Boogie.

I use a Les Paul with a Duncan '59 in the bridge and a Duncan jazz in the neck. This amp can dial up VERY good crunch and drive, but where this amp leaves most others in the dust is that you have tremendous detail even when heavily overdriven, this gives the amp a defined jangle that everybody loves. It's hard to hide playing mistakes with this amp. This SOB is loud! I run a 4x12 Marshall Cab with it and it pumps serious air, I use a Marshall Powerbrake to tame the beast, after all this amp sounds best cranked! The Bass Instrument Channel is a little to dark for guitar so I thought I would mod it.... that was until I did a little research and discovered that this BF was Pre CBS and was only produced for a year before CBS started cutting costs and screwing around with the circuit designs, this is the final bassman as Leo intended it. There is a little hum, but I can live with that, the caps have never been changed, this amp is a total virgin (with the exception of a 3 prong cord being installed for safety). The amp has beautiful dynamics and a wonderful snarl. I did a little trick to hotrod the amp without any physical changes to the circuit, swapped the 12at7 in the PI position for a 12ax7, and pulled the bass instrument preamp tubes. the PI swap allows the 6l6GC's to break up sooner and overdrive much more, pulling the bass ch tubes gave the normal channel more gain. the amp starts to move into breakup at 4 and gives a great sizzle to a clean tone, from there the amp just keeps building saturation and drive without ever becoming super compressed, at 10 the amp has a crunch, jangle and vibe that moves your soul, overtones and harmonics are RICH and VERY plentiful, and all this from current production tubes. EH 12ax7eh's and Svetlana SV6l6GC's...... power, tone, detail, and dynamics.... I have had other amps which I thought had great tone, they totally pale in comparison to the bassman. This amp sounds as fat as the butchers dog if you want it to, great midrange and a sweet top end that can get really bright if you run the treble control on 10, the bright switch has great effect at lower volumes, but not much if any when cranked. If you are after a killer lead tone then you will need to clean boost or use an OD pedal into the amp, this amp has a fair bit of gain but for leads it left me wanting a little more, a tube screamer works excellent for this job. I'm giving it a 10 even though the caps hum a little because IMHO this amp has tone that embodies an entire generation of music, set the standard that others followed, and rocks like only a BF bassman can.

37 years old running the same caps and pots, and switches. Aside from the tubes, and power cord, nothing has been changed, Leo did his homework when he built this baby, and is a tribute to the American workers who built it. I'm running a speaker mismatch at 8 ohms but I've talked to a few fender gurus who assure me that the Schumacher Trannies will have no prob with that load. The OT tranny is a huge piece of iron and never gets hot.

I'm sure I'll never need it, although I'd like to track down a legible schematic for it.

I've been playing for a few years and I've turned into quite the gear head, I have had old Univox 1226, Garnet r90-4, Traynor yba2, a crate vintage club 30, Marshall JCM900. This amp smokes them all in terms of real tone, If it were stolen I would personaly kill the individual who took it. The aa864 pre cbs BF is getting very tough to find, I don't expect I'll ever see another, but If I do, I'm grabbing it.

Ha! Features? We don't need no stinking features! Six knobs that boil down to Bass, Trebble and Volume. No bull to get in the way of tone. I really don't miss the knobs that aren't there. Tweekheads look elsewhere... this is plug and play!

Ok, so I recently converted from a rack the size of a car to a 1970 Bassman and the matching 2x12. Holy tone change, batman! It took a few minutes to get use to the fact that I didn't have to scroll through menues anymore.

The tone on this amp is just beautiful. I wish I could just plug it into the screen and let you all hear this amp. I play a Franken-tele that is made from both G&L and Fender parts (but it plays so nice!) to a Tube Screamer, to a Boss DS-1 to the Bassman. If I want SRV, it's there. If I want Chris Duarte, it's there. If I want AC/DC it's there. EVH is here too! The amp responds very well to both your touch and any pedals you might wish to use. I get some very nice tube breakup around 5 to 6 on the vol. That Sweet creamy overdrive.

It has survived this long. If it goes down on me I guess I'm just screwed....

Worth a try. This amp keeps making me smile. I'm really not a "clean player," I usually like some kind of dirt... but I find myself turning all the pedals of and playing nine chords over and over. Beautiful tone. Exellent amp. Do yourself a favor and just play one and listen to the sound that I great amp makes.

1969 Fender Bassman, silver face. Two channels, four inputs. No effects loop, no foot switch. No stinking headphone jack, no nothing! Has a channel volume, a treble and bass on each, on bass input it has a "deep switch", on normal channel it has a "bright" switch. This amp is not for "tone tweekers" on tech heads. It's a 50 watt all honest-to-god tube "vintage amplifier" that is built like a freaken tank.

I play a 1973 Gibson Les Paul Custom, a 1979 Gibson "the paul", a 1992 Epiphone Sheraton II and a 90-something Frankenstien stratocaster. My style sucks. I can't decide what the hell I want to do. One day I want jazz. The next Jethro-tull-ish crunch. The next day, I want Steve Lukither type leads. The next I want Steve Howe's vibe. What amp stands a chance? If you know, drop me a clue. In the mean time, I use a marshall, and this guy.
This amp is not noisy, except for the volume pots. (What do you expect, it's like 32 friggen years old!) This amp goes from fender clean to fender crunch somewhere around volume 5. From this point it is loud and crunchy. Perhaps a bit too much treble, but it's probably my fault for not really understanding the amp yet. (Only got to play with my now 400 mile seperated band once.)

If they built cars like Fender built this amp, we would still be driving our 1969 hot rods all the hell over the place.

No tech support required when you build stuff this robust. They should track down all the guys involved with this design and pin a medal on them!

I've been torturing my soul with playing music for about 12-14 years. I can't recall exactly when I started. I have a marshall artist 3203 that I get along with very well. I have not decided yet if I get along with this amp or not. I should have it gone over by someone who sort of knows something about tube amps before I get pissed off and dump this treasure. I love that fact that it does not have a million features for me to tweak with and more than likely bust. You get a tube sound, tweak out the evil sounds and worry about playing. This is ideal for a guy like me that can never leave well enough alone. I originally traded a small fender sidekick switcher, and Ibanez GX100 amp, and an Ibanez roadstar II guitar for a Bassman 135 head and an Ibanez TS9 pedal. Then, I swapped a bass player that I met through a mutual friend for the 50 watt version that I now have. The 135 was the same set up, but would not distort under any amount of coaxing. (except for what the TS9 could push through it.) The bassman 50 is better suited for a guitar player. I just can't decide if I'm getting the fender type tone that I was hoping for. (I'll prevent myself from deciding until I know that the amp is in top working order.)
On the one ocassion that I got to play this amp with my old band, it came across slightly annoying, so I'll have to try it again after having it gone over by a tech. If it again comes across as annoying, then I'm selling it for beer money. Or not.

1966 Bassman head and cab. The head is all tube, two channel with four inputs, two for guitar and two for bass. It has a seperate switch for deep and bright. The cab holds 2x12 Oxford speakers, Everything is original. This is the perfect amp for anyone who loves the blues but doesn't have $$$$ to burn on a 59 4x10.
I use this amp everywhere I play and I wish I had two to run left and right, it's the loudest 50 watt amp I ever played

I own a 57 Fender Stratocaster and a 90 Les Paul Studio as well as many other hand built guitars and all of them sound like pure heaven. The only effects I use are a 70's Fender fuzz wah and a 65 Fender reverb. Plugging a guitar into the bass channel and kicking the switch to DEEP and pushing the vilume to 5 gives you the Blues tone from hell. I've never had a real problem with feedback eventhough i've heard of alot of people having a three prong cord installed. This is one amp that can only make you sound better!

I have never had a problem with this amp and I have played it everywhere. I change the tubes when I notice a change in power and that's about it.

Customer support, what's that?

I've been playing for over ten years and I own alot of equipment, after a 59 4x10 this is the amp for what I do. If it were stolen, that guy would have to leave the country...Nuf said.
If you ever come across one of these amp's, BUY IT!
It's the Bad Boy of Blues.

This is a great all tube amp.... I was made in 65 and has a wonderful sound. I am fro Brazil and I bought it in Ortlando, FL in 97.... It has two channel (Bass Instrument and Normal), two inputs, volume, treble and bass knobs for each channel. The bass channel has a "deep" switch and the normal has a bright switch. What else do you really need??? You can say: "Oh there's no middle controls in it!!!". I say: "Shut up.... turn down the bass knob and you can get a great low middle frequency... The same thing can be done with the treble knob to get high middle frequency!!!" Plug your guitar and enjoy the best tones you've ever heard. It's not a loud amp at all. If you are looking for volume choose another amp...

I use a 96 Fender Telecaster American Standard and a 86 Gibson Les Paul Studio. I do not have much to say about the sound of this amp!!! Wanna kno why??? BECOUSE THIS AMP LET YOUR GUITAR DO THE TALKING!!!! A Gibson will sound like a Gibson... a Fender like a Fender... I have a big problem with Marshall amps, becouse they have just ONE sound, "The" Marshall sound!!

Oh My God!!!!!! It's made in 1965!!!!! Should I say more????

This amp will work with every guitar you'll plug on!!!! So you can play any style. I play rock'n roll, blues, pop.... Remember when I say that your guitar will do the talking...

Very limited features, which ends up being a good thing. 2 Channels (Normal and Bass) with 2 inputs, a Bass, Treble, and Volume control for each. A "deep" switch for the Bass inputs and a "Bright" switch for the normal inputs. While there are times I wish I could have a midrange control, usually there is enough e.q. controls on my guitar and effects to get the desired eq. The amp definatly has enough power for me, but I like to play at relatively low volumes. At 4-5 on the volume knob it starts to distort, but that nice warm distortion that we all look for in a good tube amp. If you are looking for a REALLY LOUD clean amplifier, this isn't for you. Good low volume clean, but the louder you go the more it distorts.

I use an ES-335 and a Telecaster with it and they both sound great. Jazz, Rock, Blues, Country, whatever I play, the tone sounds fantastic.

It is an old amp, and I had some grounding problems with it. But once those have been fixed, the thing has worked great.

No experience

Really an 8.5. Would be a 9 or 10, but I had minor electrical problems with it, and I would like a mid control now and then.

For the price though, you can't beat it!

Volume, bass, treble. Not a lot of control, but not a lot of circuitry to screw with your tone. I really haven't missed the extra eq controls since I started gigging with this amp. By the way, it's a '68 SF.

I use this amp with a Strat and an Ibanez through an old Kustom 4x12 cab. Effects are a Tubescreamer and a wah, although I'm on the lookout for a good fuzz. Tubes are Sovtek 12ax7lps's in the preamp, GE 12at7 at the phase inverter, and Fender stamped US made 6l6's. This amp simply sounds great, is very quiet, and responds well to effects. Very dynamic, sounds more "real" than any other amp in our band's arsenal. With the 12at7, it doesn't break up with Strat pickups until about 6 on the volume knob, which is very loud. (my soundman doesn't let me turn up above 4!) My power amp tubes are old, so I'm hoping new tubes will restore a little top end, but the amp still sounds incredible.

No problems so far. I've owned several Fenders over the years and never had any serious problems. The circuitry is very simple, and about the worst thing that could go wrong is to burn a transformer out. These things are very easily modified, too.

Never dealt directly with Fender, but I had to wait 10 months for one of their dealers (Pied Piper in WV) to fix a new Champ 12 once!

I've been playing 19 years and now own 3 amps. I retired the others after I bought the Bassman. If it were stolen, I'd definitely hunt down another. $200 for a great sounding, handwired tube amp. These things are the best vintage deal out there. If your looking for a BF SRV tone, the late 60's Bassmen are tough to beat.