Fender Pro Junior

laughing: Quite the joke, there ... features? As in power switch, volume knob, tone knob, and input jack? However, I will say that a reasonable amount of variation can be gotten from these two knobs, and I think that too many amps today come with 67 1/2 switches which aren't even used to their full potential.

Perhaps more people will get back to the basics, and I am proud that Fender is showing simplicity for great tone, not complicated, tone-robbing circuitry.

Play copies, a Samick Les Paul, and an Essex Tele. Both nice guitars, played them through a handful of amps, own a Peavey KB100 (SS), Rickebacker TR7 (SS), and a Crate VC5310 50 watter all-tube with 3 10" speakers. Wanted a little tube amp I could carry easily and be heard with over drums. Hard to get that rich, power tube-saturation sound with pre-amp distortion. It's also a plus that I can almost put this thing in my pocket!

Humbuckers sound fantastic through this, Tele, too, but a bit more twangy, there. Can't quite get enough bass out of it, stock. Perhaps I'll fool with some tube swaps and maybe get a Celestion Vintage Club 30 or something down the line for it. I'd also like to hook this up to my 3 10" speakers in the Crate, but then that'd defeat the portability.

While this basically has one tone, it's a fantastic overdrive, from about 5 and higher. Rhythym position on Les Paul, tone knob down, volume on about 6 makes me think of "Sunshine of Your Love". That's right, power-tube saturating fans, you CAN get fantastic overdrive in tiny packages for reasonable deals.

If you critique this and say it lacks virsatility, then why did you buy a 15-watt tube amp to begin with?

Seems very reliable to me, no hint of breaking down. I got it used from a guy at a guitar expo, tried out this vintage Lafayette amp first ... heh, thing kept zapping me when I brought it home, and then it started making all these noises ... anyway, took it back, and I was told that I could walk away with the Pro Junior for the $220 I had already spent on it, so I took the deal. Hopefully didn't pay TOO much, I, personally, probably would not have bought it for a straight $220, but I'd already paid him, and I just wanted a great deal, yadda yadda.

Makes this hum, all the time, even with volume turned all the way down ... and when the volume's all the way down, it still makes sound, and it's distorted ... very odd.

Never talked to Fender, though I might, because I want some tube shields on this if I ever play near a TV or something.

I highly recommend this amp, for someone who wants a great tube overdrive in a managable package. If you think it lacks volume, here's the secret to being heard: you don't have ears on your ankles, so put it at ear level and you'll be amazed at how much louder that little lunchbox screams. Email if you'd like anything answered, or if you'd like to talk about how awesome this little gem is.

Gets a 10, because I set out for an amp with a great OVERDRIVE, not an overdrive PLUS clean, and since it does what I want perfectly, this milk-jug-sized wonder gets a 10.

-Brendan :)

I think that this is 2003 made. It's bought in Sweden, quite low on features, but hey - it's only plain rock'n'roll! (I do not need any more than this, I consider my JTM-45 REI head being state-of-the-art-adjustable! AKA it has A LOT of knobs!)

I'm playing a Telecaster American Traditionel (is that correct?) and a LP Classic. It's perfect for just about anything that I am able to play: rockabilly, blues, rock'n'roll and about all music based on guitar... (maybe NOT classical stuff=) I'm a Kossoff-Hendrix-Clapton-Page-Beck-Townshend-Young-type of player wich makes it gooooooooood! I just it in combination with a Dallas Arbiter Fuzz Face REI, and a CryBaby Wah REI. Everything sounds so good...

My bluesband associates might just be VERY glad to see me carrying this little cutie instead of my JTM-45 head and 4*12" cabinet... Looks very durable and might just fall off a chair still sounding good!

No experience - and that is good...

I've been playing for 15 years, always stayed true to Marshall tube amps... Needed a small sized thingy for recordings and variation. It's very versatile and suits me hand in glove, I love the little 10"-speaker, it's totally different from the Vintage Marshall 1960 cab. I do not lack a thing about this little fella... It's perfect!

8
This amp is small and light weight perfect for the type of place I play in (Church Sanctuary and gym). I give the amp a nine because there is nothing absolutely perfect and I would really like to have reverb which it doesnt have. 2 knobs very simple to figure out a good tone just dial in what you like and have at it. I play mostly contemporary Christian and praise and worship music, which will automatically put me in a box to some readers, but I also play blues and classic rock which this amp works nicely for.

My main guitar is a custom Telecaster that was built for me by a longtime picker in my town, and a Fender American Standard Strat.
Both have singlecoil pickups and top of the line tuning pegs which i will leave you to guess. The amp sounds really good with Fender and fender style guitars, but as i said before nothing is perfect so i have a few complaints. Even with the fix mentioned in other reviews it still has a fairly nasty hum with the singlecoils. I think this is something that i'll have to deal with unless i want to invest in Humbuckers. for the christian music which encompasses everything from rock to country tones this amp is very versatile. it has amazing volume for such a small amp (was louder than a peavey classic 30 that i tried out at the same volume level) The amp goes with a crystal clean sound from 1-3 1/2. After that you start to get a warm overdriven crunch sound 4-8. From 8 on you have a fairly raunchy tube distortion, can't quite place a possible artist description but it can sound nice if used in the right environment. Small Marshall is the best description i have.

So far i have giged with out a backup for about 2 weeks and will continue to do so. i just bought the amp brand new so no problems so far will let know in approximately a year.

i've played for 3 years, but i get all my advice from musicians who have been playing for 20 plus years and are locally known as being top notch. i will probably buy another if i get the chance and if something happens to this one i will definitely replace it because for me it is the best sized amp for the tone and volume. Will say that if you are a metal head do not get this amp it is not for you. not a high gain amp. please don't let me read about people bashing this piece of equipment because they can't get a metalicca or Steve Vai sound out of it. the amp was not built for that.
thanks.

This is an amendment to an earlier review I left here on Nov 9th, 2003. After finding out about how easy it was to get rid of the buzz, I bought another Pro Junior to try out the fix. It worked like a charm, buzz gone instantly. I am selling my Blues Junior and keeping the Pro Junior. It just has so much more character than the Blues Junior. The Blues Junior is more versatile but the smaller lightweight Pro junior nails the sound I want (old 50's style sound in clean, nice punchy distortion when pushed)

I am using this with my Fender AMerican Tele (using Kinman pickups - which are amazing)

I play mainly country, with bits of classic rock, Beatles, Rockabilly, jazz and classical.

I took out the old tubes and put in a set of JJ Tesla EL84's. I tried the Electro Harmonix but they were kinda clinical and harsh-brite, the JJ's were nice and warm. I tried to use the JJ version of the 12ax7 but it just hummed like a bat outta hell, so I tried the Electro Harmonix 12ax7's and those worked fine. The original tubes worked fine for me but the JJ's have a nicer roundness that I liked. I bought my tuibes from the tube store dot calm

Unscrewed the middle back screw on top and as soon as it was a little ways out, the ground loop buzz stopped. My friend has an all original USA made Pro Junior and it does not have this problem. Mine is a made in Mexico version and I guess the screw is just a little too long and touched the tone pot causing a ground loop which causes buzzing.

Why hasn't Fender fixed this problem??? Its absolutely inexcuseable

What a great first tube amp that will keep you satisfied for many years. For me its my gigging amp. Durable, light, great sound, if I need louder, I just mic into the PA, but trust me it gets plenty loud

Tweed covering, Volume and Tone control. Vey Zen-like indeed. However if you don't want to wake the neighbours, you might find yourself wishing for a master volume.

Quite good. It has the classic Fender tone that turns very crunchy (in a vintage way) when you crank it. My own personal sweet spot was with the volume and tone knobs about half way up. I should note the outstanding dynamics of this amp: with my p-90 loaded Hamer special I could really go from clean to crunch just by controlling my picking hand. Nice.

I didn't notice a signifigant amount of hum, but the amp/cabinet was pretty noisy. I'm not sure what was clanging around in there. I did apply some insulating plastic over the springs on the tube holder: this dampened the noise a bit. The other thing is that compared to other amps, the Pro Jr. sounds a bit small (I never really noticed when I was playing by myself). This is probably due to the 1 - 10' speaker configuration. But it's a nice sound, overall.

BTW, I tried feeding my POD into the Pro Jr., but it didn't sound particularly good.

My biggest complaint, however, was the volume. As someone who plays in the house rather than on the stage, I found that the amp was too loud to be really useful. I frequently ran it with just one output tube, which helped quite a bit. Even with one output tube pulled out however, the Pro Jr. was louder than my friend's vintage Vibrolux. So depending on your playing situation, this might be a 10, or it might be a 6.

The chassis wasn't finished properly and started to rust near the tubes. But that's not the worst of it... This amp was probably a couple of years old when I bought it. I owned it for about 3 years and then sold to a friend of a friend. A few weeks later, I heard through the grapevine that the transformer (or something) had blown and that the poor guy had to spend about $100 to bring it back to life! Poor guy.

Despite its faults, I liked this amp. It wasn't the amp for me, but it's a good choice for those who need a portable package with which to jam. It would also be useful in a multiple amp setup. If it was stolen, I'd probably get a Blues Junior instead, but then again the world of modelling amps is becoming much more competitive.

This is a typical "back_to_the_roots_Amp" !
1. a power-On switch
2. a tone-control (high-cut-filter)
3. a volume-control (loud enough for club-gigs)
...that's all and it works ! :-)
(The internal speaker has a real high efficiency !
The mids and the treble tones are as loud as a Celestion Vintage 30.)
And a real annoying feature is the BIG HUM and MICROPHONIC and HUMMING V1 TUBE (12AX7-WA --> Fender-GrooveTubes ...lol...pull out the V1 Tube on the left side, send it back to Fender, maybe that they can make a crispy soup out of it, but don't use it as a V1 in ProJunior Amps)

Before I started to play with this "little wild thang" I have fixed the screw problem (middle screw of the back-cover next to the poties).I also have changed the tubes (my dealer gave some new, working ones for free) .
As phase-converter you can leave the 12AX7-WA, it does not influence the sound that much.
As V1 I have tried JJ-Tesla ECC83-S (NO HUM :-) , and big punch in the mids and bass).
I also have have tried a Sovtek 12AX7-LPS as V1 (NO HUMMING too , tight basses and crisp highs...good if you play it with a 2x12 or 4x12 box)
The sound of this little amp is good for Blues and Rock-Music.
Set the volume to 5-6 and tone-control to 9 and it kicks ass.
The variety of this amp mostly depends of the guitar you use with it.

I mostly use it with my self-made Custom-Strat (HSS) .In the bridge-position is a Gibson Humbucker and in the middle-, neck-position are some of the first Seymor-Duncan single-coils one could buy here (~25 years ago).That's the easiest way to have the biggest variety with this amp (one guitar , one kabel , one amp )

Sometimes I use it with some effects too (Bluesdriver BD-2, DigitalDelay DD-5 and Cry-Baby WahWah).

I have bought it new a half year ago ...
...never have had any problems with it , with the new tubes inside !

I have looked for Fender-Support in the internet, when I had this hum-problem , but did not find a phone number or email-adr. ...
...maybe that they have hidden , due to the BIG HUM problem of the ProJunior !!??

The hints to solve this problem I found here in Harmony-Central and other Internet-Places...

Meanwhile I play Guitar for 30++ years...
I also have a VHT 50-ST, and Marshall Studio 15, Reussenzehn LEO...but this Fender ProJunior is another great amp for beginners, tube_amp_lovers and Fender_Enthusiasts !

This little "LIGHT-WEIGHT" thang rocks ...
...if it will be stolen or broken I would buy a new one again (including a set of tubes for free of course... :-) )

This is a typical "back_to_the_roots_Amp" !
1. a power-On switch
2. a tone-control (high-cut-filter)
3. a volume-control (loud enough for club-gigs)
...that's all and it works ! :-)
(The internal speaker has a real high efficiency !
The mids and the treble tones are as loud as a Celestion Vintage 30.)
And a real annoying feature is the BIG HUM and MICROPHONIC and HUMMING V1 TUBE (12AX7-WA --> Fender-GrooveTubes ...lol...pull out the V1 Tube on the left side, send it back to Fender, maybe that they can make a crispy soup out of it, but don't use it as a V1 in ProJunior Amps)

Before I started to play with this "little wild thang" I have fixed the screw problem (middle screw of the back-cover next to the poties).I also have changed the tubes (my dealer gave some new, working ones for free) .
As phase-converter you can leave the 12AX7-WA, it does not influence the sound that much.
As V1 I have tried JJ-Tesla ECC83-S (NO HUM :-) , and big punch in the mids and bass).
I also have have tried a Sovtek 12AX7-LPS as V1 (NO HUMMING too , tight basses and crisp highs...good if you play it with a 2x12 or 4x12 box)
The sound of this little amp is good for Blues and Rock-Music.
Set the volume to 5-6 and tone-control to 9 and it kicks ass.
The variety of this amp mostly depends of the guitar you use with it.

I mostly use it with my self-made Custom-Strat (HSS) .In the bridge-position is a Gibson Humbucker and in the middle-, neck-position are some of the first Seymor-Duncan single-coils one could buy here (~25 years ago).That's the easiest way to have the biggest variety with this amp (one guitar , one kabel , one amp )

Sometimes I use it with some effects too (Bluesdriver BD-2, DigitalDelay DD-5 and Cry-Baby WahWah).

I have bought it new a half year ago ...
...never have had any problems with it , with the new tubes inside !

I have looked for Fender-Support in the internet, when I had this hum-problem , but did not find a phone number or email-adr. ...
...maybe that they have hidden , due to the BIG HUM problem of the ProJunior !!??

The hints to solve this problem I found here in Harmony-Central and other Internet-Places...

Meanwhile I play Guitar for 30++ years...
I also have a VHT 50-ST, and Marshall Studio 15, Reussenzehn LEO...but this Fender ProJunior is another great amp for beginners, tube_amp_lovers and Fender_Enthusiasts !

This little "LIGHT-WEIGHT" thang rocks ...
...if it will be stolen or broken I would buy a new one again (including a set of tubes for free of course... :-) )

GET RID OF THE HUM AND BUZZ!!!!

It's stupid easy. My dad did some research on the net and found this.

"The cause of the hum is a screw that is too long, and it touches the volume pot, causing a ground loop = HUM. to get rid of it, simply unscrew the top middle screw of the back cover plate, and it should go away."

I tried it with mine, and IT WORKS. So easy, and very helpful. Now I can record with it.

Take off the back cover plate and make sure that the rectangular metal shield plate isnt touching the volume/tone pots either. That will cause hum. Just bend it back a little if it is touching.

THANK YOU to THE FENDER FORUM PRO-JUNIOR CLUB ? you guys solved the "hum" mystery of this little amp.

GET RID OF THE HUM AND BUZZ!!!!

Before the "procedure". VERY noisy. After the "procedure", not noisy at all. This amp really does let the sound of the guitar come thru uncolored, which is great.

GET RID OF THE HUM AND BUZZ!!!!

I can't believe that fender hasn't caught this incredibly stupid defect yet. Its ridiclulously easy to fix. Unscrewing a single screw. I almost returned the amp because of this.

NA

Overall, after the "fix". this is seriously the best little tube amp you can get for your money. Make sure you haggle. If you paid ful price, youre just plain dumb. Besides, haggling is fun. Walk into guitar center waving cash, and they'll definately come down in price.

Before the buzz fix, this amp was ALMOST unuseable.

Thanks Fender Forum.

I had a good deal for a canvas first model, a volume and a tone controle knobs.

I love 60's 70's tones, at low volume with a Strat, it gives a clean black-face tone, pass 4-5 it crunch, after that, it drives a lot of powerfull overdrive and without any feedback, add some reverb and few pedals, you have a killer tone.

it sounded nice for a short period, but had tube problems.

The dealer offered me to fix it or give back my money, I took the money and run... They offered me the amp for half the price when repaired, only old tube problem they said.

This amp sounds and feel great, I heard a lot of studio guys use two with effects and make great stereo tones, I would like to have another one, but the guy who lives upstair wouldn'd enjoy..

2001 Fender Pro Jr.
1 channel Volume/tone straight foward Amp.
Can produce many musical styles depending on guitar setting.
I used many other amplifiers and I have found out that this small amp really enables me to customize my sound by utilizing more of the guitars volume and tone capabilities then the amplifiers.

I play a Les Paul with mini Humbuckers. With the amps volume turned to about 4-5 you can just roll your volume up or down according to how much overdrive you want. You will need some type of reverb for this amp to achieve any real presence. I chain through a overdrive a VOX wah and a Yamaha DG stomp( set on a very clean amp simulation). My amp came stock with Groove tubes and I feel that they are just fine, don't waste money changing tubes. If you really want to hear something impressive do what I did and unplugged the stock speaker and run the output to a Mesa Boogie 1-12 cab. You really need to hear this little guy through a Boogie Speaker. Go to your local guitar center and ask them to run it through a Boogie 1-12. Everybody in the store will want to know what you are playing. It will have a very smooth tone with strong bass response and perfect overdrive. I also split my signal so half goes to this combo and the other to a clean PA channel.

So far this amp has been very reliable but the same is for all Fender tube amps. I do gig with this amp in a jam band situation with a older crate for a backup, that so far I never had to use.

I have been playin it for 2 years so far so good, many people who hear it can not believe the sound that I achieve through my rig with this amp. I would buy another for the money and the quality.