Selmer Treble 'n Bass 50

I own a 1964 (?) croc skin Treble n Bass 50 which was fading away in a basement until a friend of mine gave it to me and I had it repaired by an amp tech for a very reasonable price. Very basic features as stated elsewhere - it's from the 60's, remember? It's a crank-n-go kinda amp. Standard 4 ECC83/2 EL34 tube setup. Forgot the name of the rectifier tube (GZ54?). I've tried using the bass inputs aswell as the normal inputs and they're both cool for guitar depending on what tone you're after. I'd like to play bass thru it just to hear the sweet sound I think it would make. I use my amp thru an old Marshall 1960A stock cab in our rehearsal room and it has way more than enough power for that. Gigs shouldn't be a problem. I won't rate the features coz I really think you can't blame Selmer for building an amp with just the basic features back in '64.

Kind of a mix between Vox cleans at lower volume and Marshall crunch at high volume.

I use a 2004 Gibson SG Special w/ stock pickups and a 1995 Fender Mex Strat w/ stock pickups. I mostly play late 60's - late 70's heavy rock with a modern touch and the TnB suits that style well if you're not into massive gain. I like a slightly cleaner tone for a lot of the rhythm parts and I use a Keeley BD-2 Blues Driver Phat Mod to boost it for leads and to add moderate amounts of gain for rhythm parts. I also use a CryBaby GCB-95 wah and a Carl Martin Red Repeat Delay pedal in front of the amp. The noise level is not really an issue coz there's not much noise coming out of the amp.

The normal inputs sound well rounded with clear treble using the SG but it does get a bit piercing with the bridge p-ups on the Strat. Could be the sheer volume though and to be honest I think most amps would sound roughly the same given the same circumstances. The bass and mids are absolutely gorgeous and sweet and far more full than on my Marshall JCM 900. A big and robust tone.

With the neck pickups on both guitars it's a bit more mellow and that's where I find my sweet spot. I really need to play around with the bass n treble controls more to be able to say how versatile this amp can be, but as far as classic and full tone goes, this beauty is the best I've heard so far.

The bass inputs produce a milder treble and a BIG low end without getting boomy.

When you crank the amp volume past the halfway point it starts to break up nicely and responds well to dynamic playing. When you dime the volume you're in early AC/DC territory if you roll off the treble past noon. Close to the "If you want blood" live album. Kinda like a good Marshall tone to my ears. Make sure you're wearing ear plugs :)

This amp will in itself never give you a heavy metal kind of gain, but I don't want that anyway. As this amp was used by the Beatles and the Animals in the early days of their respective careers you'd be kidding yourself if you wanted a super-saturated Zakk "Boring" Wylde tone. That said I've blasted the input on the normal channel with my Keeley BD-2 set on 75% gain and 50% on the level pot just to put it to the test and it does bite back a LOT more than you'd expect! I give it an 8. If you love crystal clean tones to a "classic rock" amount of overdrive it's pretty damn close to a 9 or 10.

Reliability?

Well, I've only had it for about a year and so far it's been nothing but good to me. Thick, full tone every time I switch it on. We rehearse twice a week for 2?? hours at a time. The tubes inside are less than a year old and still sound great.

I'd always bring a backup to a gig anyway no matter what amp I had.

Selmer has been defunct for many years now. Because it's a no frills amp it should be a piece of cake for any reasonably skilled tech to fix. Mine took a week to fix, but the tech had a lot on his hands, so...

ECC83/EL34 tubes are among the most common combinations anyway (anyone ever heard of Marshall?).

Been playing 15 years. I also own the ill-reputed JCM 900 4500 which was a bargain and I think the JCM sounds good too if you know how to use it and what to use it for. If my Selmer was stolen I'd kill the one who stole it 5 times and try to hunt another one down for sure. There's really not a lot to hate about this amp. Great, open sound...good tone controls (only two of them per "channel"), little or no noise, common tube combinations. It'd be cool to have a master volume but that's really asking too much since it's 44 years old or so. Really cool design aswell - I love the croc skin!!

Compared to my JCM 900 the cleans are just wonderfully open and full...and they're pretty clean until you get close to noon on the dial. I really like the "Marshall clean" aswell, this is just a different animal altogether.

For a small 50 watt amp it really is a gem. I don't think I'll ever sell it - the sound it makes is just too damn sweet!

I've got the silver fascia version,the SV.
2 channels British compact monster with a sound to die for. High build quality with universal power transformer (which means you can use the amp anywhere in the world,without buying external transformers)

Sound quality? Are you joking? At lower volumes,you can get any Beatles tones. The Brilliant channel is perfect for that.
However,that's not why I bought this amp. I always use a Weber powerbrake,and with this amp at full volume,you'll get OUTSTANDING power amp distortion. Sounds very much like a Marshall plexi. With the appropriate guitars,I can get outstanding tones from Clapton to Hendrix to Gilmour and beyond.
It's amazing how these old,simple amps,can just blow out of the water all the modern 4 channel amp stuff!
The amp,at max volume, provides a bulldozer-size crunch,and it's also really quiet,even with a lot of boost! Excellent,and very loud too.

These amps have very high build quality. Hand-wired circuitry,Marshall JTM-type transformers,excellent noise screening panels

Kick ass amp...these will start disappearing too soon or later. Grab one while you can!

Bought my t and b in 1980 for playing lead guitar when I was starting out. I think its a late 60s mark 2. Someone stole my cab and I stupidly bought a Peavey Special 120w combo instead. I now use the Selmer for my bass.

Features are about as basic as you can get. No master volume for example. But the bass and treble tone controls seem to give more variety of sounds than many modern amps with lots of knobs. Not sure why this is.

Amp gives a surprising variety of sounds. Although my switches need cleaning and on the treble channel it often gets fuzzy unless I rotate them a few times with the power off.

The bass channel is great. Loads of beefy warm tone. Pull out one of the bottles at the back if you want good distortion at a lower volume.

I used this with a big 15" cab with my bass and sounded great. Cab was too big so I sold it. Now I am playing bass again I wish I had it back. I would welcome advice on what cab to get next for my bass.

A small tube failed once and I stuck something in to replace it that I found at random. It seemed to work. Hey its worked for 40 years and I really should get it serviced but I dont know where...............

N/A

If it were lost I would be upset. Having had this, I would aspire to another old valve amp if I could find one.

Hi. I??m the proud owner of a 64 Croc-skin-period T-n-B 50. I??m playing it with a 68 EB-3 Gibson and i like this Bass-Sound. So warm and deep. I always have an Les Paul Standard and if i play on the T-n-B i use both channels. I patch it with a small cable to get the best sound. The warmth from the bass channel and the brillance from the treble channel. I don??t need more than this.

I think i can make every sound i want with this amp. If i think at this amp i??m always smiling. I have some other valve-amps but the Selmer is my Favourite.

Never got a problem with it. Changed the valves a couple of weeks before.

I think it was only luck i own this amp. It was in a big package. The owner died and his son sold all this stuff from his dad. It was a Rickenbacher 4001, a gibson EB-3, a Schaller KV-50 and the Selmer T-n-B 50 with the matching Goliath Speaker Cabinet. It was a very small price. For the whole package i paid 800 US $. I think i??ll never get this amp again for this price. He is my favourite. I got some Fender amps and a Marshall Plexi but this one makes me smile.

Year - I purchased this amp new when I was 17 - that makes it 1969. It came with a dual 12#celestion cabninet that was on a swivel frame so you could angle the speakers up towards you as a player. Used it for bass with firts a small scale Vox bass guitar, then a Fender Precision. Now use it for steel guitar.

Styles - I have used this amp for almost 40 years as I evolved through different phases and instruments - blues, country, jazz - and now use it as a non-reverb stero amp with a Fender Steel King to play pedal and non-pedal steel through. As I require breadth & clarity the old Selmer is superb (I now use an EV TL15 bas bin on it - heresy indeed!)

Features - for the technical luddite like myself 2 channels (I have used the bass channell 99% of the time as i can use my guitars to get enuff tops). 2 Tone controls - Treble and bass - but used together you can easily tune your sound for different gigs. Too easy - why reduce the warm valve sound with any effects! Channel switching is achieved by manually extracting the lead from 1 channel & placing it in another. I wish it had a standby feature to support valve warm up.


All in all I guess I take this old baby for granted - if there was a fire I'd probably grab the Selmer first, the wife second!!!

My preferred setting with a Harmos 8-string steel guitar (Americana) is vol on 6, bass on 8, treble on 8.5 - using the "bass" channel.

Power - rated at 50 watts RMS - just breaks up enuff (warm as warm) to complement the clarity (and spring reverb) of the Fender Steel King. Hard to compare the sound as it is really unique - the best I can dio is warm and "flat".

Only broken once in 1981 when it fell from a moving van - case & valves shattered - local electronics guy had it back to me i 3 days - still using the replacement valves - changed them once (with chinese valves) and lost the sound.

Only issue with reliability is that the valves are upsidse down - to support knobs on top! Always check seating on a regular basis.

Can't remember warranty period - but have not neded any general repairs.

Had it for nearly 40 years - also own Yorkville 50 watt & 200 watt bass amps, Fender vibrolux (for making a strat sound perfect), several Kork microcubes -(tremendously flexible gear)and a Fender Steel King 200 watt amp.

Can't compare any of these to the Selmer.

this is a MK II model, with the diamond grill cloth, and the tube rectifier. mine's got some vintage, but non-original tubes in it, they sound lovely and have never given me trouble. I've been told this is closer to 35 or 40 watts output than 50, from an electrical engineer. no standby switch, so when I turn it on, I just leave the volume controls turned down for a bit before I start playing. no mid knob either, just volume, treble, and bass. but I never miss the knobs it doesn't have.

I loooooove this amp. my other car is a 1484 silvertone twin twelve. this one gets more play, because the sound fills up the room more (more bass). I use it with an avatar 2x12 front loading cabinet, loaded with eminence GB12 speakers (recommended), and using an open back panel. (did not like the celestion Vintage30+G12H30 combo, or weber alnico blue dogs 30 watt). I have the cab set up vertically and I put it on the floor, so the speakers sort of point at my knees. this amp has a rich, sort of "wet" sound...easter chocolate somebody said, that sounds about right. these days I stick to the bass channel (in an evolution, I used to play the treble channel, then bridged them, now I'm onto the bass...and playing louder). the bass channel, at moderate volume, has enough treble for me (I leave the treble knob from full lately, to noon or so formerly), and I love it because it puts out great low end with the speaker cabinet I use. the treble channel is a lot thinner in the bass. bridging them works though if you want a middle ground. so they really did name this well with the "treble and bass"--it can put out tons of each. it does break up nicely when cranked past halfway on the volume, but that's too loud to do much where I live...I like turning it up to around 9 to 11 o'clock and you can feel the saturation of the tubes working to give this nice shimmering clean sound. loud enough for band use for sure. there is nothing like cranking up a vintage tube amp...I'm in love.

has been dependable for me, perhaps because it was serviced by the previous owner. it does have the occasional weirdo noise, and sometimes I leave it on longer than I should because at american voltage (there is an internal switch on the transformer) the power lamp doesn't work. I'd like to have this corrected.

bought this because of the syd barrett connection, and found my own sound with it. the "syd tone" is a really complicated chain of signal that I have decided definitely has to do with that binson echorec tape echo device, and a good fender guitar, and probably studio reverb devices (I'm sure the microphones and preamps/soundboard also play a significant part in this tone)

I'd also like to try the ceriatone JTM-45 clone to see how it compares (it's a new botique-ish amp that one could actually afford)

Mine is a 196...4? model. Two channels, treble, bass volume each. They all work. On switch. Little light to say the light is working.

This is not rocket science, this is from when amps were amps and didn't make coffee or speak French.

It is covered in some kind of tolex, with the famous crocodile skin on the bottom only, for some reason. The front is dark cloth with the gold Selmer logo on the right. There is a leather carrying handle on the top. All valve interior, but I don't go in there. Never changed the valves when I was using it.

Mine really was a steal; I found it in Notting Hill Music Exchange, a second-hand shop staffed by sub-humans, although the guy I bought it off for 45 quid knew he could have got 250 out of me for it. The next week I found another on Denmark St for 275. Ha! This was, er, 1990.

There is a label sellotaped to the top, and written on it is "Mr Belmont. 27 pounds and six shillings." If you are reading this, Mr Belmont, cheers, mate!

I play a Lawsuit Les Paul and a home-made Strat ("The Tadcaster") through it. I play rock and blues, looking for that early AC/DC lead sound, with a little Deguello-era Top.

Imagine you want to try for a Clapton 'Hideaway' sound. Ok, two choices - plug in EVERYTHING in STEREO with LIGHTS and FANS and DIALS and GET FRUSTRATED when it doesn't work, or you can try guitar, lead, selmer and nail it first time. This amp is not as harsh or screamy as a Marshall. not as shrill or polite as a Fender, not as thick or beefy or bottomy as a Vox, but it is somewhere beautifully in the middle.

It is a valve amp and sounds like it. It never broke on me the few years I gigged it. It wasn't noisy at all. Above 4 it just got nicer, not louder. I gigged it on 6. It would wind up really nice if you push the guitar volume, or go all nice and smooth if you pulled back a little.

I used to run a couple of pedals through it, but eventually realised I was gilding the lily, frankly.

Never a single problem.

My mate decided to out-vintage me and pulled out a Grampian Vibro-master for one gig - we called it the Gas Fire - and unfortunately, erm, it didn't work much. I glowed with pride.

However, due to its great age, I retired it. If I ever used it again, I would deffo take a back up. But not a Grampian.

Yeah, hi, I bought an amp thirty years after the guarantee ran out. No, I was, like, one year old when you made it and I didn't know that you don't exist any more. Ok, yeah, thanks.

Been playing 26 years. I have owned a 1966 50w plexi, and a blue-speakered AC30 amongst other things. The Selmer is bewteen the two. Don't really care for Vox's, but the Marshall was nice enough.

I wish it wasn't so frightening to take it out from under the stairs and switch it on and see if the National Grid melts or something. It is too easy to chuck a Sessionette in the back of the motor and not worry about things getting broken, stolen or just beer on them.

If someone stole it, I would have to skin him with a broken bottle and roll him in salt in front of his burning family. For starters. Then I would work myself up into a temper.

My amp is a late 1960's early 1970's amp, two channels (hence name), very simple controls (but it does need to be complex)

It sounds ace, i'm glad i bought it. I am a bass player so of course i use the bass imputs, but my mates will use the lead ones and they all love it the variety achievable is amazing.

It has stayed well for me all though i have nt really given it a good test yet

there is no need for C/S

i love my amp it is so nice and is a beauty

I have an early 70's selmer of the aluminum face variety, which I actually think is a pretty cool looking amp (not the prevailing opinion, I know). As far as features go it's very basic, just two channels, both with high and low inputs. No reverb, no channel switching, no nothing, just plug in and play (although there are imputs for an echo unit). Having the four input options does make for some interesting combinations though, like using a second cord to bridge from the bass inputs to the normal.

Very good sounding amp. I play lots of different guitars through it, strats, a peavey t-60, a harmony strat copy, an Ibanez Jem, and all seem to work well with the amp. The bass imputs work great for guitar as do the normal ones. For the most part the amp stays pretty clean and punchy until you crank it into the stratosphere where it starts to break up pleasantly. Nothing too brutal though.

Based on its age and overall condition I'd say this amp is very dependable. A quick peek inside reveals a lot of dust and aged components, but the amp still works great, and I've never had any problems with it.

Good luck trying to get the people that made this thing on the phone.

This amp is a great value. It's an all tube, loud, clean, and simple amp that can be found pretty cheap. It doesn't have a lot of versatility built in, but it's a great platform to add some stomp boxes, or other effects to. If you want an amp that will do it all, go get a line 6 (although trust me when I say that they don't do much of anything right). If you want a solid, affordable, tube amp then this is it.

Features does'nt really apply to an amp this old. I think it come from the 60's, although one guy told me late 50's, which I can believe.
Anyway, its powered by 3 Ecc83 preamp valves (2 of which are still origonal-ish Mullards, hows that for durability), 2 output valves (EL 34's, I think), but - joy of joys - it also has valve rectification, but the model of valve has faded with age, so I can't say what it is. However, reading other reviews for this amp, I think it must be a GZ34.
The only feature it can really boast is twin channels, one for treble, one for bass.
It also has volume, bass and treble controls for each channel, but one can hardly call these 'features'.
Anyway, haven't modern guitarists gone a bit 'feature crazy' of late?
All the amp' emulators and multi-channel-super-hi-gain-plexi-whatsits. Surely the reason for having an amp' is its tone, and the Selmer has plenty of this.

The sound of the Selmer is (almost) perfect.
Truth be told, the treble channel is far too trebly, but this can be an advantage. I sometimes run my guitar through a homemade channel selector. My signal chain runs thus: Guitar (Fender '68 Reissue), Dunlop Crybaby Wah, Marshall Bluesbreaker 2 (of which, more in a mo'), Electro-Harmonix Big Muff (genuine 1970's), Boss CE2 chorus, Channel Selector. From here, I run the afforemention effects into the bass channel, and the same signal into the treble channel, via a Watkins Copycat. Since the Copycat naturally adds bass to the sound, it suits the treble channel perfectly, whilst the bass channel fills out the 'normal' sound. Also, this set up means that, when I turn on the copycat, I get twice as much sound. Groovy.
The only other complaint I will make, is not really the fault of the amp', just a law of nature. In order to make the amp' distort, one has to turn it all the way up. Unfortunately, 50 full watts of guitar does not agree with my neighbours, which is a shame.
However, the Bluesbreaker 2 has a boost mode, which encourages valve amps to overdrive at lower volumes, making it (almost) possible to capture the true tone of the amp at lower volumes. A fine idea, and opproximately 300% cheaper than a powerbrake.

I'm not sure about this. I found it in an abandoned Multi-Storey Car Park, quite what it was doing there I don't know. Anyway, when I got it home, it was playing host to a small colony of spiders and other assorted crap.
Once I'd cleaned it out, I turned it on - fully expecting it to blow every fuse in the building - and to my surprise, it worked!
However, after a month or two of near constant use, it suddenly died. Being rather poor at the time, I retired it, and returned to my previous amp - a Roost. This was several years ago. Last month (as I was feeling rather flush), I took it to be fixed, where I was told the Transformer had blown, so I sent it away to be rewound. Since it returned it sounds better than ever.
The question of reliability is not - in this case - easy to answer, as there is no service history. In fact everything points towards it being quite unreliable, but the case is - I think you'll agree - quite unique.

As an overall rating, I will award it 11, for being supremely individual, and sounding great. Although other amps' of the same make and model undoubtedly exist, I feel that mine (especially since the transformer was rewound) must sound a little different. If it were to die in such a way that it could not be repaired, or - perish the thought - be stolen, I would never try to replace it, but persue my dream of owning a Marshall 'Bluesbreaker' Combo.