|
|
#1
07-18-2014, 09:08 AM
|
|||
|
|||
Lots of respect for Leo Fender - What's your Fender Story?
I've been reading these two great books about Fender guitars and amps (see pics below). Leo Fender was so amazing! He's not only responsible for the Tele and the Strat but also the Fender amps. Leo ended up selling Fender to CBS in 1965 and we all know what happened during those CBS years (same as Gibson during the Norlin era).
I have a deep appreciation for what Leo did, this coming from a Marshall/Les Paul guy. I didn't realize how involved Leo was with the development of the amps. Leo passed away back in 1991 but his legacy will live forever. What's your Fender guitar or amp story? Do you own any? Gig any? Want any? The books:  
|
|
#2
07-18-2014, 09:51 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I share your respect. Leo Fender was a great musical innovator, a genius as far as I'm concerned.
I always found it interesting that Leo didn’t play guitar. His friend and business partner George Fullerton (who was a player) once told the story of how Leo would work on amps in his shop. He would plug a guitar into it, tweak something on the amp, then strum the guitar to evaluate the result, repeatedly and often at a fairly high volume. He would do this over and over for hours as he tinkered, and it drove all the employees (and George) crazy listening to it. One day George got wise and retuned all of Leo’s guitars to an open E, which made the incessant open strumming slightly less irritating to listen to. Leo didn’t seem to notice the difference, or pretended not to. I can’t remember where I heard this story but I’m pretty sure it was on the G&L forum somewhere. George himself may have told it, as he used to post there. If memory serves. Haven’t been over there in a while.
__________________
"Out of all the sincere and well-intentioned attempts of politics, diplomacy, philosophy, religion, and education to get people to be peaceable together, ironically today, the last thing on earth that all seven billion of us agree on is that we like the steel string guitar." -Dan Crary
|
|
#3
07-18-2014, 10:19 AM
|
||||
|
||||
|
I'll bite. I own the top book above. I find Leo to represent well the adventurous spirit of his age.
As I was growing up in the South, in general, the Gibson/Marshall guys were the tough guys and the Fender guys were the Southern California wimpy types. Sorry for the typification but that was the way it was viewed in many of the circles I inhabited. As a result, I based my sound around Gibson and EL-34 amps for years. But there were some sounds I simply couldn't get. I eventually decided I needed some modicum of Fenderism in my diet. My wife commissioned a custom G&L S-500 for me that offered many of the sounds of the Strat and Tele. And then one day I fell in love with the ES-335/Fender amp sound and it all began to erode. Whoops. I discovered that many of the amp sounds I had been chasing were really the sound of a Fender amp because many of those guys who used Marshalls on stage were actually using Fenders in the studio. Rat Fuzz. So dies another stereotype. I've ended up with three Fender amps - a '71 Champ, a '65 Blackface Deluxe RI, and a '59 5E3 Deluxe clone I commissioned from a builder near me. Love 'em! I still have and use EL-34 amps, though. Meanwhile, there was one Strat sound I couldn't get with my G&L, a clean, clear keening that Ted Turner of Wishbone Ash got on a song in the "Live Dates" album from 1973 (Blowin' Free) and it eventually led me to get an American Standard Strat, my first Fender in forty years of playing guitar. As usual, I devoured everything in print concerning the guitar and that's how I ended up with a copy of the Strat Chronicles. I still call my Gibsons home, though, so now I have, shall we say, a "blended family."  Bob
__________________
"It is said, 'Go not to the elves for counsel for they will say both no and yes.' " Frodo Baggins to Gildor Inglorion, The Fellowship of the Ring THE MUSICIAN'S ROOM (my website)
|
|
#4
07-18-2014, 10:21 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I started out with a HR Deluxe after I got my first electric, and definitely learned a few things from it. One, 40 watts is LOUD! That was too much amp for home use. I only wound it out once, and I'm surprised paint didn't come off the wall. That one got traded for my Tele early this year.
I currently have a 5E3 Deluxe kit I built, and a MIM Standard Tele. That is a wonderful combo together, so much so that an American Standard Tele will be my first US made electric. I've got my eye on a Mystic Blue one in the store here.  I also want to build a blackface Deluxe Reverb to go with it, for those famous Fender clean tones. It took a few false starts and gear trades, but I finally know what I want and should have bought originally.
__________________
"You don't have to be great to start, but you have to start to be great." -Zig Ziglar Acoustics 2013 Guild F30 Standard 2012 Yamaha LL16 2007 Seagull S12 1991 Yairi DY 50 Electrics Epiphone Les Paul Standard Fender Am. Standard Telecaster Gibson ES-335 Gibson Firebird
|
|
#5
07-18-2014, 11:39 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I was raised in Orange County... graduated high school from Fullerton Union High School in 1968... Especially with the advent of "Surf Music" in the early 60's (The VENTURES!!!) and from then onward, Fender guitars and amplifiers have been a big part of my music consciousness...
The first electric guitar I ever played was a Stratocaster, probably a '61... when I was in high school, a lot of guys would get "summer" jobs with the Fender factory; I always figured if I could tune a guitar a bit faster, I could have been the guy who received all the new guitars, plugged them in, tuned them up, played a few licks and then shipped them! My Fender story: Although I began playing acoustic guitar when I was 7 or 8, I was quite enamored of electric guitars, especially when I had some friends who had a garage band (The U.S. Male!!!) and I would sit in with them, singing and playing... but I didn't have my OWN rig to play through... this little band had 3 guitar players and NO bassist at first... So, one of the rhythm guitarists decides he's gonna play bass, and he offers to sell me his rig... a 1962 Stratocaster (powder blue w/ rosewood 'board) and his blonde Bandmaster w/ matching reverb tank, all for $175!!! I begged and pleaded with my Mom and Step-Dad to help me buy it, as I only had $75 or so saved up, but they absolutely refused... I have often wondered how my musical direction would have changed, had I gotten that guitar and amp... quite a bit different, I suspect. I can't really blame my folks for not wanting that guitar in the house; the first time I borrowed a friend's electric guitar and amp, I messed around for a couple minutes, playing the stuff I "sort-of" knew... and then I thought, "I wonder what this thing would sound like if I turned EVERYTHING TO TEN..."!!!! Like I said, I don't blame them...
__________________
"Home is where I hang my hat, but home is so much more than that. Home is where the ones and the things I hold dear are near... And I always find my way back home." "Home" (working title) J.S, Sherman
|
|
#6
07-18-2014, 12:10 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Was offered a' 64 in '8 for $400 and declined because "I already had a Strat!.
__________________
PRS: '13 408 Brazilian: Brazilian neck, Artist grade . NOS '07 Modern Eagle 1 w/Brazilian Neck & RP's. '10 "Steve Fischer" Angelus in Adi/Coco. '13 Artist Package Tonare Grand in Brazilian. Fender: '77 Strat w/EMG SA's.
|
|
#7
07-18-2014, 02:46 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
The CBS amps are still good amps and anyone who's anyone has played through them. Companies always get a reputation for 'selling out' but my 70's Twin is proof otherwise that selling out didn't mean they made crappy amps.
|
|
#8
07-18-2014, 04:53 PM
|
|||
|
|||
I own a jazzmaster, a jaguar, and a strat. The offsets are my favourites of Leo's designs. The 5F6 and 6G6 Bassman amps were two of the greatest designs ever put to paper in my opinion - I don't own either at the moment for practicality/decibel-related reasons, but their tone makes me weak in the knees.
I've always been a Fender guy first and foremost when it comes to electric guitars and amps. The man was a genius.
__________________
Some might call me a "Webber Guitars enthusiast".
|
|
#9
07-18-2014, 05:03 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I'm very lucky to be able to pick and choose from any amp with a published schematic (DIY) but no collection would be complete without at least a couple of Fenders. There are lots of classic Fender designs each excellent at what they do. I've already made a 5F1 Champ head and a 5E3 Deluxe is on the horizon.
|
|
#10
07-18-2014, 05:53 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
The Telecaster was a classic example of mid-20th century "modernist" design. Form followed function to the hilt. There was just no waste anywhere... and yet, everything you needed in an electric guitar was there.
When we think of Leo Fender, we usually think of his revolutionary and trend-setting guitars and forget how he built his reputation by designing some of the best amplifier circuits ever and building some of the most road-worthy amps ever. There's a reason why those classic "tweed" amps from the 50s demand so much money today. The fact that they're still going, more than 60 years after they left the factory, is a testament to their value.
|
|
#11
07-18-2014, 06:05 PM
|
||||
|
||||
|
Quote:
It's amazing to me that Leo Fenders first electric guitar design is still with us and going as strong as ever. And it has yet to be improved upon in any meaningful way. It's become a cliché, but it's absolutely true that Leo "got it right the first time".
|
|
#12
07-18-2014, 06:07 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
First Fender amp I recall hearing live was a blonde Twin (probably rented) that some local band had at a schoolyard dance, Summer 1963 (wish I had it today - good ones are up into the five-figure range); also used to see a few old tweeds in the 14th Street (Manhattan) pawnshops around the same time - $75 could have bought a clean Bassman or low-power Twin, but I never really cared for either the look or the tone, then or now. FWIW, for most of us in the trenches (as well as the studio cats) here in NYC in the mid-60's Ampeg rather than Fender was the amp of choice, the usual step-up for kids graduating from their Danelectros and Silvertones (Marshall was still a couple years away, Magnatone was virtually unknown, you couldn't get a Vox for love or money, and nobody would be caught dead playing a Supro/Gibson/Epiphone), and other than the occasional Gretsch (hometown brand for us Brooklyn kids) blue check was the standard backline; although some of the local guys with "record deals" (seems every neighborhood had a band like this back then) were starting to use the then-new blackface Twins in the quest for (reasonably) portable/compact clean power, you were more likely to see a Reverberocket than a Princeton, a Gemini than a Deluxe, a B-12XT than a Pro Reverb, or a B-18 than a piggyback Bassman, at the Saturday night dance. While many players swear by the smaller amps (and the first Fender I ever played through was a Princeton Reverb in early-1966), as a lifelong fan of "big clean" tube tone I generally found them a bit thin-sounding vis-a-vis their Ampeg competitors (which, unlike Fender and in all fairness, were equipped with 12" speakers in even the cheapest models); always liked the post-1960 big boxes, though (probably a result of that Holy Grail '63 Twin) - I've got a '65 Super RI in my stable right now, thinking about a '68 Twin RI for a different tonal angle, and there's a Frontman 212R (yeah, I know it's MIC SS) in my music room that's doing backup duty for my Super and waiting for a SurfGuitar 101-inspired mod job (a couple of Eminence Swamp Thangs, a long four-spring 'verb, and a pair of tilt-back legs for some vintage visual mojo)...
Thank you, Leo...
|
|
#13
07-18-2014, 11:19 PM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I started playing guitar in high school in the mid '70s. My first guitar was a Silvertone electric with awful high action and misery to play. Information didn't flow abundantly in the rural areas back then, so I didn't know squat about setting up a guitar. But I worked at it and saved money and my first good guitar was a used tobacco sunburst strat with a maple neck. The frets were well worn down, but I didn't know any better. There was a crack in the body in the upper cut out that the salesman said had been, "hot glued with a hypodermic needle." And that just sounded ridiculously sexy to me, so I bought it. This must have been around 1978. I later traded it for a new 1980 The Strat in candy apple red with a rosewood fretboard. That is probably my biggest guitar related regret. I wish I still had that old girl.
|
|
#14
07-19-2014, 01:56 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
I have 2 strats, both in my sig. The schecter strat built in the California custom shop in 97, and the slightly earlier 92 tom anderson. Both great examples of strats, both souped up with Fralins. I play them straight into a samamp, 2 x 10 with variable wattage and 2 channels with cascading gain, a design based on a fender bandmaster or one of its close cousins. Great tones, great cleans and warm blues at all volumes.. I did find experimenting with preamp tubes from valvo and other vintage euro manufacturers improved the cleans and smoothed the gains.. But it's a heavenly mix.. Very touch sensitive and acoustic in nature.
__________________
Sakazo Nakade Flamenco 1964 Bourgeois D Adi Tasmanian Blackwood 2011 Tom Anderson Strat 1990s Schecter California Classic Strat 1990s
|
|
#15
07-19-2014, 05:57 AM
|
|||
|
|||
|
Quote:
Do you think you'll proceed with the Blackface build? Are you building because you'll think you'll get a better tone over a new reissue or is it because it's fun to build and a sense of pride to play it? I too have thought about getting a kit - might make a good winter project.
|
