This is a very fine ‘Blackface’ model in excellent condition dating from 1966.
With its varied tone capabilities ranging from the classic ‘sparkling’ Fender clean tone to a great ‘crunch’ overdrive sound, this compact and highly portable amplifier is a firm favourite with many studio and live musicians.
The rich sounding vibrato effect rivals any pedal and produces a wonderful sonic embellishment to chords and single-line playing.
It’s no secret that we like Fender Vibro Champs here at JGG and this is another fine ‘Blackface’ model in excellent condition dating from 1966. With its varied tone capabilities ranging from the classic ‘sparkling’ Fender clean tone to a great ‘crunch’ overdrive sound, this compact and highly portable amplifier is a firm favourite with many studio and live musicians. The rich sounding vibrato effect rivals any pedal and produces a wonderful sonic embellishment to chords and single-line playing. It was first introduced to the musical public by Fender in 1964 and it remained in production until 1982.
The Vibro-Champ amplifier features volume, bass and treble controls along with a speed and intensity control for the vibrato effect, which is easily altered to any player’s individual taste. .
This particular model from 1966 is the legendary ‘Blackface’ version and is in excellent overall condition sporting the famous black front panel and raised Fender logo. The ‘Blackface’ line of amplifiers is so-named because the amps had a black front instrument panel and black tolex covering. Despite this amplifier being considered a modest model at the time of its launch by Fender, its features rival many of today’s boutique valve amplifiers with pine cabinetry and finger-joints, 100% hand-wired circuitry, all tube single-ended design, cloth-covered wire, carbon-comp resistors, and components all made in USA.
Historical rumour has it that Eric Clapton used a Vibro-Champ on the famous ‘Layla’ sessions with producer Tom Dowd stating that the albums’ signature guitar tones were created with a blackface Vibro-Champ running into a blackface Princeton Reverb with the volume all the way up. Be like EC and plug a nice Strat into this amp, turn it up and you can certainly hear ‘that sound’.