Fender Bassbreaker 15W 1x12 Tube Guitar Combo Amp

Having had my Bassbreaker for quite some time, I have not replaced the tubes yet. This amp is not a 'metal' amp, but will serve far bette than most other amps, and help with 'idea processing' for all things rock, metal, grunge, country, hip hop, what ever your label destination is. I'm a hobbyist/tinker kind of person, so the context is important. You can see/hear/feel the vibe from a stereo chorus Fender amp, and that is what makes their niche so great; you can hear and feel the power of a Marshall JCM 800 or 900. Each amp has its known factors. And really, the amp world can be boiled down to Marshall JCM800, Mesa Boogie something, Diezel something, and Fender Twin Reverb something...the Bassbreaker has been an affordable go-to for my practice for quite some time now. Whether 6 string cheap guitars, 6 string good guitars, 7 string guitars, or acoustics, it fits the need. Do I need an EVH 50watt at some point? Yes. Dare I wish for a 2-3 channel amp to use the endless cool pedals with? Yes. But to just plug in...this Bassbreaker has been absolutely a friend to all ideas and needs. As anyone gets more into the world of what ever their interest is, certain tools will become a common staple to their effort. I must say, my Fender Bassbreaker has held up quite well for all of my tinkering, and would be a staple amp to consider for many things. Again, it's definitely not leaning towards the 7-8 string prog folks, but it is a great thinking tool otherwise, and who knows? I have not played an 8-string through it, but I'm basing this opinion on somewhat standard tunings. Even if I had the $ to add other amps, this one would stay quite regular in the mix, as it just works. How often can that be said of most things? Again, the more you play, the more you will justify another amp for a desired feel. But to generally practice, the Bassbreaker is a solid choice.

Many guitarists who are into high gain tones are searching for an elusive or even mythical tone that we hear in our heads., I know I do. I've tried almost everything you can name and though I've come close, this amp has gotten me the closest. I've had an Axe FX III, Mesa Mark series and Recto amps, Line 6 and Boss modelers, you name it. While they were all great at most things, they fell short for me. Out of frustration/desperation, I bought this amp based on a few reviews and what I know of the history of these amps. My setup is pretty simple, basic pedals in front of the amp like, noise gate, compressor, and a couple overdrive pedals used as boosts. Those go into the front end of this amp and then I twist knobs. The Contour knob is almost like having 3 channels. The sweep the other knobs have seems more dramatic to the overall sound than most amps. I then came out of the XLR output with cab emulation off. From there I go into Torpedo Wall or Sound or other IR host software. The result is the potential for everything from super-clear clean tones to very high gain. The front end of the preamp is very good at taking boost and allows you to reduce the amps gain to preserve the tone of your guitar. I would describe the third contour setting as very similar to a Recto. The 3 12AX7 tunes produce a very musical tone. This is something that no modeler can do. It is a simple fact that if you overdrive a tube amp, you get compression and complex breakup. If you overdrive a digital device, you get clipping that sounds horrible. The digital stuff is awesome after your tone character, but I don't think you'll ever get the musicality and feel from a digital device. I am using a significant amount of post processing using Wall of Sound. But, that would be true of any other real amp or modeler. Wall of Sound is awesome for this as you can use a model of a 6L6 power amp. Add in your virtual cabs and EQ to taste and you are good. The built-in G12 70 speaker is fine. I don't use it much but when I do, it is what I'd expect from a Celestion greenback type of driver. Don't let the 15 watts of power fool you, this thing is loud! I can go on singing the praises of this amp but honestly, go buy one. They are an awesome deal on the used market and while I won't tell you it's the only amp you'll ever want, I can tell you that I will expect a lot more out of any amp that is more expensive. This little amp gets the job done. Now, if you need to do channel switching or something like that. This won't do that. In fact, it has no footswitch capability at all. The ease at which you can mess with its knobs to get what you want is so easy, you have to try it to see what I mean. I'm not even sure Fender knows what they did here. Worth every penny at twice the price.

After trying many different amps in this price range I found this one used. I was instantly impressed by the tone. The updated tolex, knobs, and speaker cloth were a definite improvement visually. Mine came with a greenback speaker. Swapped it for a g12H30 and sounded even better. Left it on over night by accident one evening and experienced the redplate issue others have reported. The way the amp head is designed makes it virtually unserviceable. Several circuit boards crammed into a tiny space. The back plate is wired into these boards. Some tech's won't even touch it. Check youtube. Even using today's technology Leo Fender would have never designed it this way. Fender corporation is a disgrace!

This amplifier has a known issue that causes a power tube to redplate and fail, and mine is no different. It's nearly impossible to find a repair shop that will work on these amps due to the nature of its construction, and Fender has yet to admit that the issue is common, despite hundreds of people having the same issue. Run, don't walk away from this thing.

These are my initial impressions and I've been playing for fun for about 25 years, but haven't played electric guitar for about 7 years mainly because my Gibson goldtone head and cab are just so loud that I preferred playing acoustic guitar. I finally decided I needed a usable amp and first got a positive grid spark. That's still an impressive amp, but it got me really wanting a great tube amp that was more appropriate for my situation. I looked at boutique amps and really liked some black star stuff, blues Jr, and several others. A buddy who had gone through similar struggles, but actually bought some amps and used them and with my experiments with the modeling amp as much as I could and my experience back when I was in bands and playing around with a bunch of different setups, decided to go with the bassbreaker. Wow. It's so versatile and so easy to get good tones from. I was honestly thinking of swapping speakers or something else but I can just simply get so many great tones. It really reminds me a lot of most tweed amps, some Marshall amps, some mesa amps and a bit of the reverbs and the bassmans (I haven't played these in a long time though). It doesn't mimic my Gibson Goldtone with 1x12 and 1x15, but at this point I don't care and actually found that I don't really want to emulate that amp. I will admit I didn't use that cab with this combo nor have I done any recording with it. I know this is all completely subjective garbage, but that's mostly the nuances we face in music. Go play it in person or trust me that it's got a great versatility for maybe a gritty jazz guy to metal recording (most metal guitarists use more gain and fuzz than make it to a recording).

It's extremely heavy and limited sound options