But I can’t say I’m hearing a lot of phase-shifting or true vibrato from any of the amps. Trem B seems a bit more two-dimensional, though hey, I’d still be happy to use that sound anytime. They both have the dreamy, “lose yourself in it” quality I love in tremolo. So which do you like best? I’m more drawn to Trem A and Trem C than to Trem B. But to my ear, these are pretty good representatives of each type. Vintage amps vary a lot from specimen to specimen. The honor system is in effect.)Ĭareful about drawing too many conclusions from this. I recorded all the examples with the same mic-a Royer R-121-and connected each of the amps to the same speaker cabinet with a single 12” Celestion Alnico Blue.įeeling brave enough for a blind-listening test? Then meet our lovely contestants! (Answers below. To level the sonic playing field, I recorded a guitar phrase into Logic Pro, and then used a ReAmp to pump it through the three amps. And for opto-trem, I used a silverface Super Reverb-not quite a blackface, but I’ve played it side-by-side with blackface Supers I’ve owned, and the effect is identical. The bias sound is a kit-built clone of a bias-trem Vibro-Champ. For the brownface sound, I used an original ’62 Tremolux. I think I detect a slight variance in pitch in addition to the usual amplitude modulation.”īut since I happened to have specimens of all three types here in my studio right now, I recorded a quick comparison. When I play, I just think, “Mmm, yummy Fender term,” rather than, “Hmm. I say “supposedly,” even though I’ve used vintage Fenders of all types. Supposedly, brownface trems have a bit of this true vibrato quality as well. Magnatone amps are famed for their true vibrato effect, a lovely little wobble with definite changes in pitch. There’s something a little seasick about the pitch modulation-and this is coming from a dude (me) who owns four Magnatone amps!Īdding to the confusion is the fact that Fender always called the trem circuit “vibrato.” Technically, vibrato refers to a pitch-change effect, while tremolo refers to a change in volume, so most Fender vibrato circuits are actually tremolos. Then thing is, I’m not sure I like it all that much, though I’d want to play with the intensity control to see what it sounds like at lower settings. I’m not a tech btw, don’t know a volt from a watt, I’m just a Bo Diddley obsessed geek who loves all things tremolo and vibrato, haha!Ĭheck out that link - wow, it really does sound different. (there are different versions of it to complicate matters further!) From what I’ve been told, it’s a fairly complicated circuit that uses two and a half to three tubes for the tremolo alone. The “Harmonic Vibrato” is very different and sounds somewhere in between tremolo, a phaser, and a Univibe – this clip has a pretty good demo of a slow-ish setting : īrownface twins, Showman, Bandmaster, Concert, Vibrasonic, Super and Pro amps had it, but Tremoluxes didn’t. The Super Reverb has optical tremolo, the Champ has preamp tube bias trem, and the Tremolux has output bias term. UPDATE, 09.02.11: As astute reader WB points out, the Tremolux demoed here is NOT an example of the “harmonic vibrato” circuit, but an even rarer Fender freak, an output-bias trem circuit: Meanwhile, some small amps of the era, notably the Champs, continued to employ the tube-biasing trem found on some pre-brownface amps. Fender dubbed this circuit “harmonic vibrato.” Blackfaces, on the other hand, use a photocell and an oscillating lamp to create the effect, known as optical, or “opto” trem. The way I’ve always heard it explained, the brownfaces created the effect by splitting the input signal, running one half through a high-pass filter and the other through a low-pass, and then recombining and modulating the two signals. (Just Google “brownface blackface tremolo” to see what I mean.) The prevailing sentiment seems to be that the brownface version is the ultimate Fender trem-or so you’d conclude, judging by all the boutique amps and pedals offering the brownface version of the effect. You see a lot of chatter online about the differences between the tremolo circuit Fender used in its early-’60s “brownface” amps and the trem circuit that replaced it in the mid-decade “blackface” models. Magical modulation: The brownface Tremolux
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