The other telltale color is the bright green one shown in the CE transformer. Notice the telltale 'pink fluo' enamel, meant to avoid using it by mistake to wind a motor or any other critical application. and Mesa Boogie too, by the way, but at least their windings are smooth and even So CE is clearly getting the lowest bidder, no matter what.Īnd if the makers are supposed to be (no real proof of that, just hearsay) a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a subsidiary of a (reputedly) 'good' Company, well, don't know how well quality would transfer through all those layers.įWIW reputed Drake, Marshall transformer supplier, has sinned by also using self stripping enamel (think JCM900 and Valvestate amps). when i plug it into a cab and turn the standby on, I get a horrible sound that is incredibly loud.

There is clearly a problem with the power amp. Looks wound by (un)trained monkeys, it's scatter wound and so uneven that they didn't even get uniform thickness, it bulges in the middle. So i just finished rebuilding this bandmaster back to AB763 specs, the only original parts are the transformers and choke and pots. I have never played it hard and its good to go. Excellent condition.It has the classic Fender tube amp sound in abundance, but it is too loud for my current needs. No, that's not Kapton at all but 'self stripping enamel' wire, absolutely unsuitable for tube related transformers.Īnd that bobbin example is about the worst I've ever seen. This is a 1968 Fender Bandmaster guitar amplifier head, silverface, drip-edge with AB763 circuit same as blackface as far as I know. 5 on secondary.Ĩ) The transformer is stamped P-TF22848 and looks to be a replacement.ĩ) Screen resistors are new (one was burnt and the other out of tolerance originally).ġ0) Bias voltage and current are fine- both measured and tested (-47V and thinkin' OT, but am I missing anything? 5V at the speaker.Ĥ) At 6V p-p at the speaker, you start to see distortion on the top half of the waveform (looks like crossover distortion, but is closer to the peak on the leading edge).ĥ) At 12V p-p (on speaker jack), clipping starts.Ħ) I can run the input up substantially higher and still get no distortion or clipping on the grids of the output tubes, so I'm certain the problem is in the output section.ħ) OT resistance readings are 100 ohm red-blue, 65 ohm red-brown, and about. The schematic is HEREġ) Tubes are new and I've subbed several know working sets.Ģ) Electrolytic caps have been recently replaced and tube voltages are normal.ģ) 5V p-p on the output tube grids gets you. The basic symptom is that it distorts way before you reach max power and output is low. And it’s exciting to consider the ways The Good One would excel at creating non-canonical Big Muff sounds in the studio.I'm going in circles on a Fender Bandmaster AB763. It also generates very cool fuzz sounds when paired with low-wattage amps and small speakers.

That also makes it a much more flexible pairing for an overdrive or boost. Compared to a few favorite Big Muff clones, The Good One’s sustain control has a noticeably greater range of color.

In various combinations, the two controls can make The Good One’s voice sound snorkely and filtered like a wah, tight, compressed, and buzzing like a primitive mid-1960s fuzz, or scorchingly blown out. Unlike a lot of Big Muffs, The Good One’s controls yield copious variations on its basic voice-particularly when you take an open-minded approach to using the tone and sustain knobs. Those attributes definitely make up part of The Good One’s personality, but they are far from the only distinguishing characteristics. Though the audible differences between vintage Big Muffs can be vast within a given production run-never mind among completely different versions-Triangle Muffs have a reputation for articulation and clarity, at least by Big Muff standards.

Ab763 bandmaster