TL;DR
Going to be performing some intensely researched circuit modifications to my 2018 Fender Blues Junior Laquored tweed amp.
Back story
I used to have a late 90's FBJ I picked up off consignment, oh, circa 2008; largely for a mobile practice amp and fake-PA for my talk-box setup at the time.
Then, after a while, you personally do something dumb like "trade it in" for another piece of gear you don't own anymore either. Anyway, dog years later (Summer 2024), I happened to come across a killer liquidation deal at Guitar Center on a used 2018 Fender Blues Jr Lacquered tweed while helping a student I teach guitar at our local town's school pick out his "first" guitar.
In the following days, something tugged at me to drag my 90's Fender Telecaster foto-flame into Guitar Center to give a good sound check. It felt almost as if the universe wanted me to have one more pass at a Fender Blues Junior amp again (and probably a few revisions better than that 90's USA board!).
Modification Overview
In very condensed form, the amp modifications will be a tender mix of:
- BillM power filter capacitor changes
- BillM twin-stack modification
- BillM tone-stack (with my own value changes)
- BillM "presence" control
- Sandard bias "cooling" for the EL84 power tubes
- Toggle-switchable mod for treble-bypass (e.g. "bright cap" modes)
- Toggle-switchable mod to the tone-stack (treble/bass/mid) "tone slope" resistor to raise and lower overall frequency depth.
- Reverb intensity mod for "chilling out" the reverb intensity and range
As I blog about this as the project unfolds, I'll have a dedicated post just about all the mods themselves (and of course, fully documented for anyone else to do).
The "Goods"
I purchased all my components through amplifiedparts.com. Why? Just because. To be honest, great selection of absolutely everything to do with pedal/diy/amp repair, and super reasonable pricing. It's my only purchasing experience with them so far, but no complaints!
The Pursuit Starts Now
Now that I've had the amp for a solid 5 months, even with things "dialed in" that is certainly passable in the American blues tone department, I'm finally in the mood to tinker with aspects surrounding the amp's overall tone-stack to arrive at Fender blues tone nirvana and address the bias immediately before those EL84 power tubes get torched.