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Posts Tagged ‘fender champ 600’

Gear Steal! Fender Champ 600 @ Guitar Center for $149!!!

Posted in 6V6, amplifiers, amps, Amps/Amplification, announcements, buying gear, fender, GAS, gear, gear announcements, gear find, guitar, guitar gear, guitarists, Guitars, Music, musicians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 11, 2009| 3 Comments »

Fender Champion 600 Re-issueAs much as I have been ranting about Fender gear pricing as of late, and their latest “supposed” price drop (who knows for how long), my Champ 600 has been a tried and true companion in my studio ever since I got it. I’ve even used it at small venue gigs hooked to a 1 X12 cab, and it has performed wonderfully! This is a great amp!

Anyway, As I was doing a bit of research on the Fender price drop, I happened to go to GuitarCenter.com and couldn’t believe the pricing of the Champ 600 there! At $149, this is even cheaper than what I got it for two years ago!

Folks, this is phenomenal! While diminutive in size, this amp packs tone! You want classic Fender tone at a lower volume for home recording or just futzing around, this is the amp to get! And because it’s a low wattage amp, you can push it and not worry that your eardrums will start to bleed.

For my own purposes, this has been one of most pedal-friendly amps I’ve ever owned, so I retubed it with a NOS JAN-Philips 12AT7 and a JJ 6V6 to get maximum clean headroom out of the amp. Now, I have to open up the amp full to get even mild breakup. But that’s why I have my OD pedals. My thought behind this is that I want to get as pure character out of my OD’s as possible, so playing through a really clean amp will accomplish that.

So what’s the point of all this? As I mentioned above, this is a GREAT amp, and at $149, it’s a steal. Go get one at GC today!

Here’s a sample I recorded with the amp hooked up to my 1 X 12 extension cab:

Disclaimer: I’m not in any affiliate program with GC, so I get nothing out of announcing this. 🙂

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Low-wattage fun with the Fender Champ 600

Posted in 6V6, amplifiers, amps, effect pedals, Effects, fender, GAS, gear, gear reviews, guitar, guitar effects, guitar gear, guitar pedals, guitar picks, guitarists, Guitars, Hardwire, Music, musicians, overdrive, pedals, picks, plectrum, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 4, 2009| 7 Comments »

Fender Champion 600 Re-issueI forgot how much fun this little 5 watter is to play! I just put in new tubes to make it have more headroom, as this is an incredibly pedal-friendly amp. The tubes I got were as follows: NOS JAN-Philips 12AT7 and a JJ 6V6. The idea behind this is that the 12AT7 has about half the gain of a regular 12AX7, so it won’t push the power tube as hard as a 12AX7. The JJ 6V6 has tons of gain, and is much harder to break up; thus, I hoped to attain more clean headroom with this combination.

While I like the breakup of the Champ 600, it’s a little weak, but the clean tone is spectacular with this amp. And hooking it up to a 1 X 12 extension cab really expands the depth of the tone it produces. Combine that with a couple of pedals, and the result is like candy to the ears.

Some people might frown upon this diminutive amp, but I used it throughout my first album, and for good reason: It’s so damn versatile! I can play pretty much any style with this amp, and miked properly, can make it sound much bigger than it actually is. And at $200 bucks (that’s what I paid for it), it was a total steal!

Here’s a simple clip I recorded using one of GarageBand’s “Magic Garage Band” backing tracks. It’s a slow blues in E. The first part of the song is played with the neck pickup of my Prestige Heritage Elite, into my Tone Freak Effects Abunai 2, into my Hardwire RV-7 Reverb, then into the Champ and out my custom Aracom 1 X 12 extension cab with a Jensen P12N (damn! that totally sounds like name dropping! Yikes!). In second half of the song, I switch to my bridge pickup and stack my Tube Screamer on top of the Abunai 2. Oh my freakin’ gawd! This was fun. In any case, here’s the clip:

Sorry for the mistakes. I actually didn’t care because I was having so much fun! And by the way, I played the lead parts with my brand-spankin’-new V-Picks Psycho pick, a 1 3/4″ wide, 5.85 mm thick monster of a pick. I’m in tone heaven right now! You just gotta check this pick out!

And I almost forgot! I just can’t believe who incredibly awesome these Wyres strings sound and play. They’re so pliable, so resonant, and they sustain so well that they send my inspiration through the roof! Like the Psycho pick, I just can’t enough of these absolutely wonderful strings!

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Make your Fender Champ 600 sound better…

Posted in 6V6, amps, Amps/Amplification, GAS, gear, Guitars, Music, musicians, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on May 22, 2009| Leave a Comment »

Fender Champion 600 Re-issue
There are lots of mods out there that are aimed at improving the performance of a Fender Champ 600. And if you’re a proud owner of one as I am, you’ll know some of those mods such as this one that replaces the output transformer with a much better one from Mercury Magnetics. From what I’ve heard, this is one very nice mod and creates a much better output. There are also various transistor and resistor mods available as well. But for one such as myself that is scared to death of working with electrical components, there are a couple of easy and safe ways to drastically improve your Champ’s tone – all without doing modifications on any electrical component.

  • First, replace the stock 12AX7 with a different tube. For me, I love the NOS JAN-Philips 12AX7. But if I want a bit earlier breakup, a JAN-Philips 5751 works awesome as well.
  • Run the amp into a larger cabinet. The stock speaker is diminutive, and keeps the amp from being used in any live situation – even with a small band. There’s just not enough volume. But plug into a 1 X 12, and now you’ve got some volume! Throw in a couple of pedals, and you’ve got yourself a killer little setup.

See? No smell, no mess, though I do have to say that replacing the stock pre-amp tube is a bit of a pain as the tube has a protector around it, and it’s not all that easy to remove. But once you’ve got the protector off, it’s a simple matter of plucking the old tube and putting in the new one.

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