A young friend of mine messaged me on facebook last night and asked me if I knew anything about the new Fender Pawn Shop series amplifiers. I said no, I'd seen the Pawn Shop series guitars, but didn't know they were issuing amps as well.
Spank me twice and call me a lickin' stick licker...
Aside from the cutouts covering up a good chunk of the speaker surface, it looks pretty damn cool and the specs on it make it look like it could really make a good harp amp. I mean, aside from the extra power behind it and switch tone control, it's pretty similar to a Kalamazoo Model 2.
That looks very interesting indeed. Two 6V6's - When' the last time a Fender was produced with those? Accordion and mic inputs are on a lot of the best vintage Valco's that scream with harp. The top and bottom configuration is also like some of the Valco's. I've had Silvertones and Montogomory Wards Airline amps built like that. From the sound with harp - it may be cathode biased like those amps also.
Tres cool design. My guess is it aint hand wired like the VHT special 6 - but it looks to be another very nice option for those who don't want to hunt for or work vintage gear - and don't want to pay for boutique.
Man! Fender is finally figuring it out. That's a great ad. Sociologists talk about "prestige from below" as a way of explaining why middle-class whites embrace working-class black music, for example: blues in the old days, hip hop these days. It's "cool." It's the hot new thing. And cool-points accrue to the white kid who really knows his street stuff.
This ad, in which a multinational corporation debuts a new product by trying to convince us that it's really just the ol' dawg-amp in the corner of the pawn shop, suggests that prestige from below can be used in all kindsa ways by savvy marketers. This is advertising as cinema verite: It's a little clunky, but because of that it feels real. It feels as though the company picked guys off the shop floor and told them to act like "a guitar guy" and "a harp guy." We get all that. But we also find it extremely easy, I daresay, to put ourselves in their position. The framing of the test sequences, with the amp foregrounded and slightly blurry, gets at the way that we all like to sniff our way into the guts of whatever used amp we're hoping will deliver the goods.
Obviously the sneaker companies have known this for a good long while: Nike, Adidas, and all the others take their prototypes to a storefront in the Bronx and let the street kids style and profile, taking notes on what those kids like. The models they like hit the streets for real about six months later.
Big music companies aren't usually this hip. Fender has figured out something important.
Looks like a cool little amp,it would have been nice if they would have added a line out feature,but for the $$ it might be a nice amp to experiment with,of course I would have liked to hear more harp through it,especially with a vintage bullet to hear what kind of bottom end that the 15 has to offer.
according to the review I read, it has an external speaker disconnect feature. I've had good results pluggin' harp mics into accordian jacks on old amps (Gretsch,Ampeg,Supro & Valco). You may not need to use the tone switch thru the accordian jack, or may not even be ABLE to (due to the results).
I didn't catch the ad until after posting this morning.
Adam is bang on the money. This ad is some very shrewd marketing and amazing for Fender to cotton onto the idea of a story based video. I play guitar, harp, keys and vocals (mainly at home, for fun). There isn't much out there than can provide a great sound for not a lot of money.
As I said before, I'd rather see reverb over vibrato, but then again, we do Spooky and Son Of A Preacher Man in our band, so vibrato will be of great use. I like the idea of controlling tone from my guitar rather than the amp, but more tone control would be better for harp.
All in all, it looks and sounds superb. I think this could end up knocking the Hod Hod Deluxe off the top spot in Fender amp sales. I think Fender many have bitten off more than they can chew. They'll certainly be selling more of these than the Clapton range of amps ($$$$$ EEK!!)
I can see where one could buy both of these little beauties, run into the Greta, run the Greta's line-out into the Excelsior.....what a retro look that'd be! I might paint or leather wrap the Greta though. They do kinda clash. ---------- Hawkeye Kane
Wow, that Greta is what Ive been looking for, all I do is play around the house(mainly in my car) and the occasional family jam. I just got a Behringer Mic200 preamp with plans on getting a Fender Mini Mustang Amp next month. I may have just changed my plans though. The only thing that the Mini Mustang has that I like are the effects/delay etc. but that Greta just seems way too cool, always some sort of dilema...
A friend of mine have one. He use a Lonewolf Harptone pedal to fatten it up and have swapped speaker to a Weber 12A125 20W. Edit: I had embedded a clip here. But i dont know what happend. It have been a playlist instead!?
here is the link, copy and paste. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBwikkSsJo8&list=UUoujoWl9-clKNQ9UwHhdDJw
Last Edited by on Dec 20, 2012 2:37 PM
Geez, so much reverb/delay you can hardly hear the amp.
Isn't the Excelsior a 1x15, not a 1x12?
A guitar player brought one to my jam at Ziggies in Denver. Meh. It was okay, I guess. It would be a project to get it right, and I have too many projects right now.
---------- -Rick Davis
Last Edited by on Dec 14, 2012 12:42 PM
Just resurrecting this real quick as a little news flash. It looks as though Fender may have discontinued the Greta. I just tried looking on both Sweetwater and GC, and both say it's now unavailable. Odd, because I just found this on ebay, and this is the first time I've seen the head/cab set.
The excelsior is great for the money but for harp I think the special 6 sounds better is cheaper, similar volume and less in need of gutting. It also is fairly easy to work on.
Last Edited by on Dec 19, 2012 3:50 PM
It's irritating.....I wanted so badly to try an Excelsior, and I told my local guitar store to call me when he got them in. He posted pics on facebook indicating that he had Greta's at one point, but NEVER CALLED me on the Excelsior. Grrrrr..... ----------
Hi Harmonica Lovers, 3 days ago I have ordered one :o) I will get it very soon. I will write for you my impressions if you want... Best regards ==============================
www.bleczycki.com
Last Edited by on Jan 01, 2013 12:34 PM
I got for X-mas this year from my dear wife......Don't wast your time, I've already taken it back to the store for a return. The guitar center here in so cal had seven of them n stock. sounds way too overdriven for my tastes,also WAY TOO much feed back with the stock tubes using a CR in a 520 shell, also a CR in a jt30 shell, my EV which is stock worked ok..no volume, retubed with a set of jan 12AU's which stopped the feedback but also killed what was left of the volume, also played around with a delay pedel(hofner) and a (LW harp attack) which just made things worse. such a shame because it looks like a cool little amp.
Old thread I know....but I was referred to an article in Premier Guitar about the rig of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' Mike Campbell. In his rig is a custom Excelsior in TWEED! Have to say, I love the look!
