![]() At this time, the Musicmaster and Duo-Sonic both received a plastic pickguard in place of the previous anodized aluminum one, and a two-piece maple neck with a rosewood fingerboard. There was one major redesign of these two Musicmaster-bodied guitars, in 1959 when the entire Fender catalog was updated. The Duo-Sonic and Musicmaster also shared a single-piece maple neck and fingerboard, with a 22.5 inch scale length and 21 frets. Production of the Musicmaster began in late April of that year, using a body routed for two pickups to be common to the Duo-Sonic, which followed a little more than two months later. Prototypes were made in early 1956, followed by sales literature announcing both models. Musicians such as David Byrne and Liz Phair used a Fender Musicmaster.ĭesign work on the Musicmaster-and its two-pickup variant Duo-Sonic-began in late 1955 following a request from Fender Sales. It was the first 3/4 scale student-model guitar Fender produced.Ī Musicmaster Bass model was also put on the market. The Fender Musicmaster is a solid body electric guitar produced by Fender. ![]() Throw a tube reverb (or analog delay), some sort of "swirly" pedal and Bad Horse "Klon clone" in front, crank the amp and turn the guitar down, use the guitar controls to "drive" the amp and you probably don't need anything else! It's a great fit for the "use the smallest amp possible and the guitar as the drive control" method I've used for over 40 years.1 proprietary single coil, offset variantĭesert Sand, Shaded Sunburst, Red-Mahogany, Olympic White, Daphne Blue, Dakota Red Great "sleeper" amp buys, and tremendous for small clubs or mic'd situations. But run at the upper edge of headroom (with a good speaker!) with a Tele, Strat or even Les Paul most players can't pick out one from the other. If you have a lot of experience with wide-panels you'll hear the difference, and the 5E3's gain structure is different, especially at higher volume levels. I've run it head-to-head with my '55 5D3, a '54 5D3 and a (I think) '58 5E3. ![]() I left the input cap - it sounds closed to my original 5D3 with it that without. I'll probably order something better for him. I had it just about long enough to "dial in" - which is typically what happens with about half my gear acquisitions!3 He uses it with a Les Paul Standard and gets a blistering rock tone with it, even with the mediocre speaker. The schematic and description should be plenty to use for reference.Īfter we lost our youngest son (who was using it at home) my oldest bagged it. All that was done was replacing caps and power cord. Sorry, I missed the post from almost a year ago requesting an "after" view. Not bad for roughly a $300 total investment. It's also far more useful for bass as a studio amp than one in stock form. This amp is cathode biased but sounds completely different from Vox-like designs. 6AQ5's in the right circuit sound very similar to 6V6's and 6BQ5/EL84's. It's much like my '55 5D3 Deluxe tone-wise but tighter. Tested the coupling and bypass caps - the cheap disc coupling cap was bad and the power tube bypass cap was bad as well (I rarely find bad bypass caps in preamps).Īfter parts replacement and then removing the input cap and a switch to a different coupling cap (that passes more lows) it sounds great with both guitar and bass. I first replaced the 3 filter caps (the orange one is a dual cap) and speaker and ran a quick sound test- it sounded awful, with ragged, nasty distortion. The advantage is that the phase inverter almost never goes out of balance, unlike the usual tube type where tube balance is extremely important. These early ones are unusual in that they are the only Fender amp to have 6AQ5 power tubes - which also require unusual 7 pin sockets.Īnd all Musicmaster Bass amps have an expensive phase inverter - a transformer instead of a 12A*7 tube. Speaker was blown, but I always replace them anyway - the stock ones are awful. It's a 1970 and had never been touched except for one very weird, long bolt on the output transformer. This is what one looks like before any servicing (except the back view, just after I changed the speaker - tried an old P12Q but liked this "vanilla" Eminence better, oddly).
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