Fender Super 60

[Counterstriker]

Anyone familiar with this little amp? It's a late 80's red knob, a friend of mine gave me his. i'm getting some pretty good tones out if it, but i was going through this site and realized JK used one a while back with DSO, I looked at some videos and I see it sitting on his rack, I asked him about it and he told me a good amount of mods to get done to it..


But he left some questions unanswered

the mods he told me to do are way out of my knowledge.. I sent them to the tech and he is going to make sense of them.

He told me this though:

volume (1st knob) disabled by replacing the opto-resistosr with fixed resistors (this is so the overdrive channel is only channel)

--change the whole tone stack and the cathode bias RC/plate load resistors on the tube stages before and after the tone stack to standard fender twin specs

the amp has 4 tube stages, and he said this allows him to get the preamp clipping he's so fond of (as am I).

To someone who understands this, does it make sense?

[TI4-1009]

I have a Champ 12 from the same era- red knob. Take a look at Torres Engineering's website, he has some kits to improve the Champ, might be adaptable to the Super 60? Dan is very accessible by email.

[brutusbuck45]

I have the Super 60. It is a loud little amp... ...huge output transformer and HEAVY. Mine is stock except for the speaker which I replaced with a Weber California. Its known for having a somewhat quiet clean channel. I mostly run it through the Drive channel with the Gain way down and volume way up. It is a nice sounding amp. The tone stack is built around the Mid pot. I use basic Jerry/Twin settings and dial in the highs with the Presence knob. The reverb is actually pretty nice on this amp, also. My complaint has always been the cheap jacks... they are difficult to replace also because of the PCB. If they aren't already upgraded to a more quality Switchcraft or comparable jack, I would suggest getting them replaced. This is sometimes referred to as a Rivera-era amp, but it was actually built after Rivera left Fender. The red knob Fenders have been much maligned- but I have always loved my "little" 60. Everytime I think about unloading it, I always manage to talk myself out of it. I've had it for 20 years.

Here is a good article I found with Kadlecik's description of his mods to the Super 60:

http://www.rukind.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=309&t=8326

[TI4-1009]

I put a Vintage 30 in mine and the first Torres (tone) mod. I have the kit to replace the jacks but haven't put it in yet.

torres does have an input jack kit for the Super 60, plus some other stuff:

http://torresengineering.stores.yahoo.net/fesu60kiandm.html

[Counterstriker]

When I sent JK a message about the super 60, he said how he's gotta fix his and start using it again, he had a custom spring reverb tank and everything for it, then something shorted out he said..

Yeah the jacks are really cheap plastic, the tech is gonna upgrade them as well as clean the pots.

Brutus, i like what you said about using the "Overdrive" channel, JK actually wired his to not even have a clean channel, and by changing it all to fender twin specs it cleaned the overdrive channel up nicely.

I actually got the first bit of info from that thread you posted, then thought i might try and ask him on facebook, he's a nice guy and loves to talk about gear! We went back and forth for about an hour and he gave me alot of great info.

the last question i had he didn't answer yet but i'm sure he will, he really seemed into the conversation

I asked him if i should go with fender spec caps when i recap the whole board. and his reply to that was "The ps, or the coupling caps?" What is the ps?

This is the tone JK pulled out of his modded super 60

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIsvzY4ZvSA

[waldo041]

peace,
waldo

[Counterstriker]

I see what you did there