Fender Champion 40

[HalfBlindLefty]

Found a very cheap Fender Champion 40 (solid state) amp. Since I thought it was about time my son should use a Fender amp I bought it with the idea he will lend it from me for ~ time

Both being busy through the week, there was no time for me to bring it or for him to come and fetch it.
After a long week with even longer working days ( the longest being a sixteen hour one) I started to come back alive today and after a while felt I should at least try to do a quick demo of the surprising sound of that (85 euro) amp :)

Recorded a quick backing using channel 2 with voicing ( mhh should start practicing that stuff again) and laid a leadish line over the backing using channel 1 the Blackface clean one.

Listen and see what you think of that little (12" speaker 40 watt solid state amp)

Fender Champion 40.mp3 - (1.8 MiB)

2015-04-19 17.11.56.jpg (961.94 KiB) Viewed 15236 times

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[12bar]

Thanks for the review! I've read some others on the net and most of them are pleased with the clean sound, but not so much with the FX sounds. Your demo sounds good to my ears.
My son decided to combine a Boss ME something (25?) with an active box (for his keyboard, too). That's not bad either...

[vancouverois]

A nice one at a pretty good price and cool demo.
The looks remind me my Frontman 25R, the same with it very nice cleans but not so good on the 2nd channel unless it's at very low gain or high gain.
It sounds weird in between.
The deal is the clean channel and its headroom with a pedal or two and it can sound Floydish.

[MichaelRobinson]

The tone is free from noise and other undesirable. I think I imagined that you just located on the border of distortion that break through now and then when you strum the strings a little extra. Overall.......NICE !!

[HalfBlindLefty]

Thanks :) It's true, the 2nd channel needs a very careful hand on the gain, volume and tone controls, to get a somewhat decent sound.
I do not have a treblebleed ciruit in my Tokai strat installed en am used to rolling of the volume just a pich to get rid if the high frequencies that sometimes kill the overdriven sounds.

I have recorded a very sloppy demo with the 2nd channel where I managed to get a tone I like. Using the tremolo effect and some tweaking the controls I have a sound that I thank of as an amp just prior to the end of life of some :) tubes.

I have mixed it in a way that the BT is far more back than what you guys are used to from me, just to have the little amps tone come forward.
Please, do not comment on the note choices or playing this time :) I a bit rusty by now.

at about 52 seconds down the track, I switch from bridge pickup to bridge/middle pickups

Champion2nd channel-slow-jam.mp3 - (1.44 MiB)

[12bar]

It sounds a bit strange, very near but it seems to have a gain control or noise gate or something. Very interesting, however. But I like the clean sound much better.

[MichaelRobinson]

I like the sound best when you have the PU-s' in middle. I wonder if the tremolo is a built in fx in the amp ? I thnk it's better without the tremolo....sorry to have to say it.

[HalfBlindLefty]

Mhh listend again for 15 seconds and thought.... crap this sounds loke I had the Gmajor active with it's noisegate and compressor active and didn't notice while mixing. Sorry guys bad, bad example. naughty HBL, just naughty You should know better.
Must have been to tired to notice my bad mix. Slept about 60 percent of the day anyway, had some catching up to do I gues.

[HalfBlindLefty]

Meanwhile my son has the amp at home, so who knows :)

[MichaelRobinson]

Mhh listend again for 15 seconds and thought.... crap this sounds loke I had the Gmajor active with it's noisegate and compressor active and didn't notice while mixing. Sorry guys bad, bad example. naughty HBL, just naughty You should know better.
Must have been to tired to notice my bad mix. Slept about 60 percent of the day anyway, had some catching up to do I gues.

HBL...........Don't be to hard on youre self. You have done nothing that's stay as it is. You have plenty of time to do what ever you want.

When it comes to me I will just thought to be a sound engineer. That is how I feel completely helpless when I get that you can do almost anything with a DAW. The problem is that there is so much that I drown in all the information and as a DAW offers.
I do not know how many times I thought that to experiment with my DAW to fix a unique sound that I like. My patience is zero so it will be what it will be, for the most part. I have been rebuffed by people in this forum, and rightly so. I understand that some songs are not going to listen to, in retrospect.

So do not be too hard on you, HBL. Take care and sleep tight when you need it.

[MichaelRobinson]

Mhh listend again for 15 seconds and thought.... crap this sounds loke I had the Gmajor active with it's noisegate and compressor active and didn't notice while mixing. Sorry guys bad, bad example. naughty HBL, just naughty You should know better.
Must have been to tired to notice my bad mix. Slept about 60 percent of the day anyway, had some catching up to do I gues.

HBL...........Don't be to hard on youre self. You have done nothing that's stay as it is. You have plenty of time to do what ever you want.

When it comes to me I will just thought to be a sound engineer. That is how I feel completely helpless when I get that you can do almost anything with a DAW. The problem is that there is so much that I drown in all the information and as a DAW offers.
I do not know how many times I thought that to experiment with my DAW to fix a unique sound that I like. My patience is zero so it will be what it will be, for the most part. I have been rebuffed by people in this forum, and rightly so. I understand that some songs are not going to listen to, in retrospect.

So do not be too hard on you, HBL. Take care and sleep tight when you need it. I realy mean take care. I'm burned out and I know that the best cure is to rest and sleep. I worked to much, much moore than you have. My merit for this is nervs that's sits outside the body and extremly easely stressed

Take care and listen to youre hart. You am the only one who knows where the limits is