If you were to ask a non musician to name a musical instrument brand they could recall, Fender would arguably be the first name off their lips. For over 60 years, the Californian based manufacturer has dominated the landscape for both guitarists and bassists alike.

As I have sculpted my guitar tone I’ve used amplifiers made by Fender, Marshall, Mesa Boogie, Divided by 13, Diezel, and  Bogner to name a handful. I’ve used all manner of configurations ranging from small combo’s to massive full stacks.

Prior to using the Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue (BDRI), reviewed here today, I had been using a combination of two amps made by another Californian amp manufacturer, Divided by 13, with their FTR-37  and RSA-23 models. As my needs required buying a line array P.A system, I needed to free up cash flow, and thus the reason for selling these amps. The void created by these sales, needed to be addressed with an amplifier that could closely capture the delicious tones from my D13′s, yet do so, at a much reduced cost of the D13′s $7,000 investment. This is important to provide this background information in my review, as this better qualifies how and why I came to choose the Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue.

While the Fender has a street price 1/10th of my D13 setup, and boasting the famous 6L6 tube design also featured in my FTR-37 configuration, I still needed to address the fact that I loved the overdriven tones I coaxed out of my RSA-23 (with pedals in front) which is designed around KT88 tubes. The spongy, bubbly sound of 6L6′s is wonderful for clean tones, however beyond all but the most basic clipping tones the sound becomes too confused and undefined for real work with overdrive and ‘dirt’ pedals. Again, the Fender BDRI addressed my needs by way of their more focused ‘drive’ channel on the amp, which captures a more urgent growl than the warm rounded overtones of the 1st channel.

On its own the Fender BDRI produces a great workingman’s guitar sound, however coupling the 1×12″ enclosure Fender offers as a compliment to the BDRI creates a more complex, layered sound, that sings with a greater authority. In particular my typical ‘Nashville’ sound (broken thru driven dirt sounds) started to drive through while still retaining that Fender amp spank.

My main guitar is a custom shop Suhr Classic series ‘strat style’ guitar designed reminiscent of the Fender ’62 reissue Strat vein. With my drive pedals running front end I am able to achieve excellent results ranging from Eric Clapton smooth cleans , Eric Johnson singing sustains, Brent Mason spank with just the change of a pedal.

The amp features a shared 3 band eq (B, M, T) and it is very versatile, I have mine set as follows (B=8.2, M=6.8, T=7.2) I run my Suhr with the tone dials set around 7.5 to smooth out some of the bright bite inherent of the amps design. The amp also features a presence knob which I have set around 7.6 to allow the amp to remain focused-though historically, I am not a fan of amps that utilize a presence feature. The master volume knob is running right around 6.2 while I back off the clean and drive channels to just around 1.

To detail the weak spots of the amp, I would limit this to two aspects. The amplifier is extremely sensitive to volume increase with a massive jump from 1-2 on the either the volume or drive dials. My second issue relates to the built-in Accutronics Spring reverb. Beyond the 2 setting the amp washes out. Thankfully the amp does offer an effects loop which is where I patch in my reverb externally via way of the Fractal Audio Axe-Fx. The quality of effects in the Axe-Fx are easily on par with Eventide and Lexicon. I personally favor varieties of hall reverbs rather than ‘Spring’ reverbs. I simply bypass the amp and cab aspects of the Axe-Fx on a carbon copy of my 20 direct to desk studio patches, and interface it with the Fender BDRI for some truly incredible results.

Doing a simple cost benefit ratio with my former Divided by 13 rig heavily sides with the Fender. While the D13′s tone is more appealing, as would be expected, the simple fact is that investing 1/10th of the funds into this amp creates a sound that is within 15% of the territory of my previous D13′s. If Fender were to address the amps overall volume sensitivity, and made the reverb more useable, the amp would be an incredible amplifier in the $700 price range. As it stands, I would give the Fender an 8.5/10 in my opinion.

I am in the process of swapping out the stock speakers and replacing them with a Celestion Alnico Blues 15w speaker, and a Celestion 70th anniversary G12H30 30w speaker in the combo and enclosure respectively. With a further $400 investment, the amplifier will more than likely yield results narrowing that gap from it to the D13′s to within single digit percentages. -Fletch

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