DAN AGOSTO: Hello fellow gear fans. My name is Dan and you’re watching Instructional Screencast from Gearwire.Com, and in this particular video, we are taking a look at the Fender Champion 600 amplifier, and this is a reissue of sorts of the original Champion amplifier and this is pretty much factory, pretty much what you get from the factory although I did change the preamp tube. The preamp tube that came with it was okay but I tried out another one. It was a JJ 12AX7 as opposed to the Groove Tubes that was in there, and I did like it better. So, this amp I really like to get vintage sounds out of, the sort of sounds that you’ll hear on ‘50s records and ‘60s records, and I think it does it really well.

It has a little bit more gain than an older amp might but that’s cool because then you can just crank it up and jam. Also, it can help out some of the lower output guitars, and in this particular video, we will be using a lower output guitar or at least a lower output setting on a guitar.

This is a strange little oddity I picked up at a garage sale. It’s an Ampeg guitar but actually it’s a Burns of London guitar, just distributed by Ampeg or something, and we’re going to be using the treble setting, which is incredibly twangy. We won’t get into the wild dog this time around. Maybe that’s for a future video but the treble is about as twangy as I want to go right now, and so this is going into the Champion 600 into the high output. It has a high and low input and the high one of course has the higher gain so you get more distortion and a little bit more volume.

So the settings are shown. This amp goes up to 12. I know. Pretty amazing, huh? But yeah, just let it warm up and this is the sound we got with the Burns Guitar and the Champion 600. Very vintage.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING A BURNS GUITAR THROUGH A FENDER CHAMPION 600]

I’m going to go ahead and turn that up.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING A BURNS GUITAR THROUGH A FENDER CHAMPION 600]

Oh, and just by the way, we’re using the Neumann U87 as a microphone, so yeah it’s really twangy, very – I don't know exactly how to describe it but let’s listen to it again.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING A BURNS GUITAR THROUGH A FENDER CHAMPION 600]

Brittle I would say.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING A BURNS GUITAR THROUGH A FENDER CHAMPION 600]

Either way, it’s the sound on a guitar that you don’t usually hear and I think the amp does a really good job of being sort of period for the –- if you know what I’m talking about -- period for the type of sound we’re trying to go in for here. So, let’s listen to in the mix. We have to bring it way down for it to be under control at all. How about -12 dB which is way more than I’d like to have it at but then [SOUNDS LIKE] it sort of breaks. So here it comes.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING A CAKEWALK SONAR PROJECT ALONG WITH RECORDED TRACK OF THE BURNS GUITAR RUNNING THROUGH A FENDER CHAMPION 600]

So, I mean this is a first take of me playing. It could be a little more controlled where you can kind of hear how it just pops out.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING A CAKEWALK SONAR PROJECT ALONG WITH RECORDED TRACK OF THE BURNS GUITAR RUNNING THROUGH A FENDER CHAMPION 600]

Very vintage, fits with the other electric guitar.

[DAN AGOSTO PLAYING A CAKEWALK SONAR PROJECT ALONG WITH RECORDED TRACK OF THE BURNS GUITAR RUNNING THROUGH A FENDER CHAMPION 600]

I think it fits with the style of music as well.

So that’s what I feel the Champion 600 has best to offer, sort of a setting for a guitar tone that sounds old like it’s from the past. It doesn’t do high-gain applications very well although I mean you can get some interesting sounds out of it. It just kind of breaks up and becomes garbage. I mean, you know, some people love that garbage but in a setting like this, sort of poppy folk song, I think it really sets the stage for tones out of the past, and that’s what I feel it brings to the table best.

So, thanks for checking out this video.