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Fender Princeton Recording Amp

August 21, 2006
For a long time, if you wanted to record your guitar silently, you pretty much had to choose between digital modeling devices and solid-state practice amps with a line out. Getting real tube amp sound directly to tape just hasn't been much of an option. Until now. Fender has finally come up with a real-live, honest-to-goodness, all-tube amplifier for silent recording: the Princeton Recording Amp. The key to this coolness lies in the Princeton's built-in trans-impedance power attenuator, which lets you push the amplifier as hard as you want while keeping the speaker volume low or at zero. The amp also features onboard stompbox-style compression and overdrive circuitry, tube-driven spring reverb, headphone out, speaker-emulated line out, speaker out, and a four-button footswitch. The Princeton runs at 20 watts and features a 10" Jensen C-10R speaker.
Visit Fender's Princeton page.

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By: anonymous (not verified)
This amp is awesome. I cant wait to get one of these for my self. It does have a headphone input in it. Thats great for practicing in small closed areas.
Wed, 2007-11-21 20:32

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PROMO GIRLS: You're watching Gearwire.Com.

[SHANE NICHOLAS PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE FENDER PRINCETON RECORDING AMP]

SHANE NICHOLAS: Hi. Shane Nicholas from Fender here to tell you about the Princeton Recording Amp. Now, we at Fender have had requests to reissue the mid-'60s Blackface Princeton Reverb for years. We could easily have done that but we decided to incorporate some new technologies to the old design to reach a broader group of players. The Princeton part of this amp is a full-on tube amp, 6D6 output tubes, 12AX7 and 12AT7 preamp tubes, a Jensen speaker. It's all what you would expect from a Princeton Reverb, long spring tank in there.

[SHANE NICHOLAS PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE FENDER PRINCETON RECORDING AMP]

And of course, when you crank it up a little bit, it gets that nice output tube distortion.

[SHANE NICHOLAS PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE FENDER PRINCETON RECORDING AMP]

And the playing feel that you got from this is really special because playing light and you play hard and the amp really reacts to you. Now, that's the original Princeton thing, but we've added on a device called the trans-impedance power attenuator. This is going to let us turn down the volume of the speaker...

[SHANE NICHOLAS DEMONSTRATES THE USE OF THE TRANS-IMPEDANCE POWER ATTENUATOR IN THE FENDER PRINCETON RECORDING AMP]

...but still maintaining the same playing feel, so the amp thinks it's playing into an 8-ohm speaker and it's receiving the negative energy when the speaker bounces back so we can do this...

[SHANE NICHOLAS PLAYING A TRILL ON THE GUITAR THROUGH THE FENDER PRINCETON RECORDING AMP]

...exactly the same at any volume unlike most power attenuators. You can even go down to silent mode and then use the XLR recording output on the back and you'll be able to record and the amp think it's playing regular full 15 watts into an 8-ohm speaker but you've turned it down to silence so nobody can hear you. Also great for late night practicing with, you know, a great tube amp tone.

We're on full volume here, all you're hearing is the straight tube amp. You also have the option engaging an overdrive and a compressor. These are stompbox-type circuits that are in the signal path right after the guitar comes in and hits the compressor and the overdrive first before it goes out to the tube amp. If those are disengaged, you're hearing straight tube amp, nothing else. When they're engaged, you can get that compressor sustain sound.

[SHANE NICHOLAS PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE FENDER PRINCETON RECORDING AMP, COMPRESSOR ENGAGED]

It really squeezes the node out for clean sustain. Overdrive.

[SHANE NICHOLAS PLAYING GUITAR THROUGH THE FENDER PRINCETON RECORDING AMP, OVERDRIVE ENGAGED]

So a very useful amp, problem solver for people who live in a small house where they have someone sleeping in the room next door, Princeton Recording Amp.

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