Fender Vaporizer Amp

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JM Convert
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Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by JM Convert » Tue Jan 09, 2018 7:51 pm

Hi everybody.

A Fender Vaporizer has shown up for sale in my area.

My thoughts are:

1. Fender Tube Amp, go for it.

2. Fender Amp with Spring Reverb, deal.

What is a good price?

Thanks.

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wingnutkj
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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by wingnutkj » Wed Jan 10, 2018 3:06 am

Where are you? Thomann are flogging them off for 180 Euros just now, with an original list price of 400EUR, so if you're in Europe/UK, that might give a guide to second hand value.
Kenny

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by MechaBulletBill » Wed Jan 10, 2018 4:31 am

I had one, they're a really fun amp and people LOVED seeing it on stage. "What is THAT?! Is it from the future or the distant past? It's a lovely machine". it sounded nice, very in-your-face and light on the muddy low frequencies. Not much headroom and a nasty kind of distortion that is good in its own way, but not much good for feeding more gain.

The reverb on it is not very useful. The independent wet/dry volume levels is an interesting way of doing things but you can't get the reverb loud enough when the dry sound is wound up to gig levels. If you drive the reverb even a bit it will probably feedback like a bastard.

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by pad » Wed Jan 10, 2018 7:38 am

i am really considering one for home use :o
180€ seems really crazy

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by s_mcsleazy » Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:43 am

my bandmate gemma uses one. here is a picture of hers next to my car/in my car

Image
Image

she left it at mine for a period and i did a few recordings with it. what im going to say is it's fantastic for surf music. however, it is way louder than any of us expected.#

edit: also, somewhere on my youtube there is crappy audio of me playing bass into it with a bass cab.
offset guitars resident bass player.
'Are you trying to seduce me Mrs Robinson? Or do you just want me to solder a couple of resistors into your Muff?'

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pad
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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by pad » Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:40 am

can you send me your recordings?
those on youtube aren't that useful.

i mean price/sound wise it seems like the best option next to the smaller ones like fender champion 600, Vox ac 4 and grätsch g5222?
it seems a lot more reasonable and I've still got my christmas gift money :?

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by s_mcsleazy » Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:44 am

pad wrote:
Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:40 am
can you send me your recordings?
those on youtube aren't that useful.

i mean price/sound wise it seems like the best option next to the smaller ones like fender champion 600, Vox ac 4 and grätsch g5222?
it seems a lot more reasonable and I've still got my christmas gift money :?
their on my hard-drive at my bandmates house sadly. however, i have been meaning to borrow it to record some new demos
offset guitars resident bass player.
'Are you trying to seduce me Mrs Robinson? Or do you just want me to solder a couple of resistors into your Muff?'

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by MechaBulletBill » Wed Jan 10, 2018 11:31 am

s_mcsleazy wrote:
Wed Jan 10, 2018 8:43 am
what im going to say is it's fantastic for surf music.
I mean, you can dial in a verb-heavy sound at bedroom levels but it's not drippy surf verb, more like a cavernous reverb you hear on modern indie "surf" inspired tunes. But be aware - it's a known issue that, on certain units, the reverb is prone to feeding back.
pad wrote:
Wed Jan 10, 2018 9:40 am
i mean price/sound wise it seems like the best option next to the smaller ones like fender champion 600, Vox ac 4 and grätsch g5222?
The vape is a very fun amp but then so is the champ 600, for different reasons. Vox ac4s sound great when I've heard others use them and I don't know anything about those grestches.

If you're gonna use pedals and take it to jams then the vape is great, as long as you haven't got a teeny-tiny car. For a bedroom amp that's easy to mod, I might go with the champ.

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by Pacafeliz » Sat Jan 13, 2018 12:38 am

:-/ interesting...

(last thing I need is another amp, but...)
i love delay SO much ...that i procrastinate all the time.

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by MayTheFuzzBeWithYou » Sat Jan 13, 2018 7:06 am

Hey there!
I bought one back in 2014 in Surf Green (for 260€ or something - new at Thomann) for 180€ I'm also thinking about getting a second one (the slate blue one this time)...

PROs:
- as you all mentioned - it's really fun to play!
- The amp can be played and sounds great at living room/bedroom volumes - which is a good thing!
- loud for 12W
- it's probably not the best thing to do - but I love the sound when you hit the amp with your fist or anything else (when the reverb is turned on) to get a whiplash kind of sound...
- the "just wet" thing is also nice! - probably it's the most surf sounding that way.
- great pedal platform.
- also great for just running your guitar straight into your amp-kind of use.
- great looks
- when you mic it - you could easily gig with it.
- the half open back allows you to store cables and maybe even some effect pedals - so that you don't need an extra bag when taking the amp to a session.
- happy with it as it is (if you don't need the reverb 'cause you have one on your pedal board)...but there is a lot of modding potential:

There is a studio owner in my hometown who (only) changed the speakers on his Vaporizer and now it is the studio's main-amp for recording.
So this would be an easy mod to do - I'm planning this on mine too - but I still couldn't decide on which speakers to use. any recommendations?
Also: try running it through another cab - a 4x12 for instance - it will be a lot louder - which could help if you're at a jam session and you miss a little headroom.

CONs:
- I would love if the reverb unit was more reliable - it happens that I don't use it very often these days - because it is feedbacking/feeping badly at a certain amount of reverb when played loud/overdriven. Therefore to me too little Reverb for real surf usage.
- I don't find the Vape-Mode too useful - it's simply bypassing the tone and volume knob and runs it as loud as it can be played. but you don't really notice a difference when already pushed to the max.
- need of another cabinet when in a loud-jam session kind of situation because of missing headroom.

but hey it also says that it has only 12W - and 12W still can be very very loud! For 180 bucks give it a try! You can still sell it for more when they're finally sold out! ;-)

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by s_mcsleazy » Mon Jan 15, 2018 4:36 am

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYjHFo3EFtQ

here is the video of me playing mine into a bass cab with my bronco.
offset guitars resident bass player.
'Are you trying to seduce me Mrs Robinson? Or do you just want me to solder a couple of resistors into your Muff?'

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by JM Convert » Mon Jan 15, 2018 8:37 pm

Thanks for all the answers. I haven't bought it yet.

If the local studio owner in town uses it as his main recording amp ask him what speakers he is using. The decide if that is the sound for you.

I have a fender twin and a jc-120 that never get above volume 3. The vaporizer seems like a great tube amp with real spring verb.

The gentleman who services my amp worked as one of the fender amp techs until Leo brought him over to Musicman and then G&L. When I had trouble with my twin reverb's reverb feeding back above 3 at low volume he fixed it saying the bag was too tight around the springs.

Thanks again.

This forum is the best.

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by JM Convert » Fri Jan 19, 2018 8:53 pm

McSleazy, your auto/gig packing skills are second to none. Your car is like a clown car for gear.

When I originally posted the amp was available for $180.00.

It dropped to $140.00 and then sold.

I would have bought it but I read the reverb feedbacks early (thought that could be too tight a bag on the springs) and I already have a fender twin.

I'd like to step down from a twin to a princeton or a deluxe.

I'm not kicking myself for not buying it.

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by MayTheFuzzBeWithYou » Sat Jan 20, 2018 7:37 am

The Studio-Guy switched to Jensen p10r speakers and exchanged the reverb-tube - for a more stable reverb sound... but he's selling his right now (therefore I know... as I'm not close friends with him or anything) - so I probably won't hear it anymore...

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Re: Fender Vaporizer Amp

Post by s_mcsleazy » Sun Jan 21, 2018 4:00 am

JM Convert wrote:
Fri Jan 19, 2018 8:53 pm
McSleazy, your auto/gig packing skills are second to none. Your car is like a clown car for gear.

we call it car tetris and it dates back from packing my old car for gigs/practices. we used to be able to fit a fender bassman, 4 guitars, 3 pedalboards and 2 bags in the boot of a mk1 mx5. we have a cd of the tetris theme playing while we're packing. we can fit all that in the car and still have room for the 3 of us to drive home. our old practice space was only 2 miles from our house so it was very unlikely we'd get caught with a overloaded car.
offset guitars resident bass player.
'Are you trying to seduce me Mrs Robinson? Or do you just want me to solder a couple of resistors into your Muff?'

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