"Black Knob" Fender Era Info? (Deluxe 112 Plus Content)

Make it loud here.
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MrShake
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"Black Knob" Fender Era Info? (Deluxe 112 Plus Content)

Post by MrShake » Wed Jul 14, 2021 5:35 am

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[Like being a teenager again, and isn't that what we're all chasing in some way?]

Part 1: The Amp

I've been fixing up my old amps.  Still cautious/scared enough to not do anything serious, but pot and jack cleanings, and a little eyeballing for loose connections or trouble spots has worked miracles on a few previously written-off amps.

Never been an amp guy.  Love 'em, respect 'em, but I always end up with something that almost perfectly suits my needs one way or another. They just find me. Nowadays they call what I like "pedal platforms", but I used to just call them "really clean amps". I've only ever really "paid" for my main two, an ADA half-stack (for shoegaze, not hair metal) and my '74 Bassman Ten, to finally have a big clean loud vintage Fender. The others just sorta "happen".  Never top-of-the-line, but always exactly right.

So, I got to one that has sentimental value.  It was a house amp at the little studio/station I worked at.  When I got back to being in a band after many years, the owner let us rehearse there.  I quickly learned I didn't wanna drag my Bassman Ten across town every weekend for rehearsal, even though it sounded great. So, I tried the Deluxe 112 Plus sitting in the corner and it worked great with my pedals and was loud enough to hang against a big, pounding, tom-heavy drummer. I was surprised, considering the size. I really liked the simplicity and clarity and the fact that it packed a punch for being such a "small" amp.

Eventually it started cutting out. HARD.  It was the inputs and clean vol/treble knobs that seemed to be the biggest issue.  It was donated to the studio (left outside the door for a week and eventually adopted), so I don't know its life before that, but I assumed a klonk to that corner in a past life had cracked a solder joint or something. Cheap Fender solid-states have a habit of being abused. Hundreds of bands had done live-in-the-studio sessions on this one over about five years. It got tossed on the "to fix" pile. I'd considered picking one up for myself eventually. (They were even cheaper a few years ago.) Right around that time, I got a ZT Lunchbox (now nicknamed "Trash Amp") that had been abandoned in our stairwell.  I switched over to that with an extension cab as my "easy to move" live rig, and it fulfilled my "small and loud" needs. Eventually, the studio went under. The station managers told me to take the Deluxe 112 Plus.  Basically sentimental severance pay.

It sat at my place for about two years, waiting until I had money to fix it, until I opened it up the other day.  Deoxit F5 in the pots and D5 in the jacks, some serious cleaning/wiping, securing the loose speaker, and the thing is functionally like-new and in pretty good cosmetic shape.  It's not gonna topple my Bassman from the top of my "clean Fender" ladder, but it's small, very loud, the clean channel is good, and the dirty channel is surprisingly usable for my sounds.  No joke, I set up my WFRI Rat at my preferred settings on the clean channel, and was able to A/B a passable approximation on the drive side of the amp. Close enough for a gig in case of emergency.  The definition of a workhorse or backup amp.  

Pros:
- Cheap.
- Loud.
- Small and light(ish).
- If you find one that still works after cleaning the pots and jacks, it will probably work for a long time.
- Great "pedal platform".*
- Fuller sound than a lot of SS cheapos. Setting everything at "Fender 7" is a nice tone right off the bat with a flatwound JM. Try it. Easy to adjust to taste. More low-end than I expected.
- On this particular model, the dirty channel is no prizewinner, but certainly adequate in a pinch for surfy garage and punk (see above).

Cons:
- If there IS a problem, it might be harder to diagnose, costlier to fix. I can see how the box jacks would be an expensive headache.
- A great Fendery clean, but clearly a SS amp. Very "live". If you really don't like that, stay away.  But it's sort of a nice blend of full and clear with a little extra bite.  Not "glassy", but like some kind of crystal-clear plexiglass or epoxy or something.
- *Not all pedals are the same.  I can adjust my board settings when switching amps to balance it all out just like I want, but at "7"s without adjusting my usual pedal settings, my Rat sounds great through it while the scooped mode on my Superfuzz sounds too crispy unless I rebalance EQs and gain staging on the floor.  Adjustable, but if you rely on your amp to soften your pedals more than just a nice EQ curve, this probably ain't for you.
- The reverb is really noisy above 5.  I'm going to try learning how to shield it, but over 4 on the reverb knob there's distinct hiss.  Seems like a cheap cord issue.
- The "pop" when turning it off can vary from "startling" to "snub nose shot", but I've read how that and the insane volume curve on these is par for the course.

Overall, if the above sounds acceptable, I'd recommend one. Or if you've spent time inside SS circuits like pedals and are prepared to fix stuff like that. And I know gear prices have gone crazy lately, but these seem to be $250-$300, which seems reasonable for one of the last made-in-the-USA, all-analog, Fender-voiced solid state combo amps that's loud enough to gig with unmic'd (depending on the gig and band). Mine's gonna get sandwiched between the Lunchbox and the 15" extension cab at the practice space, creating "Trash Stack".

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Part 2: The Era

OK, so, clearly... I like that amp up there.  Great little "box of loud", clean, utilitarian amp.  So how come it's so hard to find out info about what I guess I'd call the "Black Knob" era?

Tweed, blonde, blackface, silverface - I get the obsession people have.  And why there'd be much more interest in documenting those.  Plus, tubes are f'in cool and sound great.  And I get why everybody turns their noses up at the "radical" changes and decreased reliability of the Red Knob era (even if I don't entirely agree with the negativity).

Fender reusing names inappropriately doesn't help.  Princetons and Deluxes that aren't really Princetons and Deluxes, proper.  

After a lot of reading (see below), I figure mine has some DNA from the Red Knob Eighty-Five (maybe?) and definitely the Deluxe 85, and was the predecessor of the pre-DSP version of the Deluxe 90 with its more traditional look.  The Black Knob era seems to run from about '92-'93 to '99. Part of the way through this period, ('95, I think, based on the blue book?) the Princeton and Deluxe 112s got a power boost, and I'm not sure what, if anything, happened to the other models. The SS Princeton 112(+) of the era was a younger sibling, with lower wattage and fewer features. And while the Deluxe 112 seems to be the successor of the Deluxe 85, the Princeton Chorus seems to be brought straight over from the Red Knob line.

For anyone who wasn't playing at that level then, know that these Black Knob '90s SS were ubiquitous. In the back half of that decade and early '00s, just about every band I saw or played with in high school and college had a Princeton Chorus somewhere. Local and touring bands.  After they got out of school, they all traded 'em in for Hot Rod Deluxes to be real-deal tube amp indie rockers.  I'd always had a weird hodgepodge of off-brand amps that I only later appreciated for their personality, but heard and played through scads of the Standard Series Fenders through those days.

Scouring around recently, I found this ad:

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(found at planetbotch.blogspot.com)

It helped clarify.  I can kinda bunch this solid-state "Standard Series" into the "Loud Bunch" and the "Chorus Bunch".  A bandmate had a red-knob Power Chorus that I understand evolved into the Ultimate/Ultra Chorus, which seems about right.  All of 'em sounded pretty good, frankly. We didn't know any better, though. Been a while since I've heard a PC clearly myself though.  I still see them on stages (usually mic'd), and they never stand out as sounding sub-par.

How similar were the circuits in these Standard Series amps?  People rave about the PC's cleans. I really like the full, clear Deluxe 112+ cleans, but haven't A/B'd them. When I was a kid, I assumed every model was a wildly different design, but once I got older, I just assumed they were the same clean/dirty circuit with different tiers of speakers and options (effects loops, contour control, additional EQ controls, chorus, stereo, etc.).  I believe the Deluxe and Princeton 112s are basically the same under the hood, but can't confirm.  Would anybody who can read schematics better than I can care to enlighten us on how the Standard Series works in a circuitry sense?

It's always a drag to have to find bits and pieces of info in a million places to patch together, so if you have anything to share, please, weigh in. Not just for me, but for future sleuths.  I've found forum posts from more than a decade ago that informed me about this or that topic. So, it'd be nice to have some of this collected, 'cuz trust me, it's not easy to find out there. Bonus points if anyone has scans of Fender catalogs from '92-'99 that feature these, especially the 1995 "Plus" upgrades.

Unless it's just "Meh, I played one, they suck." Then, please, don't bother.  'Cause while I was digging, those people still come off like a-holes years later, and I know you're all better than that. ;)

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Re: "Black Knob" Fender Era Info? (Deluxe 112 Plus Content)

Post by sholkham » Wed Jul 21, 2021 9:32 am

I had a Princeton 112 for a while, from your description it sounds like it had a very similar sound. I never got on with the drive channel which I why I ended up selling it, which I regret a bit now. Loud amps though, even at 35w.
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Re: "Black Knob" Fender Era Info? (Deluxe 112 Plus Content)

Post by MrShake » Fri Jul 30, 2021 4:52 am

Been having fun with this trashy thing. Loud and with more crispy 90s bite than any of my other amps. Still great with a Rat.

Took a while to figure out the right footswitch option, even though I knew it was one of the 2 button models.

The footswitch part number that works for this Deluxe 112 Plus is part number 28122 (or 0028122000 as it appears on the switchbox). Buttons labelled "Channel Select/Reverb". I'm assuming with the same p/n that the older boxy form factor and the more modern rounded box would be the same, but not certain. I snagged a boxy period-correct one. The similar looking one for "Channel/Effect" with p/n 71359/0071359000 didn't work in the D112+.

My gut says 28122 would likely work for the Princetons and maybe also the Champions and Stage amps from this line. Just leaving info here for future archaeologists. The way the price on these keeps going up, somebody will probably need the info at some point!

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Re: "Black Knob" Fender Era Info? (Deluxe 112 Plus Content)

Post by DrQuasar » Fri Jul 30, 2021 1:53 pm

I had/still have an Ultimate Chorus but never did trade it in for a Hot Rod, though I was always tempted! I traded my Deluxe 112 for it because I wanted something louder and he wanted something quieter.

On mine if you try to turn it past 4.5 or so it sounds like splatty garbage. If you try to turn it less than that, same thing, but right in that sweet spot it sounded great but was super loud. So it's either super loud or use something else. I only ever used the clean channel and never turned the reverb past 3 or so. Never used the chorus either really (too much perceived volume drop) but it was okay.

When I was in college playing shows at least twice some guy in another band that night would come tell me my "Twin" sounded huge. I always agreed but it was just the Ultimate Chorus! And an NYC Big Muff or MT-2 or both. The Eq on the MT-2 is totally underrated imho.

To be fair, the places were usually pretty dark so not always easy to tell, though you'd think the lights in the wrong place would be a dead giveaway. I think part of the confusion might have been because it was on casters so they see you wheeling it in and assume it's because it's heavy and not because I'm lazy.

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