1964 Fender Princeton

My new life as a bedroom-and-recording-only guitarist has awarded me the opportunity to use much different gear than I would if I were still on the road. This '64 Princeton is a great example. It probably wouldn't be loud enough for most gigging situations, plus its vintage (a real pre-CBS Fender ) all original, and somewhat valuable. My gear gets quite beat up when it's out of the house, and I'm sure the old Tolex wrap on this amp wouldn't be long for this world!

Despite its diminutive size (one 10" speaker) and stature (15 watts), it is quite loud - I have never been able to turn it up past 4 or so, and even then it was just an experiment to see what it sounds like at ear-piercing volumes! That being said, one small speaker would have a hard time filling a room while competing with a drummer and a bassist.

These "white-knob" Princetons were only made for a year or two, preceded by the "brownface"models (which have an identical circuit to this one) and replaced by the later 5-knob blackfacemodel. The only EQ on this amp is a "tone" knob, while later Princetons had "treble" and "bass" knobs, for wider tonal adjustments.

High-output guitars like my Les Paul and my modded Jazzmaster push this amp into distorted rock territory quite easily, while lower-output guitars like my Esquire and Rickenbacker produce a more pleasing (IMO) dirty sound. This amp also loves pedals - my Crowther Hot Cake, a New Zealand-made dirt/fuzz pedal, pushes this amp beautifully. While it doesn't have reverb, a little slapback echo from my Electro-Harmonix Deluxe Memory Boy fills the void quite nicely.