The Fender Band-Master is a favorite of Rock, Blues and Country musicians.
The Fender Band-Master is a tube-based guitar amplifier originally produced from 1953 to 1974. Due to the length of production, Fender released many variations on the Band-Master, most of which are popular among vintage collectors. Fender reintroduced the Band-Master in 2009.
Tweed Bandmaster
The tweed Bandmasters were 26-Watt combo amps with three 10-inch speakers. Fender's tweed amps are named from the diagonal-pattern tweed material used to cover various amps produced between 1948 and 1964. The tweed version of the Bandmaster came in wide panel and narrow panel varieties, and was popular among country musicians. It had a top-facing chrome control panel with black chicken head knobs and white labels.
Brown Band-Master
Fender produced the 30-watt, brown Band-Master only in 1960. It was covered in rough brown Tolex and oxblood tweed, and featured a brown control panel with white labels and notched brown knobs. The brown Band-Master had a 3x10 cabinet and built-in tremolo, and was the last Band-Master model released before Fender switched to a piggy-back design.
Blond Band-Master
Fender produced the blond Band-Master from 1961 to 1963. This flavor of Band-Master was a 40-watt amp with a 2x12 cabinet and a piggy-back head. The head had a brown control panel with white labels and cream-colored barrel knobs. Its namesake Tolex covering material was rough blond, and the speaker cones were covered with an oxblood or beige grill cloth.
Blackface Band-Master
Introduced in 1964, the blackface Band-Master was a 40-Watt amp with two 12-inch speakers with a new circuit design. Its biting, percussive tone when overdriven made it especially popular among blues musicians. The classic blackface Band-Master had a black control panel with white labels and black skirted, chrome centered knobs. It was covered with namesake black Tolex and silver grill cloth.
Silverface Band-Master
Fender produced the 50-Watt, 2x12 cabinet silverface Bandmaster from 1968 to 1975. It had a forward-facing silver control panel with blue labels and black skirted knobs. It was covered in black Tolex and had a blue sparkle grill cloth that initially came with an aluminum frame.
Band-Master Reverb
Fender produced the Band-Master Reverb from 1968 to 1980. The Reverb model looked like a silverface Band-Master with a larger head, which was necessary to accommodate a built-in reverb unit and additional associated knobs, inputs and outputs.
Rock Legacy
Pete Townshend played most of the guitar parts on The Who's classic album Who's Next using a Gretch 6120 Chet Atkins Hollowbody guitar through a 1959 Fender Band-Master. The Band-Master was also a favorite of Joe Walsh, who bought Townshend's for him as a gift, and Neil Young, who both of them sought to emulate.
Reissue
Fender unveiled a Band-Master reissue in 2009 as part of its Vintage Modified Amps series. The reissue included the Band-Master VM Head (model 2220200000) and the Band-Master VM 212 Speaker Enclosure (model 2221200000). The new Band-Master included a modernized gain voice and, like other amps in the Fender Vintage Modified reissue series, additional built-in digital effects.
Tags: fender, bandmaster, control panel, control panel with, panel with, Fender produced, white labels, Band-Master Fender, Band-Master Fender produced, control panel with white, control panel with white labels, Fender Band-Master, grill cloth
