Fender Dual Professional?

[dwmichaels]

Just saw a clip of John Mayer playing with one and he loved it. I'm not a big amp info guy so I thought I'd ask the guys with access to the most amps if anyone is familiar with it and what it offers that might be desired? We have the Fender twins, super, bassman, tweed, deluxe... what does this amp offer that's different?

Considering the price point on some of these, does this amp offer something that would make it worth adding to the Axe?

I did read the wiki pages, but curious what some of you have to say.

 

[Adinfinitum]

If I recall, Steve Howe played through a Dual Professional. I think it is the same as a Silver Face NMV Twin Reverb in a head version. sH used 15 in speaker cabinets during the early 1970's then switched to regular Silverface Twin in the late 70'd.

 

[Tex Axe]

I saw a very early one and got to play it for about an hour once in Austin it was a tweed in near mint condition and it had a Chrome divider down the front top to bottom and the grill cloth was bright red. a very sweet sounding amp.. I know we also did a repair on some when I was working building amps in Austin 25 years ago... The owner duplicated the amp and called it a 'do awl'.

The one I played at Rays heart of Texas looked like it had been in a vault since when it was made....
It was a 1946..
I think the price was 5000 then and I remember reeling from that price saying why
first answer LOOK AT IT when is the last time you saw an amp from 1946 in that condition..?
second answer listen too it Steve Hennig played it and hes Rays son and quite a picker...
I did not believe it was from 1946 I was WRONG...
I said I only said that because it looks like the day it was made...

Here you go... This one is original



They are not real loud but rather sweet sounding not unlike a tweed twin or early bassman
low wattage amp..

I can say this between that amp and Urban's tweed twin I would choose the tweed twin and
thats after playing both we also had tweed twins come through... at the time we were the first ones doing tweed knock offs before THD came out..

I helped cover the amps do the grill cloth build the ilet boards and I did final testing on them and drove them too the airport to ship them to Japan... The Japanese went wild for the tweed knockoffs If they were not perfect cosmetically they were not shipped... It was like working for Fender without permission...



Of all the tweed amps ive played in person and watched be repaired Id say the tweed twins were the cats meow..
Urbans amp is a sweet kitty.. You wont miss the dual professional once you play that amp all night long..

I cant imagine how much the 46 at Rays would sell for now.. Ray Henning was the oldest Fender dealer in Texas
Thats why I lived there as my 2nd home besides where else could you see SRV or EJ come in weekly ?


The grill cloth was this color and I thought it had been replaced they said no
we went back and forth and I looked in the back and I lost..
Not the first time ive been wrong about something and wont be the last it looked so new though..
These small amps above are from about 1947 they were called woodies because you know you could put this in your woody wagon on the way too the beach..
Sometimes I think I was hired at that amp place to get me out of Rays seriously..
Mary jo used to look at me like Mehgyn Kelly leers at Trump...
She was Rays wife and I was broke thats why...

If you did get one to model you would want to try these speakers in it Jensen PM10-C..
This was a 2 10 amp... pre Bassman 4 10 Think Scotty Moore Elvis or may you never hear surf music AGAIN.. Surf music amp....

Keep in mind Leo loved Hawaiian Lap steel he and his wife loved to travel there and
Freddie Tavares was Hawaiian Freddie designed the stratocaster body outline and headstock..
They asked him what he had in mind while drawing it he instantly said its a Woman see her shoulders and waist and hips its a hula girl sitting on the beach..

Bill Carson was responsible for the belly cut on the strat he said the tele was hurting his rib cage so they said well here is a new shape Freddie is working on now Bill told me he took it too the sander and sanded off the front where your elbow goes and he said they cut the first bodies on the bandsaw I said how and handed him my 1959 dakota red strat and he turned it upside down on the table and showed me in the Dallas guitar show and I screamed out loud AH Ha he laughed cause he saw the lightbulb go off in my head He said they had to be careful and not cut their thumbs off..

I went straight home and cut my first stratocaster by hand the same way Bill showed me how at the Dallas Guitar show..

After I built tweed fenders I built 50s strats and tele knockoffs by hand just like they did at fender.
Im an old sole born too late..

Ya had to bring up Fender dual professionals huh I just told M@ id try to lurk more and shut up
M@ I tried.... I really really tried..

I cant help it Well He asked........

 

[mr_fender]

I believe he's is actually talking about the custom shop Dual Professional from the mid 90's. 100 watt modern design with '63 spring reverb circuit and post gain tone stack like a Vibro-King and a bias tremolo circuit. Looks kind of like a mixture of several amp designs.

 

[Tex Axe]

I see well that is where those came from then.. it brought up a memory I had about an old one.
Those were not too loud though so makes more sense he would dig the 100...
Better suited too todays sounds.. The tweed version was lo wattage so that makes more sense..
after hearing this one and the verb and tremolo going I dig it as well.. The bias tremolo is another design and fender took that from another amp entirely. Its a 40s circuit and others have stolen that because nothing sounds as good. Thankfully our leader has included this within the axe which allows one to experiment .. So looking back at video I posted they mentioned its an early 2 10 super design in Johns amp 100 watts so they upped the wattage id suggest going into the tone stack of a super and changing the front end to more tweed amp preamp wise you could choose the tubes used in that tweed build your own up choose 10 speakers then apply the bias tremolo already within the axe and drop it real low a splash of spring reverb and you should be there... unless someone has shot ir of those 10s you might just choose something close to that era within the axe if 2 10s are there id use 4 10 anyway
and make sure the tubes are 6l6 and with era specific preamp tubes..

Its a super with 100 watt transformer using bias tremolo which was stolen from another amp company shhhhh and spring reverb... The difference is in the preamp section.. and the tremolo and the verb might have something more new such as dwell ie 3 knob verb which were like the stand alone reverb units ... The schematic says 5 12ax7 preamp tubes and 6l6 tubes with celestian 30s to handle the 100 watts. So they upped the power too 100 watts used a stronger drive tube for verb slid in some 12 inch vs 10 inch speakers and those are celestian 12s.

So choose 12 ax7 tubes in a super add the bias tremolo and spring verb choose celestian 30s and that is your dual professional with 100 watts..

They might have used some fancier tone caps silver mica perhaps to sweeten things up inside you would find those in Tweed amps of that circuit ie deluxe... not sure we can choose something like mica caps yet within the axe that would be where id start though knowing its just 5 12 ax7s and 2 celestian 30s though..

Play with the sag perhaps that should get your dual professional with super front end at 100 watts with bias tremolo and spring reverb those things can be added.
Since you cant dust off a speaker inside the axe you might try some different speakers
say silver and blue bell to sweeten things there goof around with the mic if the speakers are hot baked then turn mic off it will lower noise as the IR had mics to begin with hot baked.

outside of being able to choose specific tone caps within the amp to say silver mica vs carbon comp thats about all one can do..

Cliff if you already included the ability to choose different tone caps within the amps and ive missed that please show me where one could do that..

Id say outside of cherry picking some different tubes in preamp and changing sone tone caps to silver mica vs comp types thats just about all one can do within the axe and thats more then plenty of a good start some great caps in your guitar could also help smooth things out..

Supertweed with 12 inch speakers bias tremolo and spring verb with dwell adjustment ..
thats what I think would suffice within the axe at present ....