Friday Night's Entertainment; A Fender Cyber Champ

[schundog]

I'm the odd duck that loves both tube amps AND the modelling gear. While there is nothing that beats a tube amp AT VOLUME, sometimes I wanna rock later at night, and that's hard to do with a family trying to sleep. I have found that digital modellers excel at this application, and can be had for relatively little coin.

 

Years ago, I had the venerable (and heavy) Fender Cyber-Twin. For it's time, it was amazing, and nothing still has beat the coolness of it's knobs that moved when you changed a setting. Still, it's like having a 286 PC when then the latest and greatest PCs and Macs are out. This is the ongoing problem, if you will, with any of these modellers; there is ALWAYS something newer and better around the corner, while a Twin Reverb, for example, will still be a Twin Reverb 20 years from now. The modeller will be considered junk in 5 years.

 

Today, I did my regular walk through the Peoria GC, and saw two used items that caught my interest; a Traynor YCV-40, a really nice 40 watt tube amp from Canada that I have owned an example of before, and a Fender Cyber-Champ. I tried to make a buyer's deal for both, but they had had them for less than a week, making them think they could get full price on the items. I almost walked out on both, but decided to pick up the Cyber-Champ for $120 out the door.

 

It's a 65 watt Digital amp with a 12 inch Celestion Speaker. It has 7 presets in three separate banks. Unfortunately, only one bank is re-writable. I played with it all night, and got some good tones out of it, particularly some loud clean tones. It also offers several different reverbs, modulations, and effects. Still, it is clear that technology has made modelling amps sound better and better. While the Cyber-Champ is BUILT better than the Mustang series, the Mustang series blows it away in options and sound. It really isn't even close. Soo, I guess I learned my lesson. Of course, I can take it back to GC for a full refund within 30 days, but I probably won't, as I am not the use it and return it type of guy. I got at LEAST $20 worth of entertainment playing with it tonight; So say I sell it at a garage sale or at the pawn shop in the next couple years for $75 or so?! I'm sure I'll use it some between now and then, and not get burned too badly on it. Now, if I'd only not been a cheap-ass and bought that Traynor.... Here are some pics of the probably close to 10 year old Cyber-Champ....

 

 

 

 

[schundog]

Soo, I guess if you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all.....

 

OK, you tube snobs, haha, I know it's hard to tell good from bad tone from an iphone video, but here's a fun little clip of my buddy playing my ES-335 into the Cyber-Champ. He says he wants to buy the amp, but we'll see....This starts out being Prince and ends up being Journey.

 

[schundog]

Here's another one.

 

[schundog]

OK, last one of my fabulous new amp, I promise. This one is clean.

 

[smurph1]

I'm the odd duck that loves both tube amps AND the modelling gear. While there is nothing that beats a tube amp AT VOLUME, sometimes I wanna rock later at night, and that's hard to do with a family trying to sleep. I have found that digital modellers excel at this application, and can be had for relatively little coin.

 

Years ago, I had the venerable (and heavy) Fender Cyber-Twin. For it's time, it was amazing, and nothing still has beat the coolness of it's knobs that moved when you changed a setting. Still, it's like having a 286 PC when then the latest and greatest PCs and Macs are out. This is the ongoing problem, if you will, with any of these modellers; there is ALWAYS something newer and better around the corner, while a Twin Reverb, for example, will still be a Twin Reverb 20 years from now. The modeller will be considered junk in 5 years.

 

Today, I did my regular walk through the Peoria GC, and saw two used items that caught my interest; a Traynor YCV-40, a really nice 40 watt tube amp from Canada that I have owned an example of before, and a Fender Cyber-Champ. I tried to make a buyer's deal for both, but they had had them for less than a week, making them think they could get full price on the items. I almost walked out on both, but decided to pick up the Cyber-Champ for $120 out the door.

 

It's a 65 watt Digital amp with a 12 inch Celestion Speaker. It has 7 presets in three separate banks. Unfortunately, only one bank is re-writable. I played with it all night, and got some good tones out of it, particularly some loud clean tones. It also offers several different reverbs, modulations, and effects. Still, it is clear that technology has made modelling amps sound better and better. While the Cyber-Champ is BUILT better than the Mustang series, the Mustang series blows it away in options and sound. It really isn't even close. Soo, I guess I learned my lesson. Of course, I can take it back to GC for a full refund within 30 days, but I probably won't, as I am not the use it and return it type of guy. I got at LEAST $20 worth of entertainment playing with it tonight; So say I sell it at a garage sale or at the pawn shop in the next couple years for $75 or so?! I'm sure I'll use it some between now and then, and not get burned too badly on it. Now, if I'd only not been a cheap-ass and bought that Traynor.... Here are some pics of the probably close to 10 year old Cyber-Champ....

 

 

 

 

Dude I'm with ya..One of the best amps I ever owned was a Line 6 Flextone II..If I hadn't spilled a beer in it I'd still have it!!

[TalismanRich]

I had forgotten about the Peavey Transformer 112 that I have in the basement. It worked ok as a guitar amp, but when we had a guy with a keyboard, he used it for the Leslie rotating speaker setting. He would pop up a Hammond sound on the keyboard, and could set the high and low speed on the footswitch. It worked pretty well.

 

I know that I used it to try out a bunch of different amp "types". The high gain settings weren't my cup of tea. I preferred the Classic settings, the tweed setting and the British and American clean setting best.