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Hi there AM folks, especially those who jammed in the early 80’s!! 👋😁😎
I know very little about amps and didn’t even have one until now, about 7 years into my playing!
The Spark 40 practice amp I had for a while got on my nerves so I got rid of it. I mentioned it to one of my jam buddies the other day and he said, “hey I have this old tube amp I don’t use, why don’t you have it” and he presented this purple Music Man 110 RD 50 to me!Have you ever seen one like this??? My online search results only show black or cream colored boxes (er, cabs?) and all of them have black round Fender-style numbered knobs and 2 plaques or badges on the front. Here, the plaques were obviously taken off and I wonder if the knobs might have been replaced too? 🤔 I also have a black cover for this with a purple accent color so it sure seems like a purple ones must have been made at one point?
This is what I found out so far:
– Music Man Company was founded by Leo Fender (+2) in 1974 and then sold to Ernie Ball in 1984
– These 110 RD 50 Combo practice amps were made in 1982-1984
– Combo means they are vacuum tube hybrid amps with a built-in reverb and switchable two stage preamp (no idea what that means)
– A few famous users were Eric Clapton, Chet Atkins, Mark Knopfler
– Unlike in Fender amps, there is no focus on the mid tones, only treble and bass adjustments, which gives them a characteristic warm sound.To my ears it sounds really nice, especially the clean tone. My buddy told me he only used the clean tone on that. It’s not a sterile clean, it has some color to it, switchable between Normal and Bright – but Gain and Reverb are only available in the Limiter (distorted) mode, from what I understand.
I also found a Music Man Owner’s Manual for it online 🙂
I’d love to see if anyone has any experience with such amp and any tips or tricks are welcome. I read that some people replaced the stock speaker for a better sound? Anyone uses pedals with it?
🎸JoLa
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Hey Jola, What a great replacement for the Spark! There are lot’s of loyal Music Man/ G&L fans out there (right Keith?) Leo’s involvement the primary reason. The purple may have been a limited edition run. It looks like someone already upgraded the speaker to a 12″ Patriot Ragin Cagin. If you ever want more mids there are booster pedals available to cut thru a mix and add some punch.
Congrats and enjoy your new toy. can’t wait to hear it,
MikeMike
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Very cool, Jola. Can’t wait to hear it.
There is no mid eq knob on my Fender Vibrolux. I know the same is true for Deluxes and Princetons. I’m sure you are getting mid frequencies between the treble and bass knobs. Apparently, Leo was aiming for a clean sound like a Deluxe.
Sounds like it has a solid state pre-amp but also a 12AX7 tube on the gain side, which I guess is the two stage pre-amp in combination with the solid state. It apparently also has built in spring reverb on the gain side. The output 6L6 tubes are typical of bigger Fender amps so you should get lots of clean tone headroom.
You should be able to get a clean tone on the gain side by turning up the volume and dialing down the gain. You can dial up the gain while dialing down the volume and get an edge of break up sound or just keep it clean and put your favourite distortion pedal in front. Have fun.
P.S That speaker to purchase new is $153.70 Canadian all by itself.
John-
Fantastic advice on the tone, John!
I will have to experiment with the limiter (gain) side. So far, I’m sticking with the not-so-clean “clean” tone 🙂 The spring reverb is interesting, too, I can sometimes hear it inside the amp.Btw, how do I get rid of the static noise? My friend showed me the 3-way Ground switch at the back, I tried it but it does not change anything. The static noise only disappears when I turn the Reverb all the way down. Is that normal?
🎸JoLa
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Music Man has an interesting and twisted history. According to the always correct input of Wikipedia, Music Man had been founded by Forrest White and Tom Walker; Walker had worked for Leo during the early days of Fender as a salesman. Forrest White was Leo’s plant manager and later became VP of Fender Electrical Manufacturing Co. Leo was brought in as a “silent partner” to provide finances
Leo Fender worked under the company name of CLF Research and White & Walker was under Music Man; Leo built guitars & basses, White & Walker built amps and sold accessories. The rest is history, a history of tension that led to internal fighting that split the company. Leo left in 1980 to start G&L Guitars… which he said was the best guitars that he had ever made. His words, not mine.
* Jola, to my knowledge, Music Man never made a purple amp – could it have been a special limited edition as Mike mentioned? Possible but with the short and troubled history of Music Man, I would doubt that they would have gone to that extreme. Someone likely replaced the tolex
* Not to nit-pick but a combo amp is simply that the amp & speaker are in one cab instead of separates, the amp that you described is basically a hybrid. Music Man was one of the first and likely the first to incorporate a solid state preamp and tube power amp. The use of the 6CA4 tube in the power amp section allowed for extremely loud and clean output. Mark Knopfler used a HD130 on the first 2 Dire Straits albums – 130 watts of power into 1-12″ speaker. The amp was run wide open and was staged in a separate room due to how loud it was.
Hartley Peavey followed this design of a solid state pre and used 6L6 in the output and produced the Classic and VTX Peavey amps of the mid 70s. Those Peavey amps have some of the best clean tones available, its hard to deal with the size and weight of those amps. Great if you want a studio amp that won’t be moved* Music Man amps came standard with speakers marked Music Man made be Eminence. Electro-Voice was an optional feature that an amp could be ordered with but those were the only 2 speakers that was used by Music Man
* The only amp that Leo worked on the design was the Sixty Five and the remainder of the Music Man amps were the designs of Forrest White & Tom Walker
* To my knowledge, Leo designed only guitars for Music Man that had humbuckers and he developed active electronic tone controls – huge departure from the single coils that he is best known for.
Guitar players owe such a debt of gratitude to the amazing engineer who couldn’t play guitar for all that he gave to us
Enjoy your amp Jola – and you’ll probably need to get some musician’s ear plugs. Music Man amps are loud……..
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Wow, that’s great information, Keith! Thanks for setting the record straight on the details.
Now I understand what Combo amp means, it makes sense!And the loudness, oh gosh! I keep the volume knob in a low position but I made a few mistakes with cables already which might have cost me some hearing loss … 😖🥴
🎸JoLa
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JoLa-nice score! Very curious to hear what it sounds like. The purple is very cool-sheik. Very snazzy. I have a Fender Deluxe Reverb Reissue without a midrange knob. Warmest and best amp I have ever heard. I am curious to hear what yours sounds like clean and with a little overdrive. Congrats and have fun!
JH
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Wow, that’s great information, Keith! Thanks for setting the record straight on the details.
Now I understand what Combo amp means, it makes sense!And the loudness, oh gosh! I keep the volume knob in a low position but I made a few mistakes with cables already which might have cost me some hearing loss …
Jola
With an amp like that, I’d recommend contacting Sweetwater about an attenuator, specifically a reactive attenuator instead of a resistive attenuator
If you aren’t aware, attenuator is designed to take some of the energy coming from the power amp section of your amp and absorb it, allowing you to crank your amp and get that sweet tone that we all love at a volume level that you can live withThe reason that I mention the reactive is simply that “it reacts” like an actual load that an amp would see from a speaker. Speakers are rated as 8 ohm, 16 ohm, 4 ohm, etc but that is a nominal load and not a constant load. If you were to hook a meter to the leads of a speaker and move inner cone in & out, the resistance shown on the meter would be constantly changing
An attenuator like the Bugera PS-1, Marshall Power Brake, etc are resistive and put a non-changing load on the amp. (Lord help me because I know that the Marshall Power Brake is highly regarded and I’ll probably catch some flak here LOL). Those non-changing loads, in all reality, aren’t healthy for an amp. People will say that they’ve never had an issue using a resistive attenuator and I won’t argue that point. It’s their amp to use as they see fit
However, a reactive attenuator will give you a more realistic tone.The Two Notes Torpedo Captor Reactive LoadBox, DI and Attenuator is the most reasonably priced at $270 and likely your Sweetwater sales engineer will give a bit of a price break on that
The Two Notes Torpedo will not only give you an attenuator but it is also a DI box allowing an easier interface for recording with your favorite DAW -
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