Blackfacing a Fender Concert

[ANVkevin]

Has anyone gone about blackfacing a Fender Concert head? I have one and this whole blackfacing concept has got me curious. How much goes into the conversion (parts and work wise)?

[dragonbat13]

I blackfaced my twin reverb. I used dan torress kit at torresengineering.com
I like the conversion alot although some people don't like his work. The kit cost 29 dollars I think. Somewhere close to that. One thing that is not included in the instructions in the kit are are converting to adjustable bias. But that can be found eaisly on the net.

I am a beginner at all of this but I did the blackface kit, adjustable bias mod,
capacitor upgrade kit from torres and also replaced all of my filter caps. It wasn't very hard.

One thing for sure, make sure and follow the instructions with the blackface kit to a tee. If the instructions say to try the amp out before going to the next step do it. You will be thankful if you run into a problem.

The main thing I noticed about the conversion was the tremendous increase in sustain and harmonics.

[mlp-mx6]

We need to be sure what amp you're referring to as a Concert Head. Blackfacing generally refers to the late 60's or 70's Fender amps and I do not think that the Concert was available as a head back then. If this is an 80's channel switching Concert (or later) then this is a COMPLETELY different animal than the amps usually used for blackfacing. Please clarify what you have.

[ANVkevin]

It's an early 80's channel switching head. I'm totally new to all of this so anything helps. I guess if anything I'd like to get a little bit more out of it.

[dragonbat13]

yea my bad. I would think it would be difficult to work on that amp. I bought a 76 silverface champ for 150 dollars on ebay. Something like that would be a good starting point if you wanted to get into this sort of thing. you will probably like the amp as much as your concert.

[ANVkevin]

Thats a great idea. I'll keep my out for something of the sort.

Surprisingly the concert has the coolest tone characteristics. Hard to explain, but I think with a little tweaking it will be an amazing sounding amp.

[jaysg]

Has anyone gone about blackfacing a Fender Concert head? I have one and this whole blackfacing concept has got me curious. How much goes into the conversion (parts and work wise)?

Look for my schematics in the Dumble Files area. Mostly parts come out. Don't forget to change the bias balance to bias level.

[mlp-mx6]

I have an 80's vintage Concert that I have modded several times. In general, I like the tone now. The OD was reworked to be similar to a 70's Dumble.

It is an ABSOLUTE MESS in these amps - wires going EVERYWHERE! Somehow they're still pretty quiet. I made up my mod as I went, and I added some terminal strips near the tube sockets to complete the mod. Overall I'm happy with it. At one point I had modded the dirty channel to be like a hot-rodded Marshall, but that tone wore on me pretty quickly. As I have built a dedicated ODS-style amp, and am building a second, I haven't played the Concert as much.

Good luck with your modding.