My Musicmaster Bass Amp

This Musicmaster bass amp came to me as part of a trade for some amp repair and restoration I did for a friend. It was 100% original including the cheap, leaking filter caps. I replaced the speaker, the filter caps and other electrolytics, added a fuse and fuse holder, removed the little blue “death cap”, and rewired the power cord.

It’s a pretty odd amp but when you consider who it was marketed at – the beginner bass player – it’s even odder. The stock speaker and power transformer are equipped to do nothing but complain when you plug a bass in and turn it up. It’s fart city. My guess is that this amp was the source of great disappointment and frustration for a lot of fledgling bass players trying to sit in with other fledgling rockers. On the other hand, outside of the context of a bass amp this thing is pretty awesome. It puts out 12 or so watts using – depending on version – either 2 6AQ5 or 2 6V6 power tubes with one 12ax7 for the preamp. It also utilizes a transformer for a phase inverter. The whole thing resides in a Champ chassis and it is super easy to “grab it and go”.

I use this for nearly all of my non-full-bore rock stuff. I have a 1964 Fender Princeton that I LOVE but in all honestly this Musicmaster gets more use. This could be in part because it has a tad more headroom because of its solid state rectifier. I’ve also found that with the speaker swap (I’m using a RI Jensen C12N) it can be a very nice, musical small bass amp after all. I’ve used it for bass live with small combos and for recording with great success.