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- Hi, Shane from Fender here to talk
about the new '62 Princeton Chris Stapleton Edition.
This is a very faithful recreation
of an early 60s Fender hand-wired tube amp.
The cabinetry and everything is spot on,
but there's some special touches that we added
at the request of Chris himself.
Chris Stapleton really found his own unique signature voice
through playing a Brown Princeton.
It's a wonderful thing when an artist
finds that for themselves and sticks
with it as their sonic signature.
If you wanna try getting that sound, here's where to start.
We're gonna set the volume sixish.
Tone up around seven,
speed of the tremolo just slightly past one.
Intensity up around three or four.
You may need to set it a little differently
depending on the individual amp because there can be
variances in components, but this'll getcha in the ballpark.
This setting puts the amp right over the threshold
of where it's from clean to distorted.
This is so, if you hit really hard,
you get a little bit of natural overdrive
and if you play lightly, you have a clean sound.
Chris Stapleton himself usually uses a Jazzmaster
for his tone, sometimes a Telecaster,
sometimes other guitars, but we're gonna play
the Tele today and let's see how it sounds.
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So you can hear when you dig in,
you get that natural compression and just a little bit
of hair on the note, a little bit of overdrive.
That's where a lot of players really like to live.
This amp includes the old school
output Tube-Biased Tremolo circuit which a lot of people
really love 'cause it adds a thick, pulsating
kind of vibration to your playing.
And it's a lot of fun, so let's do
a couple of different settings.
I'm gonna step on the foot switch that comes with the amp.
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But you can also set it faster
for a variety of different effects.
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You also have an intensity knob that you can
make a pretty intense tremolo if you want.
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Because this circuit modulates the power tubes,
you can get an interesting effect when you turn
the amp up higher and the power amp's distorting,
and the tremolo kind of ducks out of the way, but then,
as your chord is sustaining, then the tremolo blooms.
It's really fun, so let's try that.
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People may be surprised to hear that Chris Stapleton
leaves his tremolo on pretty much all of the time.
I think this is because when the band's really rockin'
and they're playin' hard, you don't notice
that the tremolo's on, but then in the gentler moments
then there is that little pulsation on there.
So that's an interesting part of his signature sound.
Another component to the Stapleton guitar tone
is the use of a reverb pedal in front of the amp.
Now if you were to set this amp really over driven
and put a reverb pedal in front of it,
you might not like that, but when it's set
on that sweet spot at that threshold of overdrive
and then you put the pedal in front of it,
it's a really nice sound.
Now in Chris's case, he's got a reverb pedal
set to a room reverb sound.
I happen to have a Marine Layer pedal
here today that I can set it to room.
So with this kind of setup with the reverb
in front of the slightly distorted amp,
you can play softer and you don't hear the reverb as much
and then when you dig in, you get
kind of an explosive effect.
So this is what that sounds like.
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Now regardless of what effects you use with this amp,
the touch sensitive dynamic response that this amp is
capable of can suit many different styles of play.
You can do rock, jazz, blues, country,
kind of whatever you wanna do.
I have the amp set now about two thirds of the way up.
I turned my reverb on just a little bit
and here's what a blues sound might be.
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This amp's tone control has a lot of extra treble response
at the very end of the rotation.
So I'm gonna turn the treble control all the way up,
turn my guitar down slightly and you're gonna get
a great chicken pickin sound.
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Or just rock out!
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The fullness of the 12 inch speaker makes
this little combo useful for jazz tones as well.
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Telecaster in the middle position,
amp set down around four on the volume,
so it's nice and clean and crisp.
You can strum your cowboy chords
or your little strummy stuff and it all sounds great.
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Tasteful signature appointments around back
include an engraved brass badge
with Chris's signature on there.
And when you're lookin' at the speaker,
that's the brand new Fender special design speaker
by Eminence, we partnered with Eminence and with Chris
to do a brand new speaker for him.
Original 1960's Princeton amps came with lightly powered
10 inch speakers, so the addition
of a fuller powered 12 in there means that the amp has
more fullness, more bass, and it's just able
to handle the power of the amplifier better.
An additional signature appointment is the Filson cover.
The main thing musicians are gonna wanna know
about this thing is that it's really rugged
and that your amp is gonna withstand
the rigors of going on the road.
Another interesting touch is that this amp has
a polarity switch on the back
that doesn't actually do anything.
Original Fender amplifiers came with a two prong power cord
so if you shocked yourself on a microphone,
you would want to flip that switch
and it does the same as flipping over the plug.
We have a modern three prong power cord on this,
but Chris just requested that switch.
So whether you like this amp because it's hand-wired
in Corona, California or you like it because you're a fan
of Chris Stapleton, either way you're gonna love it.
So that's the '62 Princeton Chris Stapleton Edition.
If you wanna get more information, go to Fender.com
and you can find other great videos, thanks!
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