The King of Tweed
The largest of Fender’s tweed-era models, the ’59 Bassman LTD is a stunning reissue of one of the most recorded amplifiers of all time! This mighty combo sports a 4 x 10-inch speaker configuration and 45 watts of power — more than enough headroom to cover your cleans in a live band environment, with signature rough tweed saturation when you start pushing the front end. Unlike most tweed amps, the ’59 Bassman LTD boasts a comprehensive tone section of a 3-band EQ and presence control to sculpt and shape your tone, and the dual bright/normal channels are essential if you’re running several guitars with disparate pickup configs. When it comes to looks, this amp’s lacquered tweed covering, striped oxblood grille clothe, and finger-joined pine cabinet might as well have rolled off a late-’50s Fullerton assembly line, beautifully capturing the rustic charm of Fender’s golden-era amplifiers. From classic blues to all-out hard-rock power, the Fender ’59 Bassman puts over a half-century of tonal legacy in your hands!
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Tweak Your tweed tone
From the tiny Champ to the legendary Deluxe, Fender’s tweed-era models are some of the most renowned amplifiers in history, but there’s one area where they struggle: tone shaping. Most tweed Fender amps come with but a volume and tone control (if you're lucky), but the mighty Bassman is an outlier among its knob-deficient siblings — a full 3-band EQ and even a presence knob make it a breeze to sculpt your sound. Beyond that, both the Bright and Normal channels offer dual inputs, allowing you to perform the most iconic amp hack in the book: jumpering them together to blend between each channel!
Cabinet construction straight out of the ‘50s
While MDF and other cheaper materials have become customary on modern guitar cabs, the ’59 Bassman’s construction harkens back to the days when a guitar cabinet was built to the same standards as a high-end furniture cabinet! From top to bottom, the ’59 Bassman LTD’s finger-joined solid pine is true to an original ’50s-era Fender amplifier, and many Sweetwater guitarists find that this design enhances natural resonance and harmonic richness. Once it’s all glued up, Fender covers this massive combo with their signature tweed covering, which is then given a coat of dark amber lacquer to protect the fabric from the elements.
A half-century of iconic tones
So, what does the ’59 Bassman LTD sound like? The truth is that if you’re at all familiar with the history of blues or rock music, you’ve heard the midrange-heavy punch of this tweed titan countless times. From Jimi Hendrix to Buddy Guy to Stevie Ray Vaughan to Bruce Springsteen, the tweed Bassman’s rich cleans and hairy breakup tones have graced classic tracks from the ‘50s all the way to today. Speaking of cleans, the ’59 Bassman is unique among Fender’s tweed amps in that it has quite a bit of clean headroom, unlike the equally legendary Deluxe and Champ that tend to get rather raunchy at even modest volumes. This makes the ’59 Bassman LTD an excellent choice for guitarists who run the gamut of clean and dirty tones, especially if you’re looking to gig or play in a band setting.
Fender ’59 Bassman LTD 4 x 10-inch 45-watt Tube Combo Amp Features:
- A faithful reissue of Fender’s bass-turned-guitar amplifier classic
- 45-watts pushed through four 10-inch Jensen P10R speakers for legendary mid-heavy tweed tube tones
- Bright/Normal channels, 3-band EQ, and presence control offer an impressive level of tone-shaping power for a ‘50s-style amplifier
- Finger-joined solid pine cabinet for a light weight and enhanced harmonic resonance
- Classic lacquer-coated tweed covering for a look straight out of the ‘50s
- Proudly made in the USA — just like the originals!
