Topic: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

What do you think of them?

I saw one for sale for $600 but I never heard of them and the youtube demos aren't all that great.

Clean tone? Overdriven?

Thanks,
AndreS

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

They were quite popular in the 70s. Most famously Clapton used to play one in them years. Listen to the Just One Night live album.
Leo Fender started the company in the early 70s, after Fender had been sold to CBS (was booted by his own Fender company?). The amps were launched as the next best Fender amps. I never played one myself but heard a couple. They have a tube power amp but transistor preamp, if I remember correctly. So great cleans but you'd need pedals to get good OD.

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

Clapton would take the bias and crank the thing wide open on his.  I think it might be debateable about the over drive sound because he used them through out the 70's and if you listen to the Crossroads 2 Box set most of the over drive you hear on that is the Music Man and a Black Fender Stratocaster.  Noise issues but I think the distortion sound is usuable.  When Clapton did Just one night he was going through a country phase, he had Albert Lee playing guitar with him for starters.  Clean was the king back then in country.  $600 bucks is about the going rate for them right now and if I recall correctly Joe Bonamassa just bought a Music Man amp not so long ago and posted about it on here you might try looking that up.

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

I owned a 74 script logo 2275 65 Watt 1x12.  These still had the tube phase inverter which in my opinion sounds a bit better than the solid state phase inverter.  One thing to keep in mind is that some of these amps have a solid state preamp section, so if you are a tube purist, keep moving.  These are also not set and forget kind of amps, it takes time to tweak the tone and once that is done, well it was one of the best and most versatile amps i owned.  Took pedals well for some higher overdrive.  I am not certain about he model you are referring to, but a lot of the early MM amps are supposed to run on 6CA7's and not EL34; although these can be used in the place of the other, I found that the 6CA7's had a tone that was between 6L6 and EL34 and that to me was gold.  Also take a look at the speaker sand transformers before you buy.  Although they were good quality, for some reason the transformers rust out and the speaker cones dry out.  BTW, did y'all know that the early Dumble amps used output transformers and power transformers from MM amps?

Amp: Firebird Musical Amplifiers
Guitars:62 LP SG , 02 FB VII, JB FB I, 76 Electra Omega, 64 Firebird V, 73 LPC, 61 Custom Tele, 59 and 60 Melody Maker
Effects: Mythos Chupacabra, Strymon Deco/Flint

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

Interesting. First off thanks for the replies.

Its weird I can't remember where I read it but I saw somewhere that said that these amps weren't too popular when introduced in the 70's because they werent' fully tube or something. I had tried checking a website based on these amp but it did not seem to be working at that time.

But if its good enough for Clapton and Knopfler and Joe (if he did buy one) then I'll check 'em out.

They aren't too rare are they? (Based on the price)

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

AD3THREE wrote:

When Clapton did Just one night he was going through a country phase, he had Albert Lee playing guitar with him for starters.

Just because Albert Lee was onboard doesn't mean he went all country. Doesn't sound country to me, apart from 'Lay Down Sally' and 'Setting me up' maybe. In fact, it's one of the best live Blues Rock albums...

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

AndreS wrote:

They aren't too rare are they? (Based on the price)

I don't think they're that rare but may be high maintenance amps. As macg1 already said, check the amp thoroughly, speakers and trannies, before you buy.

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

I didn't mean he was pure country, but he had a lot more influence around him at that time then any other.  Tulsa Time is country but he blues it up, and lets not forget "All Our Past Times".  Its a wonderful Eric Clapton Album and one of my favorites.  The blues tunes still had a fire to them that some of his 80's work lacked, but what I really like is as much as I do all the stuff he did in the 70's is it has this hairy edge type feel, like they were very polished and still very raw sounding.  That might have been the Alchohol in him during those years but after he cleaned up his life I found his playing and his singing to be very polished.  Effortlessly going through songs, where in the 70's to me it felt like every note sounded like a struggle.  A lot of people don't like that time period for Clapton because he took to heart a less is more style and focused more on being a singer songwriter then his past God Status.  I'm one of the biggest Clapton fans on here I assure you and you'll never hear me bad mouth any of his playing no matter how polished it got, but right now I think since about 2004 until now is the most inspired I've ever heard EC.  NO joke!  He's on fire right now and just check the reviews people are just blown away by him right now.  As good as all this is nothing is better then when he was with Derek and the Dominos.  If you could only hear some of the bootleg concerts I've got of EC back then.  Their Filmoure album is not even a tenth of what they were really like!  These boys rocked!

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

I think these are outstanding amps. These do great Fender cleans (but warmer) and Overdrive like a Marshall as they used El34 or w6L6GC tubes.

The Big Iron HD130 heads and combos are simply outstanding amps. If you have a decent tech these are pretty easy to maintain

The Dumble clone crowd (Bludo and Fuchs in particular) favor these transformers over anything out there for the 100 watt units as they were designed for crazy high voltage applications like the Steel String Singer etc..

These have been going up in value if only a little for the pristine units.

$600.00 should get you a pretty clean unit.

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

AD3THREE wrote:

That might have been the Alchohol in him during those years but after he cleaned up his life I found his playing and his singing to be very polished.

Very true. But good for him (the cleaning up).  cool

AD3THREE wrote:

I'm one of the biggest Clapton fans on here

Ok, so I'm the second biggest then.  smile

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

Ok, so what would you do in this situation?

Where I live, there are virtually no tech's I would trust to work on my guitars or amps.

So anything to be done will have to be done by myself or sent abroad to be done( more expensive)

Also I cannot check any parts before I buy it because I would be buying it online off wildwoodguitars.com

Would you buy it?

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

I would trust them to give you their honest opinion if the amp needed work.  They are a pretty good bunch of guys.  Ask them anything and you should get honest answers from them.  If it needs work ask them if they can have it worked on before you buy and add the repairs to the cost of the amp.  I don't know that they would do that but its woth a shot.  It might be a awesome amp in great condition that doesn't need anything.  But remember "A closed mouth is never fed."

Re: 70's Music Man Amps ( One Thirty 212 HD)

AD3THREE wrote:

I would trust them to give you their honest opinion if the amp needed work.  They are a pretty good bunch of guys.  Ask them anything and you should get honest answers from them.  If it needs work ask them if they can have it worked on before you buy and add the repairs to the cost of the amp.  I don't know that they would do that but its woth a shot.  It might be a awesome amp in great condition that doesn't need anything.  But remember "A closed mouth is never fed."

AD3's right. Wildwood has a VERY good reputation and is one of the few retailers that gets custom and one off guitars from Fender.

Tell them to go plug it in while you are on the phone. They will!!! Those guys pulled out 15 EJ strats for me until I found the one that sounded right. Good shops (like WW) don't have the disdain for customers like so many teen staffed clueless shops.

Sure- if you catch 'em at the end of the day and the 40th kid is playing "Enter Sandman" on a Mary Kay strat they might be slightly less cheerful than earlier in the day.

Good techs get much of their customer's stuff via post/fedx. I am fortunate enough to live near Los Angeles so there is no shortage of top techs for both amps and guitars. That said, there are no shortage of hacks either.

Good luck.

BTW- does it have the trem/vibe feature? easily one of the coolest on board trem units since the brownface Vibrolux.