Fender Pro Sonic
Awhile back I did a post on a Guitar I kinda regret selling, The reverend Rocco. I've had a lot of Amps over the years and the one I really regret parting with was my Fender Prosonic 2x10. I've always loved Fender amps. They seemed to sound great with any guitar.
My first experience with a Fender Amp was in the late 1980’s. I had started with the beginner’s standard amp when I started playing guitar, A Gorilla. Yep. I worked my way up to a Peavey Rage, but something was always missing. One day at the music store I frequented and took lessons at, I heard my guitar teacher playing this great amp. It was a Fender M80. Covered in a grey felt like material and red knobs, it was amazing. I asked him how it sounded so good, and he commented that fender amps always had great reverb. That was it. Of all the effects I had at the time, Reverb was the one that I couldn't put my finger on. I scraped enough dough together to buy that amp very quickly. My guitar teacher almost bought it, I beat him by a couple of hours.
I had that amp for years, through college it was super reliable. Solid state, and the distortion wasn’t that bad. I worked my way up after that, with a Fender Ultra Chorus 2x12 stereo combo, and finally to the amp I kind a regret parting with. The Fender Prosonic.
Fender had started to move into some new amp territory and they had the Vibro king, and some other tube amps that were a step beyond what they had previously offered, as well as the Blues Deluxe and Deville’s But the Prosonic was a bit different. It had 2 gain stages that could be dialed in, with the second gain stage, kind of working like a saturation knob. I liked the drive channel on low settings, it was really nice and rootsy, in a gritty way. At full throttle, it really sang, and was very rich sounding overall. Cleans, Fuggaboutit, its a Fender, no need for a description there.
Size wise it was kind of close to the Deluxe Reverb, I’m betting part of the deal was getting a new amp that could fit into a cabinet that Fender was already producing. It looked like a "Bouteek" amp, with the chicken head knobs, and it was available in a few different colors.
while it was a 2 channel amp, it shared the same EQ, which was a bummer, but I made it work with minimal tweaking.
The only downfall was the 2x10 speaker configuration the combo came with. I was using that amp with a more pop like group, and when I transitioned into a new heavy rock band, it just didn’t cut it. I think I may have actually blown out a speaker at one point and had to have it replaced. I remember looking into swapping out the speaker baffle with one that would accept a 1x12, but I kind of shrugged it off. I think it was because there wasn’t a lot of info or DIY modification info out there. Eventually I went to another amp, a Hughes and Kettner Triamp. (That amp is a whole other story). I used the Prosonic as a backup, and I tried running it into a 2x12 cabinet, which did sound much better, but I was now bringing 2 big box like items to gigs, and that was tiring. The amount of gigging I did back then was a lot, and hauling a 2x12 and a 2x10 combo up stairs and in parking garages in the winter made it a back breaker. I eventually sold it and got a short chassis Mesa/Boogie MKIII head and used that with the 2x12.
On a lark, I started to do an on line search on them Both Reverb.com, and craigslist came up very short. Apparently these amps are really hard to find in the used market, and I can see why. Ideally I’d like to find one and see if I could fit a 12” speaker in it.
Fender did come out with an amp called the supersonic a few years back, I remember looking at it and while it did sound good, the amp’s cabinet was about 25% bigger than the prosonic, which gave room for a second channel's controls.
Right now I'm in a bit of an amp quandary. I ran this idea of finding a Prosonic combo, and modding it to fit a 1x12, but a buddy of mine kind of pointed out that after the cost of the amp (which can be upwards of $700) and modding it for a 1x12 speaker baffle, and getting a 1x12 speaker, never mind fixing any issues the amp may have I could be into it for over $1k. There are a lot of great 1x12 Tube combos with a similar gain structure and profile out there, that would fit my needs, and be at the same cost point. I could turn my efforts to look for the head version, and match it with a great sounding 1x12, but if I'm going to go with a head/cab situation, I'd like to get a small 1x12 and a lunchbox size amp head.
I don't know where this amp quest will end up, but I still miss that lil beast.
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