Recording Direct From Fender Dual Showman

[Lee Watson]

Hi there,
I’ve been thinking of adding a preamp tap to my ‘66 Dual Showman to use for direct recording. Brad Sarno suggests also adding a pot to attenuate the preamp out signal when doing this. Would using the tube preamp section of a tube amp like this be the same as using any other stand alone tube preamp? Like the Revelation, v8, black box, ART tube mp1 even? Obviously there’s differences in the circuitry of these preamps, but aren’t they all essentially doing the same thing as my Showman preamp if it had an output added to it?
I’ve got a great passive DI, and I think adding a tube preamp into the chain before it would help capture the sound I’m after easier than using plugins in the DAW.
Thoughts?

[Ken Morgan]

If I understand you right, you’ll still need some sort of speaker load to prevent that fine amp from blowing up. Tube amps need to see a load like a speaker or speaker level step down device.

Preamps in general take whatever input they get and turn it into a version of the signal strong enough to properly activate whatever follows, be that a power amp of sorts or a direct line level out to go to console, recorders, whatever.

There are a jillion stand alone preamps from which to choose. Sarno products are wonderful (I’ve got one) as are offerings by Mesa, Alembic (clone of a Fender Showman pre), many others. There are also devices that pad your speaker level down to XLR or headphones.

I’d be very reluctant to add any mods to a 66 Showman, as those are seriously sought after amps.

[Dave Grafe]

There are a jillion stand alone preamps from which to choose. Sarno products are wonderful (I’ve got one) as are offerings by Mesa, Alembic (clone of a Fender Showman pre), many others. There are also devices that pad your speaker level down to XLR or headphones.

I’d be very reluctant to add any mods to a 66 Showman, as those are seriously sought after amps.

What Ken said, there's really no point in butchering a vintage tube amp when so many better options are available, and just as many ways for it to go completely sideways. Once the magic smoke escapes it's nearly impossible to put it back.

[Lee Watson]

There’ll definitely be no butchering of the amp. No worries there. There’s more than a few unobtrusive ways to add a 1/4” output somewhere on the head cabinet. From what I can tell a lot of the boutique tube preamps that I’m drawn towards are based on the Showman preamp. Why buy a reproduction when you e got the real thing? I’m in conversations with the tech that works on most of my stuff. I’ll let you all know what I find out!

[Donny Hinson]

Use a good microphone. Any other alternative gives just a so-so (generic Fender) sound because you’re eliminating the speakers and the cabinet from the equation, and those are main assets of an amplifier like the Showman.

[Scott Swartz]

Another choice is tapping off the speaker wiring with something like the Peavey EDI box. I built something similar with a Jensen transformer but the EDI is basically the same thing. No mods to the amp just patch it in. Multiple ones available on Reverb.


When I record I always grab this signal in addition the mic that I use.

[Lee Watson]

Thanks Scott. This sounds like like a great option. I’ve got plenty of old DI boxes lying around that I can probably rewire into something like that peavey box.
I’ve got great amps and mics here, and obviously love the sound of an amp recorded with a mic. However, recording direct is an essential studio skill and im trying to get the best sound that I can for that situation.

[Dale Rottacker]

I had this pristine 64 Dual Showman my Dad bought new when I was 8, in Grande Prairie Alberta. I never tried what Lee is describing, but threw a Lexicon MPX1 on it for reverb and with those D130's what a great sounding amp. Ya just needed your own roadies to move the thing.

[Lee Watson]

Woah!! What a beauty.

[Brett Lanier]

I’ve tried a lot of different stuff, and imo (for di) its hard to beat the sound of a good tube amp through an Ox box. The big advantage the Ox has over the less expensive but fantastic sounding Two Notes captor X is that you can use it with 4,8,&16 ohm amps.

A pretty good sounding, and much cheaper option for getting a speaker output di line is this passive Palmer box. We use these in a band I play in and they sound pretty good. Just keep in mind you’ll have to have a speaker connected to the “thru” jack, or a load box.

https://www.toursupply.com/product-p/pdi09.htm

[Stephen Cowell]

When presented with this kind of thing I generally copy what Fender did with their later versions... there's one amp in particular (a Rivera one?) that has a tube loop with pre-post gains... let me go look... there it is, the Red Knob:

https://schematicheaven.net/fenderamps/the_twin.pdf

Here's the section of concern... the PI is just to the right.




You probably could just yank out the finals and put up with a little more B+ for silent running. Or... just resistor-divide some voltage off the speaker output if silence is not required. You will need to ground-lift it through a DI.

[Lee Watson]

Thanks to all for these great tips! I’ll post back with the results.