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The guitarist in the band I play bass in has a Fender '68 Custom Deluxe Reverb, like this:



Pretty much brand new, he bought it last year.

I have a 1970 Fender Twin Reverb. It's properly beat and needs some TLC but still sounds awesome and has crazy mojo. But it's heavy as fuuuuck.

The other day he was talking that he was thinking of trading in his amp for a Twin. I know what he'd get in trade at the shop, and I know what I'd get for mine, so I threw the idea out there of just swapping amps. He played my Twin last practice and is pretty sold on it now. Still time for me to think on it, and I'm going to try to borrow his amp for a week and vice versa to see how it works. The Twin does need work...it has volume but after it's been on a while it's prone to noises. He knows what it does and that it needs service but isn't deterred, after all, the money to have it gone through will be less than cash on top of his trade if he were to get one from a shop.

I've been wanting a smaller, lighter amp for a while, but was sort of thinking of keeping the twin and trading my Epiphone for something smaller, buuut, what I would have probably ended up with wouldn't be as nice as I figured my "tube Fender money" had already been spent. Then again I just looked it up and these new things are Made in Mexico...are Mexican Fender amps as meh as their guitars?

Nothing really more to add at this point, I just might do this and figured I'd see what shortscale thinks before I do.

I've heard good things about those new deluxe reverbs, and am NOT a fan of twins because of their weight and ear drum shattering volume levels. IMO I would trade, it isn't point to point wired, it isn't vintage, but it should be reliable, portable, and produce reasonable volume levels.

I play through a '72 TR, very much like your '70, but with a Master. They sound great, but, man are they hard to move. I've considered a smaller amp too, but, I don't want to lose the loud cleans and reverb. (I'm likely to get an AC30 at some point for crunch... unfortunately no lighter)

These '68 Customs sound pretty solid. It's not a bad trade IF you think you'll get loud cleans from it... if you even care. The Deluxe Reverb is a good sounding amp, and you kind of get two amps in one with them, the Deluxe AND a Bassman depending on what sound you want. I don't think either circuit will give you your Twin cleans.

It's a hard call, but I decided that I wasn't going to sell my Twin in order to finance another amp... I know I'd regret it. But, maybe you won't.

I would trade.

The Twin is only necessary if you need tons of headroom and are gigging in fairly large rooms. Otherwise, I think the deluxe reverb will do the job quite well. I haven't played the 68 Deluxe RI, but have read many good things online. I have played the 65 Deluxe RI several times and it's a wonderful amp.

Bottom line: the Deluxe has a good sound, it's MUCH lighter, and you can resell it for the same as the Twin. If you ever find yourself needing more headroom/volume (which you prolly won't), you can easily stick a mic in front of it.


Oh, and as mentioned, a RI amp will almost definitely be more reliable.

What Singlepickup said ^^^^^

I sold a '75 Twin and replaced it with a '73 Deluxe Reverb about 8 years ago. I think all the benefits of the swap have been mentioned, plus the Deluxe sounds better as it doesn't have that nasty treble at high volume. Round our way, Deluxes are worth considerably more too. I can't vouch for the '68 RI though, never tried one. The '65 is good.

wow just seen you can buy a drri head

Well, after a few practices with him using the twin we finally traded off for a couple weeks to see how it goes, we also have a show Saturday that he's using the Twin on, and I have a practice the next day with my other band that I can try out the DRRI on in a band setting.

The advice in this thread seems to be consistent with my own feelings. I LOVE the sound of this amp, and it sounds great with both my Filtertron'd Ovation and my Rickenbacker. I also love the size and weight, and both "Custom" and "Vintage" channels appeal to me for different reasons. I will probably not get loud cleans from it, not sure I care, I'll have to see how practice goes with it-it naturally has the right amount of crunch that I usually try to get with overdrive pedals through the Twin.

My Twin does have cool history. It's a good year (IMHO), and was a rental amp from a guitar shop that closed some years back (still has their stencils on the sides back and bottom.) I've had it for the past 10 years or so, and it has served me well in all my projects. I probably will miss it; around here Twins and DRRI's usually fetch about the same prices on the used market, but there's usually more Twins out there to choose from, while it's not every day someone's looking to do a straight swap for a DRRI. He does a lot of finger style clean stuff he wants the headroom for and also uses fuzz pedals which the twin takes beautifully, so it's a win/win, other than his back.

Also he wants to add a Gretsch Aligator resonator to his end of the deal to even out the trade if we go through with it; not sure if I should just go with it or turn it down, or maybe just add a little cash to my end as well-to me it's a pretty fair and straight trade.

You could probably sell the twin and buy 2 secondhand DRRIs so the guitar or extra cash would be an OK trade. (and your back will be very happy too)

That might be a bit of a stretch, but I think you're right. Thinking about it, Twins like mine usually sell around $850ish on the used market around here, whereas DRRI's in the shape his is in are around $750. The new prices are almost $400 apart. So a cheap guitar to even it out might be about right.

This tread is giving me drri gas right now. Need to tell myself that really don't need it

same lol

I really wish Fender would just reissue the pro reverb already. 10lbs heavier than the dr, 20lbs lighter than the twin. 2x12 Twin cleans at 40watts.

I do feel I'll miss the twin but I'm pretty dead set against ever lugging that beast up or down my stairs to a gig ever again. Maybe there's something else out there that will do the clean thing only lighter. I'm still digging this amp but a practice situation will be the real test.

Here's mine. Lovely amp. Stock ceramic speaker too.