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Post subject: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 7:14 pm
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Ok, it was a total whim. I bought the fender mustang floor last week, and I just wasn't totally loving it, so I decided that I might bring it back to Guitar Center. It occurred to me last night that because the next morning is Black Friday, I might be able to pick up something new and interesting in exchange. I combed through the GC Black Friday ad and was shocked to see the Greta being sold for $99.

I'm surprised for a few reasons. This amp has only been out this year, and I have never seen it in a music store. I've really wanted to mess around with it and try it out, but no one had it in stock. I came close to ordering one a few times, but I was just going to wait.

Anyway, I walked into GC about 3 minutes after they opened. I made my return, and though I saw no one actually purchase a Greta, they told me that they had 15 in stock when they opened and I was buying the last one in the store.

I've been dying to plug it in all day, but waited until I finished working, and have finally just put it through its paces.

My initial thought is this:
This amp is super fun, but mostly for novelty reasons.

I tried single coils and humbuckers through it, and playing through the little 4 inch speaker you can get some fun vintage-y sounds. You can get a fair amount of mids and highs out of the speaker, but obviously you are quite robbed of your bass end. The speaker is nice and honk-y. It's not boxy and choked like a Pignose amp, it sounds a little more like a Fender Champ but with even more treble. At full volume, it might be considered as loud as a shout. Sitting in front of it won't hurt your ears at all.

At full volume, you do get a gritty overdriven tone. But it is quite responsive to what you are playing. Even with the volume and tone knobs dimed, if you play softer you can still get a less driven tone.

The clean tones really don't have much sustain to them. I put a condenser in front of it and could get some cool singing clean tones though. Otherwise the clean tones sound ok only when you are playing something that doesn't have any need for a ringing sustain.

Plugged into my fender 1x12 cab, you can get some really cool tones. Still not very loud at all even when you max it out. When you do this, you actually get to hear the bass tones with it. The bass does not overdrive as quickly as the treble tones which leave an interesting balance of tones. You get a round and full-ish sound on your low strings with overdriven high strings. It is a fun and useful tone.

When you use the unit as a pedal in front of an amp the sounds are much more useful. It really does sound like a useful tube overdrive pedal. I would liken it more to a Boss Blues Driver only because of how the low end sounds more full and hollow than a Tube Screamer.

I certainly love the option that fender added with the line-in to plug in your phone/mp3 player. It sounds surprisingly good even at a decent volume. Because there is one speaker you obviously don't have stereo separation, but it does accept a stereo cable so you hear the left and right combined. It is a very cool feature that you can plug your guitar in and play simultaneously. Might be a cool option to play a blues backing track and solo over it.

You can certainly put a pedal in front of it and get some fun tones too.

Having said all of that. This unit really still is little more than a very cool novelty. I can't imagine any use for this guy besides a fun little practice amp for blues and blues rock stuff. But for $99 it is a very fun toy that I will get a lot of fun time with.


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 7:58 pm
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I agree with nearly everything that you said paztormike. :) With the 4" speaker, it can sound like the intro to "Wish You Were Here", like an old radio, kinda cool.

I just got mine today also, and also the last one at both GCs here in town.

Your description of the sound is just about right, I thought that the sound was just a little too warm when using a 1x12, and want to get a bit more treble for chords. Single notes/leads sound pretty good using humbucker pup and a 1x12 cab, definitely responsive and can be chirpy and glassy.

I took it a step further and tried several types of tubes in both positions. The stock tubes in mine are both Chinese. I used a few different brands of: 12AX7, 5751, 12AT7, 12AY7, and 12AU7. Any of the lower gain tubes in the V1 position would warm the tone too much and lose volume while still retaining a lot of distortion, and using the higher gain tubes in the V2 position gave too much distortion. The sound that I liked best was an EH 12AY7 in V1 and an RCA 12AU7 in V2, although it lost a little volume, the tone was a more bluesy distortion, not as hard-edged as the stock tubes. I couldn't get a good clean tone with any combination that I tried, except at very low volume, and even then it wasn't very clean.

After all of that, I ended up putting the stock tubes back in, and plan to try some mods later, such as the tone stack, and maybe Cathode resistors and caps. As you said paztormike, it's a neat little amp, maybe more novelty than anything, but fun to play, getting lots of distortion cranked without bothering the neighbors. For only $100, it's a cool little amp, ripe for mods.

Edit:
Forgot to ask if you have seen any of the andygutmonkey threads about the Greta? He got some great sounds from the amp and a 1x12 cab, and also made some cool videos.

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=75616

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=76058

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=76171

http://www.fender.com/community/forums/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=76550

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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Fri Nov 23, 2012 8:25 pm
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lou

thanks for posting all of that. After writing the review, I've just been playing and goofing off with it. I have a fun tone using a Bad Monkey overdrive with the Greta only a little over half turned up. Some authentic bluesy overdrive.

I might play with some different tubes in the future to see what sounds I can get out of it.

I have to say that I love the Pawn Shop Series. Eventually I will probably pick up an Excelsior to goof around with. I already have the pawn shop mustang special guitar and am loving that too. I love that Fender has had a bit of a mad scientist type mentality with the Modern Player Series and the Pawn Shop stuff. I really hope they keep finding new and interesting combinations and ideas.


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 9:28 am
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congrats on your greta! i love mine. i think of it as a 2 watt amp head that happens to have its own speaker if your not using a cab. lots of people pay 200$ for a low watt tube head. put an onboard speaker on it and all the sudden its a junky toy? not in my book! cheers!


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 9:51 am
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andygutmonkey,

Have you tried different tubes? Do you know if you have Chinese tubes in yours?

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Por favor, disculpe mi español, no se llega a la práctica con mucha frecuencia.


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 2:49 pm
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Fender is very evil :twisted: for making so many great things to own lately. :lol:
Keep up the good work!

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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 3:21 pm
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Life is funny! Had plenty of time to grab one this past Friday. Kept going back to the website, looking, adding to cart then thinking "Do I really need it?" Naah! and cancelling the transaction. Well I must've really needed it because when I FINALLY decided to pull the trigger and they were sold out I've been pissed ever since!


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 4:21 pm
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No tube swap yet but after checking out that website and sone other posts its on my list. Unfortunately when it comes to me , my wife, and my kids I somehow ended up on the bottom of the pecking order for what I spend money on Lol!


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Mon Nov 26, 2012 11:53 pm
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paztormike wrote:
lou

thanks for posting all of that. After writing the review, I've just been playing and goofing off with it. I have a fun tone using a Bad Monkey overdrive with the Greta only a little over half turned up. Some authentic bluesy overdrive.

I might play with some different tubes in the future to see what sounds I can get out of it.

I have to say that I love the Pawn Shop Series. Eventually I will probably pick up an Excelsior to goof around with. I already have the pawn shop mustang special guitar and am loving that too. I love that Fender has had a bit of a mad scientist type mentality with the Modern Player Series and the Pawn Shop stuff. I really hope they keep finding new and interesting combinations and ideas.


I got the charcoal Modern Player Jaguar this Summer. Just one volume and tone a toggle switch and two P-90's. Add the 3/4 neck and ooh baby is that guitar sweet to play. I am looking at noiseless pickups for it (and my 60th year Tele American Standard.) The Lindy Fralin P-80's sound good, but not as barkin' as the real thing. The noiseless tele pickups from Fender have a good rep.

Very on the fence about swapping the P-90's. They rock.

To stay on topic. I'm sure Greta would be another thing to enjoy.

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http://www.reverbnation.com/modwiz


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Tue Nov 27, 2012 10:22 pm
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I've got to say, I've now had this thing a few days... and I love it more each time I play it.

In fact, I could just play the blues all day with this thing. The gritty, rockin blues. Through the 4 inch speaker, when you're really pushing it, the overdriven tone turns to a really cool Fuzz box type of tone. Almost like something that I'd expect to hear Jack White playing some blues through. When you back off the volume it still has such a cool character to it.

My new favorite thing to do with it is to set it up so that when I am playing through my strat neck pickup it stays clean-ish when I play soft but the louder I play the more overdrive is present. It is nice and responsive to your playing dynamics.

I could play this thing all day. Too much fun.


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 9:05 am
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Sweet! glad youre lovin it! One of my favorite things ab out it is how it brings my focus back to the guitar instead of pushing buttons.


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Wed Nov 28, 2012 10:21 am
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andygutmonkey wrote:
Sweet! glad youre lovin it! One of my favorite things ab out it is how it brings my focus back to the guitar instead of pushing buttons.

I understand exactly what you are saying. I've been having a lot of fun with my Superchamp X2 for quite a while now, but sometimes I am overwhelmed by the choices and the ability to tweak small details to the point that I spend so much time editing my tone when I should be learning or creating music.

It's nice to have the Greta to just plug into and not worry too much about the tone.


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 1:12 pm
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I go back and forth between my x2 and Greta also. Also if I don't have my computer attached I can't do any knob twittling! I've been thinking about getting a mustang floor for my x2 just to have the real time and options that you get. Run it in stompbox mode.


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 1:26 pm
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andygutmonkey wrote:
I go back and forth between my x2 and Greta also. Also if I don't have my computer attached I can't do any knob twittling! I've been thinking about getting a mustang floor for my x2 just to have the real time and options that you get. Run it in stompbox mode.

I actually bought a Mustang Floor a couple of weeks ago. Although I could get some cool sounds from it and liked a lot of the features, I ended up bringing it back to guitar center on Black Friday. (That's the only reason I had some extra cash for my Greta.)

I liked the Mustang Floor, but even running it in stompbox mode, I could not get an overdrive or fuzz that was anywhere near the tones that I love from my OCD and my Fuzz Factory.


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Post subject: Re: Black Friday NAD! Fender Greta. My little review.
Posted: Sat Dec 01, 2012 1:37 pm
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That's good to hear. I figured it won't sound as good as quality analog stuff. I mainly figured that it would sound as good as the onboard effects of the x2 which I like well enough but with more flexibility for spur of the mo tweaks, and then as a standalone practice unit tat I can use with headphones at 5am. For live and recording prolly stick to the quality components.


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