Remember it has a Reverb “Trim pot” inside the tray behind the input jacks, worth a tweek.

The Fender Champ 12 has always been known as an absolutely solid studio amp. Particularly when used clean or with distortion and only the tiniest or no amount of spring reverb. After which the effects are applied by the engineers. For this it has it’s place. I own one, had it since new and I will never sell it.

I modified the amp as suggested by effectrode.com “How to transform a Fender Champ 12 amp into a Champ Deluxe with a few mods.” Very real improvement in the amp but the original 12AX7 tubes are Chinese 6N4 type, very bright and terrible congestion in the upper mids and treble. I replaced them with Philips ECG JAN 12AT7 tubes and I changed the speaker to the Fender Special Design by Eminence from my Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. The original output tube is a Sovtek 5881 relabeled to Groove Tubes GT6L6B, it’s a good tube and can stay. I also replaced the input jacks which are really bad quality. In addition to the effectrode suggestions, I also replaced C102 with a 100mfd 350v capacitor. Now this amp really sings, right up there with a 60s era black face but with now decent overdrive tones also. The reverb is just OK, not lush, another mod in the offing? Another hint is to use input jack 2 for most guitars, it’s the low sensitivity input, high sensitivity input jack 1 is too hot for most guitars…

Wow thanks for this!!!

I jumped the 1v output to an old Holms solid state bass amp…..what a great stack!!! Suddenly the distortion channel is not so shrill and there is BASS to spare. In a studio situations, blending the signals has been very easy. On the front end an old Mustang (with an emg 81) and an old vox wahwah……SMOKIN!! Find an old bass amp and experiment away. Have fun, you wont be sorry!