NA Faceman 2-Channel Head Guitar Amplifier

To be honest, I've never really been a big Fender amp tone fan, apart from some small Tweed amps, my sonic homebase rather is Vox, Hiwatt, Marshall Plexi, Orange. So I did not expect much from this release but nevertheless gave it a chance and tried the demo version.

I have been very surprised. Very positively. Of course you can get the typical, good Fender clean sounds, but where this amp really shines are the really, really great sounding crunch and overdrive tones, even at comparably low volume.

On the one hand typical Fender tones, harmonious, with good sustain, on the other hand also with some - almost similar to a Plexi - sonic qualities, like very good harmonics reproduction, a lot of bite and some nice dirt, good reaction to attack and in general a very authentic, naturally sounding and reacting vintage tube amp tone, which you hardly get in this quality from modern multi channel high gain amps.

The JBL 15" cabinet seems to be an excellent choice for authentic Fender tones, for a beefier, fuller bodied sound the 412 Greenback but also the VHT P50E cabinets do a great job, the Jensen Tweed also works well here, while the V30 cabinets are not my favorites with this amp.

The two channels sound very different, what I miss a little, is a linking option, but this you can easily create by running two instances of the plugin in parallel if you want to blend both channels, but also the single channels alone sound convincingly enough.

Really clean but also high gain sounds usually sound comparably good from most amp simulation plugins, but especially the simulation and reproduction of typical vintage crunch and tube overdrive tones like the ones here seems to be much more difficult in the world of digital plugins. Concerning this Mr. Nembrini really does an outstandingly great job, which this new simulation proves once again.

I have also tested the plugin with some pedals in front, SD-1 and Klon Centaur for example sound quite good, if you look for even some more gain, but the two pedals, which I really like in front is a RAT or an OCD. With both pedals this plugin gets a nice, more aggressive, heavier, but still very vivid, organic, slightly more British voiced tone, which you in a blind test hardly identified as a typical Fender tone and with which you easily can even play Hard Rock or even some more modern, much heavier stuff flawlessly.

Other pedals, like tape echo, spring reverb, Univibe, tremolo, ... of course also work well with these amp tones.

Only a few controls, but a lot of really great tones, which are simply, but effectively adjustable.

Great all round amp (simulation) in my opinion, independent from any musical style or genre and for me the best sounding and also most flexible Fender amp simulation, which I have heard up to now.