Fender Pro Jr IV... and too much treble

How loud are you getting it?

My PJIII is indeed bright but everything evens out and breaths better when it's cranked. I roll my tone control back and also roll back the volume pot a touch (on the guitar).

Speaker break in time is a very real thing.

 

My PJ IV is not overly bright at all.. Maybe before my speaker was broken in and I just tweaked the tone knob on it.. give it time, they come around..but its an awesome amp now..light and compact, perfect grab and go, or a backup to my Super Reverb..I stick my Tech21 SansAmp Guitar2 in front of it and wow..of course that pedal would be fine just running it into the board..been there done that ..

 

dont look at your knobs..use your ears as you turn them...whole world of tone opens up mysteriously.then.ya have 2 whacks at treble..one on ya amp & 1 on guitar..balance them out & use the mids to influence..if it has a presence knob..you 4 ways to interact to dial in treble

 

I keep the tone at halfway with no issues w/ mine. Break that speaker in

 

^^^yep, speaker is not broken in yet.

 

Lots of experience w/ PJs, having bought one of the first US-made units when first released. While you can tame the shrillness as others have mentioned, I chose to mod the amp, which I really love, to suit me even better. I do not like the way the amp breaks up so quickly, nor do I like having to dial out tone to keep the sucker from screaming. I am able to work on my own amps (which pose danger of shock, even electrocution, if you don't know how to be safe) and made several basic mods that turned this excellent amp into one everyone who hears it wants to steal from me. There's lots of info on the web. Here are the steps that worked great for me. 1. Clip one capacitor. I'm not sure which one, but this amp has something like a treble bleed built into it, which is why there is such excess of treble. Clip the cap, and the balance changes. 2. break in or change speakers. The P10R is a pretty good speaker, so I would be patient with it. 3. swap a 12AU7 into the first preamp tube position to tame the shrill, gainy nonsense the stock 12AX7 creates. Good luck finding good tubes, however. The PJ is super-sensitive to tubes, and I've had bad luck with supposedly-great tubes in mine, and terrific luck with other excellent tubes of the same type. Go figure. 4. Get a Merc. Magnetics output transformer. This change my amp incredibly, not by eliminating treble, but by delivering powerful bass and middle tones. There are other good mods that take this cheap little screamer and turn it into an amp that sings with the best of them, and I did several, but the ones listed here are those which had obvious, instant effect. Many players just clip the cap and that does it.

 

What you are calling a "treble bleed" cap is the bright cap, and at low volumes the bright cap is working big time. As the amp is turned up the bright cap is less in play.
I actually liked the way the original PJ didn't get louder after it was only about 1/2 way up, just more distorted. It's sort of a built-in governor, great for home playing but I guess if you're going to gig with the amp it might not be the best thing. I would only use a PJ for home use myself. I think the later revisions even out the break-up more than the first version did, but I loved that aspect of the amp.
Al

 

http://www.tdpri.com/threads/are-new-pro-juniors-noisy.955357/

The above is a thread, I posted on the Fender Pro Jr IV Tweed.

YMMV

 

I gigged mine yesterday..with a Les Paul Gold Top in front of it..3-4 on the amps volume was more than enough loud(guitar volume on 8) tone on amp half way, dialed back a tad on the guitar. I used mostly bridge pickup and middle position..very clean sounding and still quiet(like I said in above post)...I had to take the amp apart upon receiving it so I tightened up all the holding screws and "I" sure don't have a loose vibrating cab. I pushed the amp into overdrive with my Tech21sansamp guitar2 and it was glorious, getting the amp to feedback by turning towards it was very rewarding..my speaker is getting better every time I play it.. I experimented when I got it with a tube change out with the Russian made Mullards like I put in my VoxAC-10(nice addition on that one)..anyway.. I didn't like the tone with the Mullards in my Pro Jr.IV..so I reinstalled the stock Fender ones. My Pro Jr.is exactly the small(15w) amp I needed to go along with my AC10..if I need bigger..Super Reverb time!!

 

I gigged mine with the exact same settings last night!! Occasional boost and grit from a BB preamp clone, a smidge of delay....rock on! An aside, Cary Elwes and Adam Baldwin were there! What a gas, we were at the American Legion in Levittown PA. TRUE STORY What a gas!

 

Emi Lil Buddy

P10R ri never sounded right to me imho

 

That is pretty cool richey88...I never worry anymore if I have enough amp..I have extra mics..and a 24 board to put them in if needed..I usually don't but I have them encase..where we play I see guys lugging 1/2 stacks into places that only need a one 12' or 2 Tens at the most..and they are being told to turn way down..in Eugene, Oregon it ain't the 80's anymore..

 

Here either, our other guy has a big Cyber Twin and it's a beast! I'm in and out in one trip.

Sorry for the crappy picture. He really was at the gig, a dang American Legion hall even. Very cool guy, said my rig sounded great....

 

Speaker break-in may help, but my experience with the Pro Jr is that it's an unpleasantly bright bedroom amp, but sounds fantastic in a live band setting.

 

...tone pots on amp&gtr as well. So yes, can deal with brightness... Love it!

 

As long as it can be dialed out, then you are fine. I don't think you "should" be able to set the tone knob at noon on every amp and have it sound the way you want it to sound. It's just a bright amp...but you can adjust for it...so you're good to go. You will also find that it probably works extremely well in a mix vs. alone, that the amp will break in, that it will sound more full cranked, and that your playing will also make adjustments (e.g. where you pick and how you pick).

 

I pulled the P10R out of mine and went with WGS Veteran 10 in it. I like it better. With my backstage points I got it for 28.00 bucks from MF. The Jensen sounds good though just different. The WGS seemed to round out the tone. Also I swapped V1 for a JJ 5751. I gigged it last Saturday with a mic on it and it roared.

 

I think the P10R is a very bright speaker.

 

I think you need to crank it and stand off axis from the speaker direction.