Fender® '55 Tweed Deluxe
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Get all the bloom, chime, and grind of Leo Fender’s most iconic amplifier.
Vintage Fender tweed Deluxe amplifiers are the Holy Grail of tone for good reason. Their low-volume clean sounds are pristine and complex. And as you inch the volume upward, you’re greeted with sweet, blooming overdrive, before arriving at full-on distorted, utterly viscous tube saturation.
After two-plus years of research and development, Universal Audio is proud to introduce the Fender ’55 Tweed Deluxe plug-in for UAD-2 hardware and Apollo interfaces. Designed 100% by Universal Audio, and endorsed by Fender Musical Instruments, the ’55 Tweed Deluxe plug-in captures every nuance of this historically unrivaled tone machine by emulating every last ingredient of the hallowed 5E3 Deluxe circuit.Now You Can:
Use your Apollo to track through the only authentic emulation of a 1955 Fender tweed Deluxe amplifier — with no latency
Hear the results of an exhaustive two-year R&D project — the first real guitar amp emulation
Easily track perfect studio amp tones with different microphone combinations and placements — without phase issues
Re-amp previously recorded tracks with any UAD-2 hardware
Take A Listen
UAD Tones & Techniques:
Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe with Josh Smith
History of Tweed
The Deluxe was one of Leo Fender's first amp designs, with early versions being produced in 1946 — years before the release of his first solidbody electric guitars. After various circuit tweaks, Fender landed on the now historic, "wide-panel" 5E3 Deluxe in 1955. This version became a favorite among country, blues, and early rock players as the ultimate bar gig, mid-sized club, and studio amp, with its single 12" speaker and two 6V6 power tubes delivering around 15 watts.
Endless Tones
Before the invention of overdrive, boost, and distortion pedals, recording engineers and guitarists valued the tweed Deluxe’s uncanny ability to seemingly speak to the microphone with a perfect balance of sweetness, detail, compression, and, when cranked, glorious raunch. From Neil Young’s feral roar to Daniel Lanois’ lilting textures, Billy Gibbons’ early boogie to Larry Carlton’s singing lead tones, the tweed Deluxe seemingly begged to be recorded.
Through Science We Found… Magic
To that end, Universal Audio chose two bone-stock 1955 tweed Deluxe amps as “golden units” to be emulated. This began a two-year R&D project to capture every single component — from speaker paper and heat dissipation, to filter caps and transformers — the essential ingredients that allow the tweed Deluxe to deliver expressive, dynamic, easy-to-record sounds, with only Volume and Tone controls.
Three Genre-Defining Speaker Choices
The ’55 Tweed Deluxe plug-in gives you three common “hot rod” speaker mods that pros have been using for over 40 years. The stock 1955 Jensen P12R speaker gives you jangly treble and thick bottom, while the 25-watt Celestion yields thicker mids, velvety treble, and a more aggressive voice. Finally, the JBL-D120F — a 120-watt hi-fi beast — stays clean and pristine with more airy presence than the stock Jensen, giving you extended treble snap.
Expertly Placed Dual Mic Setup
The ’55 Tweed Deluxe plug-in offers expertly placed multi-mic tones with a collection of legendary mics — and zero phase issues. Mix and match with a rare '60s Beyer M160 and white Sennheiser MD-421 mics, a modern Royer R-121, and a hand-picked vintage Neumann U-67 from Ocean Way Studios. And use the intuitive Mic Mixer to season your tones with separate Level, Pan, and high-pass filter. Additionally, you can set each mic to a secondary off-axis position for further tone tweaking.
Unison™ Technology for Apollo Interfaces
Harnessing UA’s groundbreaking Unison technology, the Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe plug-in gives you the impedance, gain staging, and circuit behaviors that have contributed to making the tweed Deluxe one of the most recorded guitar amps in history. And like the original amp, you can plug into any of the amp’s four inputs and achieve different gain levels or impedance changes, or plug in using a vintage “Y” cable to jump the inputs and blend the channels.
*Note: Artist names contained herein do not constitute official endorsements of Universal Audio or its products.
“The UAD Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe is the best sounding guitar amp emulation available.”
– Chris Coady (Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Beach House, Future Islands)
“The UAD Fender ‘55 Tweed Deluxe is my favorite amp emulation. Finally a plug-in that gets the crunchy power tube distortion just right.”
– Peter Mokran (The Flaming Lips, Michael Jackson, Mary J. Blige)
“The Fender ’55 Tweed Deluxe plug-in is hands-down the best amp emulation there is. It has tons of sonic options, and with Unison™ technology for Apollo, the plug-in feels just like the real thing.”
– John Paterno (Robbie Williams, Badly Drawn Boy, Bonnie Raitt)Watch The Reviews
Customer Reviews
R. Fox
September 21, 2020
Spooky Weird. In a good way.
Fortunately having owned an accurate clone of this amp and having played on several originals I have to say this is downright spooky both on response and tonal...
Read MoreJ. Manness
September 16, 2020
I love playing into this amp!
There are some rockin' presets that can cover anything from AC/DC to Black Sabbath to Green Day. For those wanting a clean tone, put it on line (which is a -14db pad) and have the...
Read MoreD. Bingert
September 14, 2020
Perfekt Feeling!
For me it’s especially beautiful this plug-in to use in the night time when I want to record/play with an amplifier without disturbing neighbors all over the house that feels like the...
Read MoreM. Dahlbacka
September 11, 2020
Simple Yes or No...
Does the feel and tone of this amp sim make me want to stop playing my guitar? No... for five stars! In fact, I find the '55 Tweed responsive and dynamic, with a sweet tone. I played a lot...
Read More -
Key Features
Tweed Deluxe licensed by Fender®, modeled by Universal Audio
End-to-end emulation of the entire 5E3 tweed Deluxe circuit
Unison technology allows for authentic guitar interaction with Apollo Interfaces
Best-in-class speaker/cabinet emulation
UA's first complete, stem-to-stern guitar amplifier model
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Customer Reviews
Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe
R. Fox
Spooky Weird. In a good way.
Fortunately having owned an accurate clone of this amp and
having played on several originals I have to say this is downright spooky both on response
and tonal accuracy . This is the most realistic amp sim I've ever used. It's just weird.J. Manness
I love playing into this amp!
There are some rockin' presets that can cover anything from AC/DC to Black Sabbath to Green Day. For those wanting a clean tone, put it on line (which is a -14db pad) and have the instrument volume just above 1 at around 1.33. Turn up the mic vol up to 4 to add some low-end. Turn your guitar volume way down so you're hitting around -18dB in console. Now, to make-up the gain for monitoring you can either turn up the master level in the plugin (digital volume...won't change tone) or use the fader in console or LUNA and crank all the way to +12 (I recommend the second option if you plan on adding more vintage plugins). Add the Galaxy Tape Echo for spring verb and delay, and you got yourself one spankin' clean amp!
D. Bingert
Perfekt Feeling!
For me it’s especially beautiful this plug-in to use in the night time when I want to record/play with an amplifier without disturbing neighbors all over the house that feels like the real thing responding and bonding and from from being as shown tonguing and Pang tonguing!
G. Balistreri
great
great
M. Dahlbacka
Simple Yes or No...
Does the feel and tone of this amp sim make me want to stop playing my guitar? No... for five stars! In fact, I find the '55 Tweed responsive and dynamic, with a sweet tone. I played a lot of hw/sw sims before this and the experience left me uninspired. This is promising to say the least!
B. Bauroth
Sounds like a real Amp
Awesome as f**k
B. DENIS
great
très bel ampli joli son facile d'utilisation
love itF. GYS
Perfect!
Awesome emulation of a legend, difficult to use at first (read the manual!) but after some time and understanding how it works this plugin is clearly a must have.
R. Jean
Like the real thing
I’m a SS22 user and I’ve played on the EC version of the tweed. This plug in is like the real thing. Absolutely fun to experience and experiment with the mics.
R. Whitney
Classic Fender Sound
I didn't like this emulation the first time I demoed it, but a new style of track came up that called for it and it worked great. Very sweet small amp sound with a CS Strat. Features are limited so I'm giving it four instead of five stars.
R. Whitney
Classic Fender Sound
I didn't like this emulation the first time I demoed it, but a new style of track came up that called for it and it worked great. Very sweet small amp sound with a CS Strat. Features are limited so I'm giving it four instead of five stars.
G. Murata
Nice!
It is nice. I would love to have more fender amps.
G. Murata
Nice!
It is nice. I want to
M. Medrano
so good!
Helps get that classic neil young tone.
B. DENIS
dommage
j'en avait envie et besoin mais trop gros consommateur de DSP ..dommage
J. Sidelinger
Like the real thing.
Like a real Tweed Deluxe, this plugin is gnarly and gritty -it won't produce really glassy clean tones like what later Fender amps are known for. This amp sim covers rock and roll from the 50's up to the 1970's. It really shines in a mix, and sounds huge when doubled. My favorite part of this plugin is the option to select a Greenback speaker.
N. Humphreys
Not Too Disappointed!
Contrary to my name for the review. The amp is not bad! I do like it! I really really miss the complete clean tone. There is always some distortion which is highly annoying. But despite that I have a great time with the amp. Thank you UA!
M. Blasquez
An essential tool
I've never played through a real '55 Deluxe but this amp sim finds a role in every production I've done since I bought it. It's important to play around with the "Line / Normal" switch as otherwise the amp may feel too gritty / dirty for you. As a real sounding, all purpose amp sim (that also takes pedals well) there's nothing negative to say. It just works.
M. Petrillo
It's A Good One!!!
This plugin really sounds and feels *really close* to an old Fender tweed amp screaming for mercy. I'm always skeptical of guitar plugins, but I will say this one is *really good*. It has that exact Fender overdriven snarl like the real amp. Very versatile miking options and top class sound and feel. The ribbon miking is spectacular sounding.
S. Lister
Edit from previous review.
I'm officially changing my earlier three star rating to five stars. The '55 Tweed takes some getting used to, but after spending some time and effort learning to tweak it, I'm now using it every day. Love it.
