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
D. Garrido
March 31, 2021
Love it!!
I have a great amp collection over the years! This makes me want to keep what I have and use plugins for a while. I'm not easily swayed.
Read MoreD. Parker
March 17, 2021
Sold.
This thing sounds great. And it's super convenient for a more "plug and play" workflow when building out productions.
Read Morep. salziger
March 16, 2021
essential for rockers
I use to play on reel Vox ac30, marshall JMP or musicman RP212, all great guitar amps. I have to say that I was not disappointed with the UAD interpretation of this 55 fender tweed, it does...
Read MoreM. Engelking
March 15, 2021
Vibe upon vibe
If you’re looking for a clean, fender sound this isn’t it. But if you want vintage vibes with some nice dirt... this is where it’s at.
Read Moref. sanfilippo
March 15, 2021
Excellent
Big sound, easy to use, and nice GUI. I like very much how to change the answer of the "Amp" when I change the settings of the "Mic". I'm satisfied!!...
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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
D. Garrido
Love it!!
I have a great amp collection over the years! This makes me want to keep what I have and use plugins for a while. I'm not easily swayed.
F. LEMASSON
Bien mais pas Fantastique
Plug in qui permet de jouer ... mais impossible pour mois d'enregistrer un bon son Clean (mais je ne sais peut être pas l'utiliser ?) . Je préfère de loin le plu in UAD ENGL E765RT.
D. Parker
Sold.
This thing sounds great. And it's super convenient for a more "plug and play" workflow when building out productions.
B. Smith
AWESOME
My go to guitar amp sim.
E. Irarrázabal
Difícil de manejar limpio, pero con buen carácter.
El headroom para manejar un sonido limpio es muy estrecho. Aún así mantiene un buen carácter musical de amp
p. salziger
essential for rockers
I use to play on reel Vox ac30, marshall JMP or musicman RP212, all great guitar amps. I have to say that I was not disappointed with the UAD interpretation of this 55 fender tweed, it does not have to be ashamed of the above amps.
I already use it a lot and I have not yet been to the end of its possibilities.
great plug-in.M. Engelking
Vibe upon vibe
If you’re looking for a clean, fender sound this isn’t it. But if you want vintage vibes with some nice dirt... this is where it’s at.
f. sanfilippo
Excellent
Big sound, easy to use, and nice GUI.
I like very much how to change the answer of the "Amp" when I change the settings of the "Mic".
I'm satisfied!!G. Stephens
Top notch.
This is a really classy plug, lovely clean sound.
Excellent work UA, you guys have pulled off yet another superb plug.
I can see this becoming my go to plug for my guitar tracks.
M. Scharf
Universal Audio not responding
I wrote three times, because the payment is wrong, they charged to much. Universal Audio seems mega arrogant - they don't even answer!
F. Wijers
vastly sound like my old Fender twin
but I,m happy
H. Negre
Super sons !!
Branchez votre guitare et
M. Rahali
Assez bluffant. Fidele à la version hardware.
Trop gourmand en ressource. Faut une grosse réserve en dsp. Sinon excellent plug!
P. Schmidt
awesome
Sounding and reacting like a real amp. I use it the way I use my amps on stage - almost full power and cleaning up with the vol-pot of my guitars. I love it.
D. Vong
Fender Deluxe amp
I like the clean sound of this amp
I. Ramirez
fantastic emulation
moved from helix to this as a pedal platform and the difference was night and day. much more simple to tweak as well. highly recommend this amp sim
J. Manning
Outstanding tone and versatility
I own several amp simulators--including Tweeds--from a number of vendors. They are all great, but this plugin leaves them wanting. The authenticity and versatility of the tone, combined with the wide array of mic choices covers nearly all situations for which I need electric guitar (I write/record modern country, Americana, and folk). Even used solo, I'm certain that even the most experienced guitarist would have a hard time distinguishing this sim from the real thing. I also own the Fuchs Overdrive and Marshall Plexi. With these three amp sims, I'll probably never use the aforementioned other products again. The UA amp sims--and the Tweed in particular--are just too good to consider anything else. It's an excellent example of the wisdom of using a couple of the best (and more expensive) tools rather than a lot of good ones.
D. Ballantyne
Lukewarm
I've been playing guitar since 1963 and I didn't know until UA made the claim that the '55 Fender Tweed was "the Holy Grail of tone". I think it's a very good amp sim, probably a lot better than some of the early digital attempts, and I appreciate the different speaker sims and the Unison control but at the end of the day, an amp is an amp. It has certain characteristics (which is why people love them or hate them) but I don't think this one is going to please anyone much. It's not for serious distortion fans and it doesn't do much for a clean sound fan like me.
j. tavares
Awesome!
Great when you have a baby and can't crank your amp when you want to record
D. Adams
Not perfect, but very good 5E3 Deluxe sound
Does a nice job capturing the overall tweed deluxe vibe and tweed breakup characteristics, but goes a little too far in the ultra saggy/fuzzy "exploding amp" direction too early on the volume knobs compared to the "real" ones I've played, especially on the low notes. The real thing has the same basic tone but stays a lot tighter than UA's version up until around 9-10 on the volume. Still, easily the best out of UA's amp sims imo and has awesome clean/edge of breakup tones.
