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 (Christina Aguilera, The Flaming Lips)
“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. Weniger
September 27, 2016
Fantastic!
I really do not understand the bad reviews on this Fender '55 plugin. I have owned many amps including Fender and Marshall (still do) and I've gotta say so far all of UAD's amp simulators...
Read Morem. gilmer
September 16, 2016
As Close As I've Ever Heard
I don't get the bad reviews of it. To each his own I guess. People need to understand that this is a nasty sounding amp with some seriously ugly overtones. And UAD nailed them all! These...
Read More.
May 29, 2016
Best amp I have ever used, by far.
Three reasons why… First, amp simulations offer many advantages over hardware amps. But all these advantages mean nothing because almost every amp simulation sounds terrible and doesn't...
Read MoreD. Bryson
May 24, 2016
Best amp sim so far!
The ’55 Tweed Deluxe 5E3 amp sim comes close to a real Tweed. Superior to any other amp sim out there. The feel is there using the Unison slot. Playing with the Jensen P12R speaker...
Read MoreH. Lepisto
May 19, 2016
Blew my socks off!!
I've had amp emulations from Amplitude and they have been..well nice.. But this thing is a total deal breaker. Acts like real tube amp, a Fender amp, microphones behave unbelievably....
Read MoreC. Biddle
May 18, 2016
New level
UA got it right. Very nice with the mic choices and speaker options. Very flexible - keeping in mind that it's a tweed Deluxe, which is not exactly known for it's flexibility, but they do a...
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
D. Weniger
Fantastic!
I really do not understand the bad reviews on this Fender '55 plugin. I have owned many amps including Fender and Marshall (still do) and I've gotta say so far all of UAD's amp simulators are really fantastic! Especially the one's designed to work with the (I think it's called) "Unision" technology. This amp is one of them. You have to make sure it's on the INPUT channel, not the INSERTS. This amp is very true to the original and sounds amazing. Ok, so maybe it's a tiny bit off, if it is well...
1. I can't hear the difference
2. Your getting a collection of amps at a fraction of the price compared to buying the real ones.
3. It's professionally mic'd
4. You don't have to deal with maintenance.m. gilmer
As Close As I've Ever Heard
I don't get the bad reviews of it. To each his own I guess. People need to understand that this is a nasty sounding amp with some seriously ugly overtones. And UAD nailed them all! These amps sound amazing in a mix. I've built clones and owned originals of these amps and they are some of the nastiest amps ever. But, in a mix or in a band setting all of those overtones disappear and they are sweet and beautiful little amps. Between this and the Marshalls I've gone over to just using sims now.
If only they would do a 64 deluxe reverb and a Vox AC-30. My collection would be complete.UAD User
Best amp I have ever used, by far.
Three reasons why… First, amp simulations offer many advantages over hardware amps. But all these advantages mean nothing because almost every amp simulation sounds terrible and doesn't respond anything like a real amp.
Reason #2…this is the amp sim that really, really nailed it! Now we have the low price and convenience of software AND the great feel of the original.
Reason #3… this isn't just the best simulation of a classic amp, it's the best simulation of the BEST classic amp. I have the Marshall amp bundle - they're great, but for versatility, nothing beats a Fender, IMO. It's almost impossible to get a bad sound from this amp.
Room for improvement? How 'bout modeling a blackface Twin Reverb? Champ thru a Leslie? Deluxe Reverb?D. Bryson
Best amp sim so far!
The ’55 Tweed Deluxe 5E3 amp sim comes close to a real Tweed. Superior to any other amp sim out there. The feel is there using the Unison slot. Playing with the Jensen P12R speaker selected and using the Line/Normal switch set to Line, I get almost the same clean tones as my real '53 Tweed Deluxe Wide Panel (5C3 circuit) amp. Yes, I was lucky to buy this '53 Tweed that was in a pawn shop in the Northwest a few years ago. The UA plug-in starts to get dirty very early on the volume dial when in the Normal mode. The Line mode fixes this. Between the sim and real amp, the dial settings are very different for similar tones. I’m also guessing that UA used todays normal line voltage (120 to 124v) instead of the 110v AC which existed in the 1950s.
H. Lepisto
Blew my socks off!!
I've had amp emulations from Amplitude and they have been..well nice.. But this thing is a total deal breaker. Acts like real tube amp, a Fender amp, microphones behave unbelievably. Amazing work again Universal Audio and Fender! This is the s***!! Two my go to brands everywhere. :)
www.hannuofficial.infoC. Biddle
New level
UA got it right. Very nice with the mic choices and speaker options. Very flexible - keeping in mind that it's a tweed Deluxe, which is not exactly known for it's flexibility, but they do a few things very well. Rich clean tone, too. The interactivity between the 2 volumes is there and the dirty grind is just right. Sounds/feels excellent using the Unison slot. I wish we could move the mics back - 121s always sound great at 6-7 inches and I prefer some room sound, but Ocean Way fixes that if you have it. Yes it eats DSP, but it's because it's worth the sound. It's clear UA can do an excellent job with amps, so I have a list of tweeds, browns/blondes and blackface Fenders I'd like to see....
L. Hughes
So much better than I expected
As a mix engineer I'm generally not a fan of amp sims. They never seem to deliver particularly clean tones very well. You can just about get away with using them for distortion, but that is MUCH easier to achieve. This is the first sim I've tried (and I've tried many) that I've actually liked. All the others just seem like toys compared to this. Probably not right for every circumstance, but I might just get away without having to mic up and reamp as often.
M. Phillips
Great - but very specific
This is definitely the best amp emulation I've heard. The distortion of a great amp is the one thing I've felt a plugin can't pull off but with this plugin I feel like I'm playing through a real amp. I've been panning it hard and playing it over my monitors and it feels like there's an amp in my room! The distortion is amazing!
I will say it's hot and distorts VERY easily. Even with the level turned down as low as possible, I still get little nuggets of distortion on low notes. So I don't think I'll ever use this if I'm looking for something moderately clean. Maybe that's what the amp is really like? And even though the real amp doesn't have it, a spring reverb would have been nice (especially because I can't load this and the Bx20 )S. Southern
tweed Deluxe superb
I've tried a lot of amp sims in the past but none of them have been anywhere near as good as this , yes it does use up a lot of resource on my Apollo twin but I would expect that with something as accurately modelled as this . I'll take one instance of this over 10 of anything else I've tried .
S. Smith
Desert Island amp
I hope you never have to choose just one amp to own, but if you do, you could do a whole lot worse than this one! And the plug-in (plus Apollo) feels like plugging into a hardware amp. It's finally gotten beyond circuit emulations, and now it's just about seeing how over-the-top you can cram a single package full of modeling goodness! The mic combinations, the Y-cables, the speaker choices, the preset voicings---you guys just outdid yourselves (to say nothing of the competition) in delivering the goods on this one. This is just plain FUN to play! Even if you own the hardware, I think you'll enjoy owning this emulation.
M. Olsen
Gravely Disappointed
This plugin emphasized harmonics so egregiously (particularly noticeable on the low E) that the fundamental pitch on open E couldn't be heard over the octave harmonics. I switched to no plugin and then to IK Amplitube 4 Fender and had no such problems. Then I went to my friend's studio and played through a real classic Fender amp on the same guitar. Still no such problem. There's something really wrong with the behavior of this plugin in either standard or in Unison mode. To me, it's unplayable, and that's coming from someone who is a HUGE UAD fan. I own most of the plugins available on the platform and promote the brand every chance I get.
M. Niemczyk
Such a nice simulation but why without pre amp bypass?
This little cobo sounds great and like a real delux.
But please why didn't you add a pre amp on/off switch, like on the brainworx amps, so we could use it wit our own real valve pre amps. Even when on line and with verry little volume there is still pre amp shining thru on top.UAD User
CLIPPING! Unnatural and ugly tone.
I don't get, I really do not get it.
How can there be so many rave reviews for this plugin?
It sounds thin, dull, lifeless and most of all: there is a clipping part to the overdriven tones that has absolutely NO musical correlation to the original signal. Not talking about warm, fuzzy overdive here. The clipping sticks out of the sound like a sore thumb.
And yes I know all about gain structure. I am an audio engineer and have been working on professional productions for over 10years.
I use the plugin through an apollo twin in unison mode so the interface should not be the problem either.
It is almost impossible to get warm, clean tones out of this thing, the clipping starts with the volume set at 1. On a single coil telecaster!B. LAKE
this is the real deal......
...Didntn know till just now that James Santiago was involved with this project ....no wonder it is so BAD ASS!! This is the first UA guitar emulation that can come close to standing up to the quality of Fractal Audio ampsims..
J. Lefler
Awesome!!
Wow!!! I've been waiting for UAD to model a Fender and this sounds and feels fantastic!! The subtle sag and purr is super sweet and just perfect!! It's so open and roomy sounding as well. Seriously, for me this is the best amp model yet!!!
P. Williams
doesn't cut it
I'm a big fan of a couple of the Marshall simulated amps on the UAD platform -- but maybe that's because I have never owned a classic Marshall amp. However, I have played through a few vintage Deluxe amps, and own a modern clone. This plug-in is a far, far cry from the real thing, and besides not sounding like the real thing, it just doesn't sound good even on its own terms. I'd recommend sticking with the Marshall Bluesbreaker and Plexi sims and save your money for a real Fender amp.
A. PIEDNOEL
Don't understand
I've tried this plug in "Fender 55 deluxe" on demo mode and I'm not enthusiastic. Sound really good but impossible to get the sound i'm looking for. How to get a real good clean sound like those used by Hank Marvin or David Gilmour ? Even if the first one use (in the beginning) a Vox amp and the second a Hiwatt amp, Fender amps are usually able to give that sort of sound. Really I don't understand why I can't get it. The closer clean sound i could get is when the bypass switch is on off position... Will wait the next fender amp simulation.. a Fender deluxe reverb 65 ?
M. Huffman
I REALLY wanted this plugin to be what it claims to be...
This plugin SUCKS. I'm a major advocate for the UAD platform and I love most of the UAD plugins... but wow. TOTALLY dropped the ball on this one. I wouldn't be so aggressive about making this point if they weren't tooting their own horn. I mean really? this plugin sounds NOTHING like the real thing! This is coming from someone who is obsessed with his audio path and gain structure. Sometimes when I read negative reviews I think "okay but what converters are you going through, what are you monitoring through, what are you comparing it to, etc. I'm telling you now I know what this amp is supposed to sound like because my father had one in the house when I grew up and then he handed it down to me. This plugin is a huge disappointment.
j. castelletti
Underwhelmed
Doesn't track particularly well and tone is still very generic. Rapid high notes choke and sputter with the Apollo Twin. I wanted to really like this amp but money would be better spent toward building a clone.
L. Pimentel
The Real Deal!
Congrats UA, the great James Santiago and everyone involved on this product. You guys nailed it!
