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
J. Walker
January 10, 2022
A Worthy Software Amp
I have a collection of vintage tube amps that I use for recording and this is the best software I’ve found to compete with the real thing. It’s better than the UA/Softube stuff (which...
Read MoreP. McMillan
December 30, 2021
Pretty good emulation!
Nice range of sounds on offer, filled a gap for me on the clean side. Captures a lot of the sound if not the feel of a nice fender amp. I go to this plugin more than I do the other...
Read MoreM. WRIGHT
December 28, 2021
Patience
Expectations are a strange thing. All sorts of tones available here, but not without approaching it like a real vintage amp....
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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
V. Vlodarchyk
Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe
Nice plug-in I recommend
M. Ferreira
Wow! It a real Fender!
It Sounds and feels great!
K. Fulford
Look elsewhere
Can't get a clean sound no matter what I try. Might work with a strat or tele but Gibson owners stay away. If you turn the instrument gain down almost all the way and the mic volume up it kinda works but still breaks up (maybe that's by design?). Really need a Fender Twin Reverb emulation on the UAD platform.
J. Walker
A Worthy Software Amp
I have a collection of vintage tube amps that I use for recording and this is the best software I’ve found to compete with the real thing. It’s better than the UA/Softube stuff (which is pretty good) and I think it’s more articulate and real sounding than both Bias and Guitar Rig. I like the interface and how it mimics the OX software. I’d like UA to make more of these amp sims - I would buy and regularly use a Blackface collection (Deluxe, Twin, etc.) as well as a tweed Bassman sim. I’d also love to see UA’s take on Marshall.
The one improvement I’d make is to add some overhead to the volume output in the mic section as it’s pretty easy to overload the inputs on my Apollos when I’m using humbuckers.P. Bartušek
Fender
Top
P. McMillan
Pretty good emulation!
Nice range of sounds on offer, filled a gap for me on the clean side. Captures a lot of the sound if not the feel of a nice fender amp. I go to this plugin more than I do the other emulations, so I recommend it.
M. WRIGHT
Patience
Expectations are a strange thing. All sorts of tones available here, but not without approaching it like a real vintage amp. Modern gainstaging puts the details on dedicated controls, but here the details are found in the balance of input levels, channel volume and speaker choice. The I respond to the amp has as much to do with feeling as it does with sound. For a player there’s the potential for the innocent joy of discovery here.
F. Ramirez Jessen
ONE OF THE BEST SOUNDS
I had the Eleven Rack and after demoing this plugin a sold it.
A. Mouridsen
Not up to UAD standards
I love and swear by my UAD plug-ins, but for the life of me I can not get any of my amp models to sound even halfway decent. I have this one and the Marshall and I can’t even get a decent clean time out of it! Crazy unpleasant treble and ugly unnatural distortion - I’ve tried it all and it seems to simply be the sound. I love UAD, but I’d ask for my money back for this one if I could.
R. Rattanakorn
Classic Fender Tweed Sounds
Very happy with my purchase. The UAD emulation of the Fender 55’ Tweed Deluxe sounds amazing with my Fender Strat. The presets are also pretty varied. I really love playing with the plug-in through my monitors. It almost sounds like an original amp.
M. McMillan
Incredibly Musical Emulation
I picked this up and used it on a session to track guitars that needed to sound like Revolver era Beatles. I found this emulation to be incredibly flexible and musical. I love the variety of mics and mic placements, as well as the unique tonal character of the different inputs. Amazing Work UA!!!
A. Tebeleff
Great Emulation
Hard to beat emulation, not normally a fan of plugins like these
G. Craig
Even better than the real thing…
Being the recording artist, the sound engineer, mixer, mastering engineer, marketing consultant, graphic designer and distributor for a one-man show out of the home office recording studio is hard enough. Anything to streamline the process is necessary. So, I stopped mic’ing my super champ and started tracking with the UA ‘55 Tweed. The time saved is invaluable, but if the sound quality was compromised I would have gone back to the microphone and amp. I’ve sold the amp.
The tonal qualities are dead-on. The flexibility of tones is remarkable from the presets to the virtual microphone controls to the plugin’s pristine integration with the UA verb, compression and eq fx in LUNA or if you run it through Console. It’s the first amp I go to when tracking my strat or telecaster.G. Aksoy
Ohh
My god, it’s so good!
M. WRIGHT
Inviting
I’ve tried owned and used many virtual amps, but this is the first one ever to remind me of the feeling of simple pleasure I find in playing the guitar. The connection feels physical. The responsiveness feels identical to the hardware. I close my eyes and I can almost smell hot valves.
r. denger
True sound
This amp has character and chime. Great sound overall
E. Koch
Excellent.
The Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe has good balance of output transformer saturation and cone breakup, but it get's ratty and nasty if you push into it too hard; so look for something else if you like fire-breathing leads..but Excellent clean and touch sensitive crunch here..
i found i like running both inputs Y-ed and about even gain on both...
the Tone being Bright + Swat, i move the input gains together and bounce back and forth with the tone tweak...die hard on the Jensen alnico, i sort of wish there was a "Celestion Ruby" and a Ted Weber alnico option instead of the JBL and GB...but the Jensen is decent.
the Brainworks BX Masterdeck Classic works excellent as a tracking processor on this Ampsim...the Compression really lets the amp tone breath, and the EQ of the masterdeck classic Makes the Amp So Much More Flexible that those two plugins are as one guitar channel strip in my mind..F. Brocchini
Fender '55
A real amp !
A. Mikheev
Fender '55 Tweed Deluxe
Probably best emulation of guitar amp. Brilliant vintage with crispy sound. Definitely my fav.
m. chavarria
It Doesn't do it for me.
I'm a big fan of UA plugins in general, but I have to say that I tried every amp. This and the Suhr were my favorite but when it comes down to it the feeling you have while playing it does not even touch my cheapest 150$ practice amp. I thought I could do without a real amp but to me there is just no joy in playing through any of these. I could see myself using this on something where the guitar wasn't in the foreground just for speed and simplicity but when it comes to guitar based music we are miles away.
