Mark’s road amp is a Fender ’68 Custom Deluxe Reverb, which je picked up not too long ago – around early 2010s.
His reason for taking it on the road is mostly aesthetic. As he put it, the amp “looks fantastic and matches Laura Lee’s bass amp”. His studio amp, by contrast, is a 1990s reissue finished in beige tolex with a brown grille – a rare and unusual cosmetic variant – and has, in his own words, been “beat to absolute hell.” It stays home.
That said, Mark is under no illusions about the sound trade-off. He’s been clear in saying that the Silverface doesn’t sound as goodas his old Blackface, and has even floated the idea of transplanting the Blackface’s internals into the Silverface shell.
The amp I take on the road in the States is the [’68 Custom Deluxe] silverface reissue from just a couple years ago. That one looks fantastic and matches Laura Lee’s bass amp. But that doesn’t sound nearly as good as my old blackface. I’ve actually been considering taking the guts from the blackface and sticking them into the silver.
Khruangbin’s Mark Speer: Addicted to Reverb
However, It’s worth noting that Mark doesn’t consider the amp the most critical part of his sound anyway. He’s pointed to the combination of his always-on effects – the wah, the DS-1, the Dynacomp, the flatwound strings, and the Holy Grail reverb – as the real core of his tone, adding that you can get pretty close to his sound with almost any amp.
I think the biggest factor is the COMBINATION of the always-on wah, DS1, dynacomp, flats and the holy grail. The core of my sound is how all those effects gel together. The phaser and chorus aren’t used that much, and the delay is for specific things. Although I definitely prefer the fender deluxe, you can get pretty close with almost any amp.
Mark Speer on Reddit
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