Review license provided by Nembrini Audio – All thoughts and opinion’s within this review are my own and do not reflect those of the developer or others.

INTRO

In 1951 Leo Fender unveiled the Precision Bass, the first commercially successful solid-body electric bass. Being that it was a relatively new concept, it posed an issue, what were musicians going to plug it in to. In 1951 there were no practical and powerful enough amplifiers suitable for the bass guitar. To rectify the issue Leo Fender with staff, would develop what would become the first iteration of the Fender Bassman. It was well received and was quickly adopted by guitar players for its impressive tone and power.

Fast forward to the mid 60’s and the Bassman had gone through several changes, tweed covering gave way to tolex and by this time it was black with silver grill cloth and a black face panel, which gave the nickname to the amps of the era “blackface.”

The Nembrini Audio Faceman is their take on an original 1967 Fender Bassman AB165 Circuit, a 2 channel amp paired with a 1×15 JBL loaded speaker cabinet. Will this live up to the legend, let’s take a look.

Experience

Without changing any of the settings, the Faceman sounds great. A nice snappy, twangy clean breakup tone. The GUI itself is clean and understated, while the amp itself is a beautiful representation of a blackface Fender amp. The controls are straightforward and easy to use, and when switching to Recording Chain mode, the amp controls shift to the bottom of the screen for ease of access. The Recording chain window houses the included tools as well as the cabinets, Impulse loader and input and output level controls.

The Amp

The Faceman has 2 channels, one labeled for bass instruments, and the other labeled Normal, for guitar and other instruments. Both channels have a High (1) and Low (2) Impedance inputs.

Bass Channel

The bass channel has a deep switch for increasing low frequencies, an independent Volume control and a Treble/Bass tone-stack. It’s perfectly suitable for bass guitar…but I don’t have a bass guitar so as a guitar player I found it to be great for clean-to-clean breakup tones. This channel can also get a little dirty with the volume pushed past 5 and takes boosts well especially mid boosts like a tube screamer.

For a dirty clean on the bass channel, I used the NA Clon Minotaur to smooth out the tone just a bit and a tube screamer with all the settings on noon to tighten up the low end add just a little bit of grit. I kept the treble and bass between noon and 2 O’clock, and the volume around 10 O’clock. For cleans I simply disabled the Clon and tube screamer when I wanted cleans.

Normal Channel

Switching over the “normal” channel and its immediately noticeably brighter. It has a Bright switch which increases high frequencies and adds a little gain as well. As with the bass channel, there is an independent Volume control and a Treble/Bass tone-stack. This channel cleans up well, but it’s where the Rock and Roll happens with this amp. Takes pedals well, with the normal channel I was more inclined to use just the tube screamer to tighten up the low end when needed and add in some gain.

For this channel there are two routes I chose to go, both sound great. For the first I went with a Stratocaster for sparky cleans, a Dire Straits type tone, which would also cover country, surf, and cleaner blues music. I kept the volume around 3, treble around noon and the bass at 2-3 O’clock with the High impedance input. For the neck pickup on my Stratocaster, I had the bright switch enabled but for the bright pickup disabled it to reduce the highs, it can get a little nasally. For dirty blues and rock tones dime the treble and set the bass to 3 O’clock and adjust the volume to taste.

The second route was to reach for a Les Paul, but any humbucker guitar will do. Setting the treble and bass at noon with the volume to about 8-9 O’clock gives a nice warm clean tone with lite breakup. If the low end is to much rolling back the bass. For dirty tones roll both the treble and bass all the way down and adjust the volume to taste. 9 O’clock to noon on the volume gives a lite dirty tone, past noon the grit really starts to kick in. For me the sweet spot was between 2 and 3 O’clock. From here I adjusted the treble back in the taste. The treble adds a little more gain, tightens things up a little more and gives a little more of an aggressive tone. Don’t go too far with it though, too much treble will start to give an unpleasant ice picky tone.

Cabinet

The Faceman also comes with 6 high quality cabinets built in, including a matching 1×15 loaded with a JBL speaker.  It sounds great out of the box, but for personal tastes I swapped out the dynamic 421 for the SM57, but there is also a Ribbon 121 and a Condenser 414 to choose from. The cabinet controls are intuitive to use, quickly cycle through the cab options. The mics are swappable in a similar fashion, and are easily adjusted using the position, distance and can be set off axis. Each mic also has a volume fader control as well as phase, solo and mute buttons, and pan control to fine tune the cab sound. Also included is an ambient fader with the same functions as the mics, for bringing in a more roomy feeling to give some air. For the Faceman amp I found all the cabs to be suitable, but preferred the 1×15 JB, 4×12 green, and the VH 4×12 P50E the most, each one gave a unique but pleasant voicing the amp.

Impulse Loader

The Faceman also comes with an Impulse loader supporting up to 3 impulse responses at a time, each with similar functions and fader as the mics in the cabinet section. It comes with a great selection of factory included Impulse Responses from Nembrini Audio, Choptones and Seacow Cabs but also allows for use with Third party Impulse Responses when the included ones aren’t doing it for the tone.

I’ve really enjoyed using the NA IR’s the most out of the collection and would love to see more in house IRs added in the future. Of course, if I want to use an external Third Party Impulse loader or cabinet, I can bypass the built-in cabinet/Loader easily, it’s always nice to have this option even if its not needed.

Noise Gate & Cleaner

The noise gate is very effective at cleaning up the signal coming in when needed, especially with the volume cranked with single coils. The cleaner also does a great job of handling low end frequencies when needed. I didn’t find a need to using the rumbling and harsh controls while using the Faceman mainly because I felt that the Tones-tack controls did a good job of adjusting those frequencies how I wanted them to be. Nevertheless, it’s always nice to have access to these tools when the amp controls is just not enough.

UPS/DOWNS

The amps sounds great, covering sparking clean tones, up to raw rock and roll tones. It takes pedals like a champ and doesn’t need any help with external IRs or cabinets to get the job done. The selection of cabinets is excellent, sound great and it’s always nice to see the matching cabinet.

The included cleaner and noise gate are great tools, very functional and effective, and can be very subtle so they don’t get in the way of the tone.

The Impulse Loader works great, and comes with a good selection of IR’s, I really hope to see more in house IR’s from Nembrini in the future.

The pricing as usual is about standard for the industry at $137, and during the intro period has a generous price reduction to only $39.99 for a limited time. It’s also available on IOS devices through the app store, its priced at $19.99 regularly but there is a $9.99 intro price as well for a limited time.

Conclusion

It lives up to the legend with its raw in your face tone. From spanky or deep cleans, to cranked rock tones, it doesn’t disappoint. It nails the vintage Bassman tone, another piece of rock and roll history immortalized in the digital realm, well done Nembrini Audio. The Faceman is available with a 14-day fully unrestricted trial, plenty of time to give it a good run through to decide if it’s right for you, so grab a guitar and go check it out!

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Legal Disclaimer:

Fender Bassman is a registered trademark of Fender Musical Instrument Corporation. Faceman was developed by Nembrini Audio SRL based on its own modelling techniques. Fender Musical Instrument Corporation has not endorsed nor sponsored the Faceman in any manner, nor licensed any intellectual property for use in this product.