Victoria Original Design Series Trem d'la Trem

A hand-built interpretation of one of Fender's most musical tweed designs, with a tremolo circuit that finally behaves the way tremolo should.

The Tremolux has always occupied an interesting place in Fender's tweed catalog. It shares the essential character of the 5E3 Deluxe - that warm, touch-responsive midrange that players have been chasing for seventy years - but adds a cathode-biased twin 6V6 output section and a tube-powered tremolo circuit that the Deluxe never had. A little more headroom, a slightly tighter low end, and a lush, unhurried wobble that sits in a mix without fighting for space.

Victoria's Trem d' la Trem takes that design as its starting point and builds it the way Mark Baier has always built amplifiers - by hand, in Naperville, Illinois, with the kind of attention to component selection and circuit integrity that the original Fender production line wasn't set up to provide.

At 14 watts through a cathode-biased pair of 6V6s, it runs in the same practical volume range as a well-sorted Deluxe. Loud enough for most rooms, cooperative enough in a studio, and the kind of amp that opens up rather than compresses when you push it. The two channels, bright and normal, respond differently to the same guitar, which matters more than it sounds like it should. Spend an afternoon moving between them and you'll understand why players with one amp often think they need two (a good A/B box would serve you well here). The tremolo, of course, is where this amp earns its name. Victoria achieves the effect by modulating the bias of the phase inverter - a design choice that produces a smooth, even pulse that doesn't thin out or disappear when you back off the volume. That's not a small thing. Tremolo circuits that interact with your volume control are managing your tone in ways you didn't ask for. This one isn't. Speed and intensity are dialed in on the front panel. A footswitch puts it in and out of the signal path without interrupting anything.

If you've been playing through a Deluxe and wondering what the next conversation sounds like, this is a reasonable answer.