Anyone here play a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Amp?

[wolfbone07]

Hi,

I've been looking at getting a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe (all Tube 1x12 40W) amp. I've read some online reviews and whatnot. I was wondering if anyone from the forum has this amp (or one of the bigger 2x12 or 4x10 versions) and could give their opinions about the amp with and without pedals.


Thanks.

 

[lenny]

i had one for 4 years and it was a great amp, lots of power and a great clean tone but the dirt channel always left me a little lifeless...........not that great unless you are looking for a gentle overdrive sound with little or no clarity......just my opinion

 

[fbecir]

i had one for 4 years and it was a great amp, lots of power and a great clean tone but the dirt channel always left me a little lifeless...........not that great unless you are looking for a gentle overdrive sound with little or no clarity......just my opinion

I totally agree. The clean sound is great but if you need a dirty sound, you will need a good stompbox. Besides the clean and dirty channels share the same equalization, so you are very limited. So at the end, you will just use the clean channel.
Just my point of view ... feel free to disagree.

 

[The new guy]

to be honest with you ..
didnt like it one bit. it has so much bass so much of those high mids i cant stand it
and besides it didnt went through a loud gig (only 40w)...but this my opinion only so....you should try it out somwhere..

(didnt meen to bash the amp just not my taste although i have it..)

 

[robelinda2]

well i think its a great amp, tremendous value for money. clean sound is just great, i have the 4x10 and its a bit oud to be honest, but perfectly useable. dirty channels arent the greatest but they sound good up loud on stage-cuts through nicely, not so good at low volumes at home. my ears much prefer the clean sound of this amp than the Twin, and i gave both a good workout before settling on the deville, it seemed a much more versatile amp, and the twin seemed to suck at handling gain. would be keen on buying the 1x12 version one day.

 

[robelinda2]

it was a twin reverb reissue, 2005 model. Its clean sound was ok, but had a lot of top end spank, which i didnt care for. Obviously their reputation is huge, so i was eager to be impressed, but after a few months of playing them they just didnt do it for me. So it came as a shock that i preferred the mex Deville!!!!! My heart was set on the Twin for years. Plus the twin was horrible when adding overdrive to it. tried out a few different Twins over a few months, all sounded the same. each to his own. Have you done a gig with a twin before?

 

[candid_x]

Had a Twin, and to make matters worse, it had 2 Altec Lansing speakers. No way in hell it would break up, even though it had a master volume set up. Think it would make a good steel guitar amp though.

Am I the only one on this site in love with the Laney LH50 or LC50? I know there's a couple Laney GH fans here.

 

[jamminjim]

hey robelinda, you sure have a super collection of EBMM guitars there, probably more in stock at your house than at most dealers... you have some real beautiful guitars. The HRD amp is a good one, but a stable of guitars like you have deserve a little bit better, don't you think?

Why not a Mesa Boogie, or Dr. Z? Or an Allen Accomplice, or a Soldano? Or a great Vintage 60-70's Fender Deluxe or Super? A bogner or a Fuchs?

http://www.musictoyz.com/guitar/index_gtramp.php

Even a 71 Twin set up with some good tubes, good Weber speakers, biased right and humming on all 4 is super fine amplifier. Clean as a whistle. Which makes me think there must of been something amiss with the Twin you were comparing. Ahh...... a Twin with 5881's.

Just curious, and all in fun.

 

[robelinda2]

hey I agree, i'd love to have a better amp, i'd love a Dr Z amp, for sure!!! I have a Marshall Bluesbreaker combo that i use most of the time as well, its a brilliant amp. But i'd like to get a REALLY good amp one day, but i'm not overly fussy, just want a good clean sound and a useable dirty sound, its all in the fingers anyway.......

 

[67tele]

My Advice would be go to your local music store and sit and try everything that looks interesting and decide with your ears.Get what sounds right to you.What suits your style of playing best

 

[robelinda2]

My Advice would be go to your local music store and sit and try everything that looks interesting and decide with your ears.Get what sounds right to you.What suits your style of playing best

thats what i did, and thats why i got the deville! Sounded the best for me. dont know how many hours i sat in guitar shops trying so many amps, but its the only way to really judge for yourself what sounds best for you.

 

[roburado]

dont know how many hours i sat in guitar shops trying so many amps, but its the only way to really judge for yourself what sounds best for you.

I absolutely agree. I'm not a fan of most F3nd3r amps. I like the cleans that I've gotten, but the distortion channels have just irritated me. Some people love F3nd3rs. That's fine. We're all different. Personally, I've been a Mesa fan ever since I tried out the .50Cal+ way back in 1990, but I did really like playing a Luke through a F3nd3r Pro Jr. Again, I like the clean sounds, but that's not enough.

 

[jamminjim]

My Advice would be go to your local music store and sit and try everything that looks interesting and decide with your ears.Get what sounds right to you.What suits your style of playing best

not trying to offend but I somewhat disagree. It is my opine that the sound you want can be narrowed down considerably to a few brands of amplifier, by doing some research prior to setting out on an amp quest in the first place. Lots of other folks have already played lots of different amps and reported their summaries on the internet. The information is out there and it can be used.
Also, most guitar shops don't carry many brands of amplifiers, and almost none of them carry a plethora of 50-60-70's vintage Fender tube amps. You simply cannot try out alot of different vintage tube amps at guitar shops these days. Not many shops carry or have in stock any, or very few, of the amps made by manufacturers in the link I submitted in my previous post. So, it is extremely difficult to try them all out in person. You have to work at it and have patience, seeking every opportunity to try a vintage or boutique amp, prior to knowing what is the perfect amp for you. You need to read as much information as possible too, from every source. For instance, for my personal selection, I omitted every brand and amp that was solid state and was not point-to-point wired. That narrows it down considerably,and that eliminated 99% of guitar stores or music stores. For me, to sound like some of the rock music I heard in the 60's I felt it was best to play on the exact type of amps they were using. Simple. Class A pure and simple. Some of the best lead work I have ever heard was done on a 6 watt Class A Fender Champ. I also wanted reliablilty and ruggedness. And the ability to fix it and modify it myself. You simply cannot do that with a PCB amp.

Thanks for listening.

 

[robelinda2]

yeah its hard these days to find shops that stock a lot of good amps, if i feel like trying out a few i have to put aside a whole week to travel around just to find some, and i might be lucky to only find 1 per shop that is not a solid state marshall or fender.

 

[roburado]

Yeah. I definitely agree that it takes forever to go around trying amps.

 

[roburado]

yeah its hard these days to find shops that stock a lot of good amps...

It is, however, very easy to find shops that stock a lot of lousy amps.

 

[robelinda2]

aint it the truth roburado! what i find annoying is how all the saleman try to get me to try out "yet again" another modelling amp, when everytime i do i'm very disappointed with them.

bah, its frustrating!!!!

 

[beej]

Buying an amp by other people's descriptions is certainly tough work. (Like buying tires based on smell ...) Most of the cool amps you've heard you can't find a place to play. They're expensive and difficult to ship. Tough to take a risk buying/selling them on eBay like you can with guitars.

If you know what kind of sounds you're going for, best you can do is ask a lot of guys that play regularly to make recommendations and see if you can find something that's a good fit by recommendation.

I took the plunge last year on a new head (Guytron) after doing the same thing, and I went with Tommy's recommendation based on desired sounds, gigs played, features, etc. I can't imagine myself replacing this amp ... ever. Maybe it'll happen, but I've yet to find one that hits the nail on the head like this thing does for me.

 

[rmh925]

Well I'm going to have to agree with the rest of the guys....I have the Fender hot rod deluxe 40wt 1x12...The sound of the clean channel is way better that the dirty... When i first got it, it was awesome cause i was playing my strats on it, but when i bought my first JP6 it just did not do the guitar justice, so i had to buy a BOSS GT-8 effects processor now it sounds good, but i must tell you that when i picked up the second JP6 i ordered i plugged into a KRANK revolution 100wt and i fell in love with the sound of the JP6 and that amp.

 

[roburado]

aint it the truth roburado! what i find annoying is how all the saleman try to get me to try out "yet again" another modelling amp, when everytime i do i'm very disappointed with them.

bah, its frustrating!!!!

I've only tried a few modelling amps. I tried a couple of Line 6 products. I tried the MicroCube. I think that's it. I like the MicroCube. That's about it.