NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

[voggin]

Friend of mine is going to sell this to make way for another amp. I was looking for something in this price range, so he's lending it to me until it sells, or I can buy it myself.

First impressions are it's a nice fender-ish amp, great cleans, passable OD (could probably use a pedal for the real stuff). Heavy as hell with the 4x10's. He's had it for a few years without any issues.

I'll try to post a real review in a few days, if I can get some serious time with it.

Any experiences, good or bad, with these?

[Empty Pockets]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

i like them

they aren't designed for hard rock or metal but you can make 'em do that if you want

all-tube 2-channel great clean OKOD amp with an FX loop...some of the biggest sellers in the world...4x10 is like having a half stack in a box...

That, a decent guitar, and whatever pedals you like is more than enough rig for most players.

[voggin]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

I messed around with it for a while last night. Really enjoyed it. My strat sounded beautiful through it (well, you'd expect that with a fender amp!) The normal overdrive channel seemed to just beef up the single coils, but stayed relatively clear (good note definition on chords). Very Stevie Ray Vaughan.

With my Korean Prs with Jb/jazz combo, lots of good stuff, from jazzy cleans to warm overdrive on the "more overdrive" channel.

Nice smooth reverb. I've been using a digital reverb lately, and the subtlety of the spring set up is really impressive.

My only real beef with the amp is that it is so ****ing big and heavy! I wish my pal were selling a deluxe instead! I also worry it may be too much amp for my needs...I can't imagine playing it at much above 3 or 4. 60 watts and 4 10's is a lot of amp for, at best, playing in small bars (although that could just be my back and shoulders talking...the thought of hauling this monster around isn't a happy thought.)

But he'd be willing to sell it to me for less than a new blues junior. Seems hard to pass up, esp. because he's had it for 3 years with no reliability issues. And it looks pretty cool.

[FuseG4]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

Those amps have a great normal channel. I'm generally impressed any time I play a HRDx or HRDvl

anyways buy his amp and if you really get tired of dragging it around, someone somewhere will trade you a HRDx for it. Or just sell it and get a HRDx.

[ImmortalSix]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

I have the 212 version, and it's like the F-150 of guitar amps --- nothing exciting, but good gawd can it straight up get the job done, first time, every time.

The 410 (also known as just "Hot Rod DeVille" with no suffix - the 212 is known as the "Hot Rod DeVille 212") may be just a tiny bit more to the liking of a British am fan, because the 4 speakers instead of 2 give it a little more "aliveness" (life?) when it's running loud, and the 10" speakers as opposed to 12" speakers give it more of a mid-range focus than the 212.

I test drove both DeVilles after I decided that the Hot Rod Deluxe was not enough amp for me - I wanted more than 1 speaker, and didn't mind the extra wattage (DeVille & DeVille 212 have 60 watt transformers, Hot Rod Deluxe has 40 watt) , since I play clean, mostly, and eventually went the direction of the 212, because I just love the way two 12s work / sound / feel.

They are definitely the working man's clean amp. I do not consider them to be a dirty amp at all.

It is not an issue for me, though, because my DeVille sounds like death on fire when I hit it with my (very simple) pedal setup.

I never understood why some folks think that just because the Deluxe / DeVilles have a crappy drive channel, they are unusable.

I love the sound of my HRDV with pedals providing the gain, because it's so goddamn full. None of the Marshall brittle-ness. None of the high gain fizzies. It's got the big fat low end and clarity you expect from a big Fender. Except it's distorted by whatever pedals you are using.

I never take my HRDV off the clean channel, but I play it dirty all the time.

[drew_half_empty]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

Try putting some good higher gain tubes in v1 & v2 and crank the clean channel up around noon


it'll do hard rock, and make you second guess those pedals

[ImmortalSix]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

crank the clean channel up around noon

[tenniso]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

i used to have a blues deville 410. loved it, would love to have another. but you are right, big, heavy, and very very loud.

[gvis]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

After 10 years of use mine finally crapped out while my son's band was borrowing it for a show. Since I really like this amp, it's going to be opened anyway for repairs, and I found through research that for a reasonable amount it can be modded/improved to be much better on the overdrive channel, I'm having it modded.

Instead of going the Omega route, which is more blues oriented (not what I'm after), I'm giving the tech a shot at duplicating the sound of a JCM 800 on the OD channel (ok, more like somewhere in the ballpark). This includes using EL34 power tubes, messing with rectificaiton, capacitors, resistors, etc. It'll keep the base chip board though. I'll also be replacing the flabby stock speakers with eminence ram rods; upgrading speakers probably makes a big difference with this amp, at least for the harder sound I'm after.

Crazy? Probably, but then I'm the guy with three metal oriented humbuckers in a parker nitefly. (odd, no replies on that thread..lol).

The short of it is, it's an amp with a great clean sound that (better than my hellhound in my opinion), for a reasonable amount, can get a better OD channel. And if you don't want to spend the dough on the more difficult mods, upgrading the speakers and running pedals through the clean channel would probably get a great OD sound as well.

[voggin]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

Thanks, everyone. I'm hoping to get some serious time with it over the next few days. So far I quite like it, and the price is really great. I'll probably get it just for that alone, where else would I get anything close for $450, esp. since I've known the owner who bought it new since he got it, and know how he babies his gear.

Hope to post a NAD with pics soon.

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

I'm getting a Deville in a couple weeks myself for $450 used. I mostly play clean these days with very light overdrive. I'll probably just get a blues driver or sd-1 and keep the gain low and the volume high.

[voggin]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

I'm getting a Deville in a couple weeks myself for $450 used. I mostly play clean these days with very light overdrive. I'll probably just get a blues driver or sd-1 and keep the gain low and the volume high.

You know, with the humbuckers in my PRS SE (JB/Jazz), I've gotten some really nice classic overdrive sounds with the "normal" od channel. You have p90's, don't you? I bet they would sound pretty nice. The "extra od" switch is a little muddy.

The channels switch relatively quietly with the footswitch, so it's a pretty giggable amp.

[Andrew Lamprecht]

Re: NBAD (new borrowed amp day, HR Deville)

You know, with the humbuckers in my PRS SE (JB/Jazz), I've gotten some really nice classic overdrive sounds with the "normal" od channel. You have p90's, don't you? I bet they would sound pretty nice. The "extra od" switch is a little muddy.

The channels switch relatively quietly with the footswitch, so it's a pretty giggable amp.

Yeah, I'll see. If I could get up to nice classic rock sounds with just the amp that would be awesome. I mostly play clean on the verge of break up when performing or use like freddie king type gain. But when I'm home I like to turn it up and rock out to some ACDC or Sabbath.