Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

[iamthesuck]

Hey everyone, I have a Fender Hot Rod Deville and I need some help reigning in the harsh brightness of that amp. I have a particularly bright guitar that I recently added a Tone Zone tour in the bridge. Even this wasn't enough to tame it, although it sounded fine on a line 6 spider amp. That guitar usually sounds bright in that amp, but now it's very good tonally. I have access to a danelectro 6 (or 7, I forget) band graphic eq. The neck pickup is bearable at full tone, but the bridge has a much smaller range of usefulness; about 1-5. I use the amp's clean channel and dirty channels with the gain around 4 and some volume control to manage the distortion, and a home made tube screamer I run near full scream.

I need to get that high end under control: I ran the amp at practice volume today with the eq on T:8, M:10, B:6, and guitar tone up full for the neck and rolled back to near 8. This is a master vol, master tone setup on the guitar. I was thinking about swapping the pickup mag for an alnico 2, using full round strings, wiring the neck pickup to skip the tone control and setting it for the bridge, etc.

I'd like to get this working, as my only other option for amplification is a home made deluxe 15w. Is there any hope?

 

[saladin]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

Turn off the bright switch.

Cranking your mids is probably adding to the problem.

Try your amp tones all set to 5 and then adjust to taste.

 

[Funkfingers]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

I ran the amp at practice volume today with the eq on T:8, M:10, B:6

At domestic practice volume, a 60w RMS valve amplifier is not in its comfort zone. The output stage and EQ behave differently from how they would at rehearsal/performance sound pressure levels. In particular, the filtering effects of the EQ are not linear across the volume range.

The Bright switch has been mentioned. The Presence control has not. This is the obvious place to go to attenuate extreme high frequencies.

 

[Edgecrusher]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

Man swapping mags and strings are the long way to go about this. Just re-eq the amp, thats what its there for. Its not at all unheard of having to re-eq an amp when you change room,volume or guitar or any combination there of.

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

I ran the amp at practice volume today with the eq on T:8

Am i missing something? Cant you just turn the treble down?

 

[iamthesuck]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

Am i missing something? Cant you just turn the treble down?

By the end of practice I had the bad and treble around 6.5 and the mids up to 11. The problem that induced for me was loss of the good high end too. I will henceforth run the presence under 2. I'll try tonight to play with the eq. At t6 b8 m10-11. If that sounds bad or still has the Issue, maybe I could make a lpf with a cutoff freq around 6khz? Idk if that's too high or low for the ear but I know filters well enough to make it have a good steep cutoff, I just don't know where to have the upper frequency limit. Thanks for all the replies everyone!

Also felt I should mention I had the volumes aroun 6 out of 12 so it was fairly loud, I think the output was fairly representative. I also had my bass player say if he didnt have db limiting earplugs in he thinks they would have bled (before we cut back the treble and guitar tones)

 

[GuitarStv]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

Are you running the guitar with tone and volume wide open? With Fender amps I find that most guitars sound too bright until you knock the tone and volume back to 9. This does something different than the amp's EQ that makes the pickup sound smoother and less ice pick-y.

 

[iamthesuck]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

I was using the neck pickup wide open, and it sounded fine from 7-10 tone and full vol. the bridge was a nightmare and could barely be contained with max usable tone setting around 5. It's tough with a master tone layout, although I may get a concentric pot or something to try and alleviate that. I may try a filter out, design it tonight and install tomorrow into an old box. I have a lot of playing to do, but I've always had usable sounds from my other amps. I have a set of eminence speakers I might be able to swap out for, they're a little darker...

I guess with so many options I'm not sure where is best to go. The amps tone is pretty good minus that awful high end. Maybe I'll just really try some different eq/tone combos tonight. If that doesn't work I'll make the filter(?)

 

[Diego]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

You sound to me like you actually know how to dial in a good sound.
Not running the guitar wide open, etc.

So besides the trickery of putting an EQ pedal in the loop, I guess a speaker swap is in place.

I think the HR Deluxe has the Eminence Legend 125 as stock. I had one of those in my cab. Terrible speaker, spiky and flabby in the bass.

If you've got those, you can do A LOT better.

 

[treyhaislip]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

I think the HR Deluxe has the Eminence Legend 125 as stock. I had one of those in my cab. Terrible speaker, spiky and flabby in the bass.

If you've got those, you can do A LOT better.

I have the Eminence Legend in my Hot Rod Deluxe and I love it. That being said, I know a lot of people opt to change the speaker for something like an Eminence Patriot Cannabis Rex. What would you recommend as an upgrade?

 

[Diego]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

I went from the Legend 125 to an Eminence Wizard and I like it.
Bolder mids, highs are prominent but not piercing, and much firmer/bigger bass. In other words, more of everything and better placed.

Not saying the Wizard is THE solution, but it was a great fix for me.

 

[zzmoore]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

Not necessarily THE answers, but in addition to what has been mentioned already.......
1. Guitar players seem to have 5-10 of everything BUT speakers. You Need To Have a few, just for situations like this.

2. Try one or both of:
V1 = 5751
V3 = AT7

3. Further adjusting of knobs on guitar.
The guitar volume knob forms a High Pass Filter with the capacitance of the tube. That is why guys frequently complain about their tone when they turn down to clean up. The more resistance you add with the volume knob, the more frequencies are attenuated. It would be more amp volume and less guitar volume.

 

[iamthesuck]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

I have a swamp thang and a wizard in my peavey back at home. This is the 2x12 deville btw. I also have a danelectro fish n chips. I was thinking I could bring that back to school and try a hard cut around 3.4k or 6k. The tone zone is known as a muddy pickup, so I was surprised when the problem persisted. If the eq doesn't work, and I think it may, I'll swap out to my good speakers. I really like that swamp thang in particular

 

[Gearjoneser]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

I'm glad you mentioned the Swamp Thang, because that's what I was going to suggest.
In my experience, it's the best speaker to deepen the sound of a Fender amp, while still having a pleasing high end that isn't shrill.

Yank the Swamp Thang out of your other amp and try it in the Deville.

 

[richard parker]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

This works for me with Marshalls. I hardly ever get to play Fender amps but it's worth a try. I don't own a Marshall but I get to use a lot in rehearsals 800s, 900s, DSL etc. I find them all WAY too bright. The best way I've found to balance the tone is set Bass and Middle at noon. Set both Treble and Presence to Zero. Gradually turn the Presence up (NOT the treble). I find that by about 3 or 4 the tone gets lively but will still be lacking a little top end bite. THEN start turning the treble up. I usually find that Treble on 2/3 combined with Presence on 3/4 is about right for my base tone. I really would recommend turning your Mids down to at least 5.

 

[iamthesuck]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

Today I was practicing with the following settings on drive with no "extra drive" unless I needed a boost. I think I'll change my pedal setup to get that in the future and use my metal muff for harder distortion rather than my Tube screamer.

T:0-2, M:7-10 B:4-6 Pr:0-2

I found the resulting tone muddy and bad, but any attempt to liven it up with the tone knob (which stayed below 7 on all pickups) resulted in harshness on higher distortion, and the overall tone was now a bit muddy. I think I'm getting closer, and I think I'll try to get those speakers out of the peavey when I go home next week. That combined with the eq pedal to cut the mud & 3.4k band harshness may just do the combined trick.

Other options I was considering was a 500k/250k concentric pot for non-master tone to help give me independence between the pickups and dull down the bridge. Maybe some flatwound nickle strings or something... If none of this works I may just trade out the amp for that peavey. If it's a problem on that amp though, I'll probably switch out my guitars.

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

I think this might be one thing you could change with some preamp tube swapping. I would pickup some JJ 12AX7s and try them in various sockets. You might find that subbing in one or more of the JJ tubes could smooth out the harshness of the drive channel without losing a good clean tone. It's less expensive than a new speaker, and could be very effective. You just have to experiment to find the right combination.

Bill

 

[Chickenwings]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

The amps tone is pretty good minus that awful high end.

This is true of all the fender hot rod and blues amps that employ the fender/eminence stock oem speakers.
is your devlille the 2x12 or 4x10?
If it is a 2x12, a pair of texas heats will make it sound better in every way.
If it is the 4x10 then check out the 'lil buddys.

 

[iamthesuck]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

It's a 2x12 and I already have the two eminence, although I think my dad may have taken the amp they were in. I'm really banking on that eq. pedal working out. In a year or so I can afford all the gear I want when I graduate but now I'm a broke ass college student. And when I graduate, I won't be playing as much. I'll try some more tone shaping tonight if I can figure it out. I have a boss metal pedal I may throw in as a distortion with an adjustable q. I'll report back on that

 

[Securb]

Re: Fender Hot Rod Deville - too bright

What kind of music are you playing? Are you running any pedals with the setup?

This just might not be the right amp for you.