How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

[spacecaptain21]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

Peavey Delta Blues (Classic 30 works OK too). I've said this before; it's the closest thing to Fender and Marshall in one box that you'll get in this price range. Great cleans, with a Marshall-with-a-modern-twist drive channel. I love the Boost function. To me, it seems to give the amp a Voxier feel. The amp has enough gain to give you some grungey rhythm tones, but you'll need a pedal for anything really heavy. I love my DB, it's really great.

 

[dasfonzie]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

I like my Traynor YCV, good luck finding one to try out though.

It's got a good overdrive, old Marshall vibe, since it's got EL84 tubes. The cleans are good too, it's got a bright channel which puts it in that Vox/Fender clean area.

If you want I could record some clips.

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

someone with fonzie in their name is playing a brit amp?

blasphemy

 

[dasfonzie]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

You silly bastard. Traynor's are Canucks!

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

yeah i'm just givin you ****

 

[WhoFan]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

Being born and raised in Canada i never thought Canada would turn out some good large production guitar and amp gear.... but the Traynor and Godin stuff is OK for sure....

 

[dasfonzie]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

I wonder if there's an Italian boutique amp maker... I could get it custom made with leather exterior

:fing2: Ayyyyyyy

 

[WhoFan]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

I wonder if there's an Italian boutique amp maker... I could get it custom made with leather exterior

:fing2: Ayyyyyyy

I like those little 20 watter Traynors... is that the red covered model with the Greenback speaker?

 

[dasfonzie]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

mine's the regular silver face kind dunno what kind of speaker it has though.

The red ones do have a greenback though.

 

[BigAlTheBird]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

That Delta Blues amp is MIGHTY tempting. I'd want to play one and try it out, but it's got some incredible ratings online and it seems somewhat less expensive (always a plus).

Again, thanks for the help guys!

Special thanks to drew_half_empty. Awesome post on the last page telling me what the HRD is capable of! Judging from you and your chick's hairdo's, it looks like you guys like the psychobilly type stuff. Am I right? I misspoke when I called it punkabilly.

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

Yeah man drew helped me out with some solicited advice when I first got my HRDx. I may be biased because I own one, but I also own a Peavey Classic 30 and it gets little use... Toe to toe, the HRDx blows the Classic outta the battle completely in the battle for cleans. As far as disto needs, the Classic does have a slight edge over the HRDx, but not enough, in my opinion. The EL84's give it a texture much like a Marshall, but still not hi-gain. So, the Classic sits in the corner looking pretty but continually neglected. Now, the HRDx DOES take pedals VERY well! So, that is a bonus. The bottom end of the amp is impressive with the stock speaker and with a Weber Cali you get that definitive Twin vibe or with a Weber Michigan, you get even MORE bottom end!

I personally dont use the drive or overdrive channels any longer, but when I first got the amp, I played around with tube configurations... Currently I'm playing with 3 J/J 12AT7's, I have unbelievable headroom available, so not only are my cleans clear, but the pedals articulate much better. They aren't distorting a slightly distorted signal, they are distorting a near pristine signal. The pedals I use REALLY come alive. (This is also the point where cheap pedals just dont cut it any longer!) As I said, early on, I would try to make this amp and ALL-around amp by playing with tube choices. I settled on the triplet of 12AT7's, but also tried these setups....

12AX7 in V1, V2, and V3 - cleans were nice with a little breakup when you started to push it, Drive had a decent SRV/Hendrix tone to it, but seemed to be slightly muddy on the bottom end, More Drive was almost useless. After a few minutes of playing, you might enjoy it more, but when you step on the switch the first response is, BLAH!!!

12AT7 in V1, 12AX7 in V2 and V3 - The cleans livened up a bit, but still had a slight growl to it. It was VERY useful and at the time, I was amazed with the clarity of the cleans, the DRIVE had a little more transparency that I welcomed. I had to turn the gain up a bit to compensate for the 12AT7 in V1, but I liked having the presence of the cleans audible with the grit, MORE DRIVE was not really useful unless it was nearly dimed out, or actually 12-ed out! (This one goes to 12!) But, that was not practical in a live setting...

12AT7 in V1, 12AX7 in V2, and 12AT7 in V3 - the clean "channel" was considerably cleaner than the 12AX7 and had some notewrothy lows, the amp actually got louder because you could crank it more without breaking up, the Drive "channel" had a decent bluesy overdrive to it with some of the amps natural tones (it was a pretty useful channel) and the More Drive channel gave some pretty good AC/DC tones and with the 12AT7 in the phase inverter spot, and surprisingly so, the bottom end was retained

12AT7 in V1, V2, and V3 - Cleans jumped out! This amp is amazingly LOUD in this configuration. The other gain stages lost gain, so they probably won't do you much good. I used them for awhile to get tubescreamer-like tones. DRIVE would give just a slight hint of crunch (think Mary Had A Little Lamb) and MORE DRIVE would push into tone reminscent of Pride and Joy....

Continued below...

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

NOTE - ALL tubes listed above where J/J, so as to avoid comparison of different manufactureres. Also, the Power Tubes were J/J 6L6GC's, and ALL tones listed above where dialed in so they could be achieved by stepping on the footswitch, with the exception of diming out the More Drive with one configuration.

This is REALLy a one channel amp with 2-stages of gain added to the clean signal. As such, what you do to one stage affects the others. For instance, putting 12AX7's in all three spots definitely raised the gain of the Drive and More Drive stages, but it lowered the headroom of the clean stage. Conversely, putting the 12AT7's in V1 raised the headroom of the clean channel considerably, but still lowered the gain of the other 2 stages. AND these were observed with the stock 12... One day soon, I will try to write a review on the comparison of the stock 12 with the two Weber models I tried. But the Weber's unleashed an entirely new plethora of tonal capabilities....

I now use the amp much like a Deluxe Reverb where it stays clean and I kick it in the nuts with pedals. Like I said the pedals articulate much better with the 12AT7's in all 3 positions...

It DID have a linear pot in the volume, but I was pointed to a site that offered a direct replacement, so the volume is easily bridled by a 250k Audio pot instead of the original 100k Linear pot....

Check this site out for reference applicable to ALL tube amps, but catered for the Fender Hot Rod Series...

http://studentweb.eku.edu/justin_holton/

Good Luck on your decision!
Allen

 

[BigAlTheBird]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

Wow I just saved that entire post! That's one of the most informative posts I've ever seen! Thanks dude, I appreciate it!

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

i'm not gonna lie, i love the recognition :laugh2:

and yeah i've pretty much been branded the 'resident rockabilly scholar'. the girl digs the 'billy, too

i saw this band called the chop tops when i went to go see nekromantix, rockabilly band, and the guy was using a dynasonic gretsch through a hot rod deville (after some research i know it wasn't a blues deville) 4x10, and man he got some good tones.

www.myspace.com/thechoptops if you wanna check em out

the deluxe will get you some good twang tones too, if you know how to EQ it right (treble way up, mids at 3-4, bass below 5), and like i said either one, stock, should give you a lot of the gain options you need. I didn't get a chance to mess around with putting 12at7's in different spots, but the 12at7 in V1 sounds like it'd be good for you, given the first gain channel with both knobs dimed will be too much gain for rockabilly. So basically your clean channel with a TS should nail your punk tones, the gain channel will be for rockabilly, and more gain will get you into psychobilly.

as far as tubes, when you retube i'd shoot for GE's all around, Groove Tubes makes some RI power tubes

electro harmonix or JJ pre's would work

how loud are you gonna be playing this thing? cranked? gigging?

if so, the stock speaker does start to flub out around the time the amp starts to naturally distort. If you're gonna replace it, well, the best one I've tried would be an eminence wizard. May sound kinda weird since it's modeled after a g12h30 but in a single 12" open back it should do you right, just enough highs & lows, recessed mids (which'll really come out & bloom when you kick on a TS). Eminence would be your best option IMO because they're the only ones who make real high wattage speakers (that i know of)

texas heat also seems to be popular in fenders but i don't have any expirience with it

 

[gordon_39422]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

Glad I could help out man... After all, that IS the purpose of this forum, I believe. I'm just glad that I could FINALLY offer advice rather than requesting it. I joined a little over 2 years ago, but spent a majority of that time learning from the pros.... Artie, John Spina, Dave (theodie) and Drew are a few that come to mind immediately who have helped out on numerous problems I encountered from wiring schematics, pedals and mods, and tube amp info... This place is a perpetual wealth of information from those who DO it...

Take Care and keep us informed on your decision and its results,
Allen

 

[midnite_man]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

....I like the Peavey Classic 30 distortion more, and it's a pretty warm sounding amp for being so small. The volume control is not touchy like the HRD. The HRD has a lot better chimy tone and headroom though.

Hey guys, what's up with these Peavey Classic 30 amps? I've been reading a lot about them here at the forum and noticed there's a bunch of used ones out there in either black or blonde tweed for around $200. Are these another one of tube-amp-dom's best kept secrets? A person can get a U.S.-made 30 watt all-tube amp for less than $300? With the option of running the amp in either 16 ohm or 8 ohm to the speaker (swapped out for an 8 ohm?) I'd be willing to bet this amp can kick out some volume. According to some reviews it is a warm sounding amp which is appealing to my ears.

Interesting stuff, guys.

....Bob

 

[kmcguitars]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

Good post Gordon_39422. I've found the same with my HRD. You can get some interesting changes in the gain structure by swapping pre-tubes. I almost never use the drive channel,So for me the magic combination (All NOS tubes) 12AX7 (V1) 12AT7 (V2) 5751 (V3) And a pair of old stock 6L6's biased to 68mV. As for speakers I use the stock FSD (for now) to keep the fender chime in my cleans. If I need to add some bite? I have a 1x12 cab. loaded w/t a Celestion V30 (The HRD is designed to run another 8ohm load with a parallel 4 ohm tap on the OT.) If I really need to move some air the HRD sits perfectly on top of my 2x12 cab. Definitely not a metal amp,But with my SFX-03 I can get just about any rock sound if not some old school Metal Grind?

 

[BigAlTheBird]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

i saw this band called the chop tops when i went to go see nekromantix, rockabilly band

You know Nekromantix? My brother and my good friends Left Alone just did a US (and Europe) tour all last year and this year with the Horrorpops (Necroman's wife Patricia Day's band). I got to meet them all, I spent a lot of time with them. Really nice guys (and girls). Kim (Necroman) is hilarious!

 

[Pecan]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

Classic 30 has its own great cleans and its distortion is great at loud volumes.

 

[drew_half_empty]

Re: How capable is the Hot Rod Deluxe at good, crunchy distortion?

You know Nekromantix? My brother and my good friends Left Alone just did a US (and Europe) tour all last year and this year with the Horrorpops (Necroman's wife Patricia Day's band). I got to meet them all, I spent a lot of time with them. Really nice guys (and girls). Kim (Necroman) is hilarious!

yeah kim's hillarious. I was kinda iffy about how good they'd be since the sandorf brothers quit but the new band is great

and patricia is one of the hottest girls alive IMO

really don't dig the 'pops though, too poppy