Mods for fender hot rod deluxe or deville 410?

[Guitar Guy]

I was wondering if there were any good modifications that would really enhance the tone of my Hot Rods. I like the sound of them, but they could be a lot better. I'm talking any kind of mods like simple speaker or tube swaps to circuit modification. I don't know a whole lot about amps inner workings so recomend me something.

 

[Hot _Grits]

Re: Mods for fender hot rod deluxe or deville 410?

perhaps start here:

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

 

[Fender_Punk]

Re: Mods for fender hot rod deluxe or deville 410?

perhaps start here:

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

THAT'S AWESOME!! I've always been wondering how to bias a tube amp and that's a great guide for that particular amp, and I'm assuming the steps are the same for every other amp, just looking for different numbers.

 

[kmcguitars]

Re: Mods for fender hot rod deluxe or deville 410?

Step #1) Get the GT 6L6's out.(they are really rebaned sovtek 5881's and sound like Ka ka IMO) Get JJ's or Tad's 6L6's.
Step#2) The preamp tubes. You can make the Drive channel more palatable by putting a 12AT7 in V2 or V3 or both? Experiment. Put a good NOS 12AX7 in V1.

 

[matt99camero]

Re: Mods for fender hot rod deluxe or deville 410?

Only mod I have in mine is going with JJ 6V6 power tubes and ECC83S preamp tubes. It lowers the wattage to around 30 watts to get an earlier breakup. It sweetens up the drive channel a tad, but not an extreme change or anything. Tubes and a speaker change should be the first things since they are the easiest.

 

[Guitar Guy]

Re: Mods for fender hot rod deluxe or deville 410?

Only mod I have in mine is going with JJ 6V6 power tubes and ECC83S preamp tubes. It lowers the wattage to around 30 watts to get an earlier breakup. It sweetens up the drive channel a tad, but not an extreme change or anything. Tubes and a speaker change should be the first things since they are the easiest.

What did you do to convert it to 6V6s? Was it just a simple bias change?

What speaker could i use that gets good cleans but good distortion as well? I have heard good and bad things about the celestion V30s but it sounded really good to me when i tried out a fender supersonic.

 

[matt99camero]

Re: Mods for fender hot rod deluxe or deville 410?

Actually I just plugged them in and fired it up, never touched the bias on the amp. I called Bob at Eurotubes and talked with him, he said with the set he would give me I didn't need to change the bias, so I didn't, but most people are gonna say you need to. It's probably a good idea to do it anyway since the bias can drift over time. It still dosen't make me want to use the drive channels, in a pinch, sure, but I'd still rather get my overdriven tones from pedals.

I'm still using the stock speaker so I can't help you there. I saw a guy playing one the had a speaker with this huge magnet on it, it hardly fit in the cab, it was the best sounding HRDx I had ever heard. I ask him what type it was but I forgot, I just know it was a vintage speaker. I've wanted to try different speakers but it sounds like a pain having to pull the chassis and stuff.