Anyone ever mod a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe

[dmraco]

I love the clean channel, hate the overdrive...anything I can do make it a little more "british" sounding?  Tt currently has pair of 6L6 Groove Tube output tubes and three 12AX7 preamp tubes.

 

[ocguy106]

I don't like the overdrive on that one either. My dad plays through the clean channel with a tube screamer. I think it sounds great prob not the british sound you are looking for but it breaks up really nicely

 

[jackthehack]

I never use the "drive channel" either. The only way I know to get it to sound more "British" is to use a set of YellowJackets or SubstiTubes and stick am EL-84 duet in there.

 

[dmraco]

I assume you would swap the pre amp tubes for the drive and more drive channels?

 

[jackthehack]

I tried ECC-83's but wound up using Sovtek 12AX7-WA's, darkens it up a bit; still don't use the drive channel though.

Celestion Vintage 30 helps, you might want to throw one of those or a Greenback in, the default speaker blows.

 

[dmraco]

I have vintage 30s in my orange cab.  They break a little to early.  I was also thinking the celestion 75.  I think that is what marshall uses in some of their modern cabs

 

[Paul-less]

Nope, nobody has ever modded a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe. Kan't be done!


Ha, I want to do the same thing to my Twin Amp. The Gain channel is too fuzzy, and kind of weak sounding. All the balls of the clean channel are lost.

 

[Cagey]

I love the clean channel, hate the overdrive...anything I can do make it a little more "british" sounding?  Tt currently has pair of 6L6 Groove Tube output tubes and three 12AX7 preamp tubes.

Modify a Fender amp? Oh, stop. My sides. You're killing me.

Fender amps are the genesis of all mods. 99.9% of the design of nearly everything they've ever built is based on the RCA tube manual's cookbook examples, right down to the resistor values. That's why they have such great "clean" tones. RCA designed many circuits around their tubes in order to make them perform as well as possible so they'd sell more tubes. Many manufacturers of radios, TVs, and amplifiers followed their examples to great success. Engineering is expensive. Why reinvent the wheel?

It's not just the tubes, though. If you put a little more iron in the output transformer, it becomes more difficult to saturate it, and vice-versa. If you add a little ampacity to the power supply, it becomes more difficult to make it sag. Fender used robust supplies and output transformers, so as to not make the fidelity suffer. Good news for jazz and pedal steel players, bad news for jimi Hendrix thralls.

So, yeah. Fender amps have been modified to death. Sometimes literally. Guitar players don't always appreciate good amp design; they want nasty. That's why solid state amps are held in such low esteem. They're too damn good.

To avoid cluttering things up too much or implying any kind of bias or endorsement, Just Google "Fender amp mods". It'll return about a quarter million hits.