Just Turn it Up Loud?

[bluenote420]

Hey, I've been trying to get some good slide/ standard tone from a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe lately. The advice people give me is to "just turn the amp up really loud and you'll get natural overdrive." However, this is an extremely loud amp, and it can only go so high before it blows the roof off of the place, which isn't appreciated. Any advice on how to get this natural overdrive without blasting everyone? And does turning it up all the way mean on the clean channel or the dirty? I'm playing a strat btw, if it affects anything.

 

Thanks!

[miroslav]

Get an attenuator (HotPlate, Weber Mass, Airbrake, etc)...then you crank the amp to push the tubes while throttling back the actual volume with your attenuator.

[PBBPaul]

You may also want to try putting a nice overdrive like a Tube Screamer in front of it.

[rickygclef]

An attenuator or "power brake" is one solution.

 

I had the same amp. If I remember it has a separate Drive channel

(Drive and More Drive on footswitch). Experiment with different drive and volume settings on that channel.

 

Mess around with the Master Volume and Volume.

Keep the Master low and crank up the volume and see what that yields for you.

 

It is a good amp, but really was just too loud for what I needed and what I like.

Something like the regular Deluxe Reissue @ 22W , or Blues Jr and Princeton @ 15w (or other lower watt tube amps) are much easier to push tubes at reasonable volume levels.

I'm not sure what your needs really are for power or volume.

 

[LeftyBlues]

Do you play in a band or are you a hobbyist like I am? Reason I ask is because I started out with the same amp which was incredible overkill for me. SOld it for about what I payed and bought a Peavey Windsor amp which is a dream. It's about 15-20 watts Class A tube and also has a built in power attenuator as well as seperate pre-amp/power stage volume. wonderful amp for my purposes and still VERY loud if need be!

L.B.

[mhuxtable]

I used a Hot Rod Deluxe for years before switching to a cleaner amp.

 

Yeah that 112 is a beast and gets hella loud. Depending on how much drive you want, start on the clean chanel and crank the volume with the master low. If that's not enough, like Ricky said above, switch to the Drive chanel (not more drive cos I think that sounds like poop), keep the master low and crank the gain til it sounds like you like it.

 

I will say that the drive on the Hot Rods are like a pedal, not truely driving out the tubes, so you'll get a more natural sound driving out the clean channel. If that's not enough drive, maybe put a booster pedal in front of it and go from there.

[Gifthorse]

Pick up a Peavey Classic 30 and you should be able to get the tone you want. I also like the Line 6/Bogner Spidervalve.

[Caevan O’Shite]

I had the same amp. If I remember it has a separate Drive channel

(Drive and More Drive on footswitch). Experiment with different drive and volume settings on that channel.

 

Mess around with the Master Volume and Volume.

Keep the Master low and crank up the volume and see what that yields for you.

 

I had its bigger-bro', the Hot Rod DeVille 2x12. Pretty much the same features, control and function-wise.

 

Yhup, in the yellow or red modes, start with drive up, volume down, and try it with the Middle high, the Presence moderately up, and the Treble low/to taste, Bass where you like it, and just enough Reverb.

 

It will sound KILLER if you crank the clean channel to the point of overdrive and distortion, *but* it will also KILL with the volume. It's meant to be a channel-switching amp, that has shared tone-controls between the channels. Use the channel-switching and the master-volume and drive controls to switch between cleaner and meaner and really overdriven/distorted sounds. Use your guitar's volume-knob to fine-tune the overall cleanness or overdrive, rolling back to clean up, and back up for more overdrive and distortion. "Play the amp".

 

Do you have the owner's manual? It should cover some of this, and IIRC, has some sample settings to try.

 

Try a JJ ECC83, tested both for high-gain AND for balance, in the phase-inverter/driver position; that's the little tube closest to the pair of big output-tubes. With the amp off, just pull the one that's in there (save it for a spare preamp-tube), pop in the balanced/high-gain JJ, turn on the amp in stand-by mode and let'er warm up. No biasing or anything necessary; the higher-gain will push the output-tubes more aggressively, and the balance of its matched triodes will give you as full, strong and natural a sound as possible from your amp with those output-tubes, without the phase-cancellations and resonances that can sometimes occur with unbalanced phase-inverter tubes.

[MILLO]

The Ultimate attenuator, Ho Electronics attenuator (Ho as in a last name, not as in "that crazy 'ho", etc. and was the guy that designed the Ultimate attenuator), and Bad Cat's The Leash are supposedly great, transparent attenuators. I don't own any of those but will own one of them sometime before 2010 hits. Hot Plates, Mass, Airbrakes all color tone, according to most. This can be a good thing (might make a strident, shrill amp be more "controlled, focused", or not. My advice would be get an attenuator, or:

 

Get a low-powered single-channel amp. If you want power amp overdrive, and don't necessarily want to cover ultra-clean sounds, regardless of whether you have a 40-watt amp or a 15-watt, most likely it's gonna be LOUD. However, the lower the wattage (Caev and other engineer types can help w/ that), the earlier the break-up (less "headroom"), especially if the amp is designed w/ that purpose in mind. Fender has the Blues Junior and Pro Jr. Also, you might want to try those, as well as the Egnater Rebel. Again, in order for them to get you nice distortion from the POWER-AMP, it's gonna have to be loud. The Rebel is capable of Preamp distortion, and apparently it's pretty good at this.

 

How about a Fargen Miniplex? There's a patented circuit called London Power Scaling which comes in some amps (the technology was developed by an English company)--the MiniPlex has this, along w/ other amps like the British Audio Kitchen amps. Maybe you'd want to find an amp that has this feature.

 

Dr. Z has some LOUD low-powered options for people that want mildly overdriven-to-saturated tones mostly, and control cleans w/ guitar volume. I've been recommended the RxJr and Z28, the RX been recommended more strongly for output overdrive, plus it has its own boost and master volume (although maybe master volume would defeat the purpose?).

 

At this point, I think I'll own a MiniPlex head sometime in the history of mankind.

 

According to some, VHT makes higher-powered amps that have preamps that are so good their distortion sounds very natural, thick, and is very responsive, supposedly like power amp distortion. The Deliverance 60 (single-channel) and Sig:X (multi-0channel w/ tones of features) fall in this category, as recommended to me by owners of these amps.

[picker]

What they said, and;

IF you are using time-based effects(delay, chorus, flanger, etc), and don't have or use an effects loop, having an amp that will run clean at somewhat higher volumes is not a bad thing. Echos sound like crap if they're distorted, and chorus & flange lose that nice, glassy tone you get when they aren't distorted. That's why folks say put your delay unit at the end of your effects chain.

 

But, then the problems becomes"what overdrive/distortion box is gonna give me a sound as good or at least comparable to a low(or high)-wattage amp turned up beyond Patent Pending?"

 

And that, grasshopper, is a question that has boggled the minds of great, good, and not-so-good guitarists since the dawn of the 40-100 watt amp...

[Larryz]

I use a 4x10 De'ville and normally just play on the clean channel with no effects and just a straight to amp guitar chord..to get some overdrive and/or distortion at low volumes so as not to blow my eardrums out I set the volume at about half way or less...and the drive up almost all the way...turn the master volume all the way down (and only increase it a little at a time if you want to blow yourself out of the music room or if you need the volume at gigs)turn the presence up to 3/4 of the way...now hit the drive channel on your foot switch for blues overdrive leads (red and green) then hit it again for clean rythm (back to green only)...if you use the more drive channel (both red) wear earplugs or take it outside...the amp only weighs 55 lbs and puts out 60watts rms...many small 15 and 20 watt tube amps weigh about the same and are a little on the light side playing with bass and drums (although they can be boosted with a compressor and/or boost pedals or miked through the PA) hope this helps....I love my amp and had to replace the twin reverb as it was just to heavy to hump to practices and gigs as I got older...the de'ville is about 15 lbs lighter and can keep up with just about anything...I have run compressors, overdrives and distortion pedals but now with the method shown above I don't need them anymore and just use the volume knob on the strat...hope it works out for you on the slide...it won't cost you a dime to give it a try....

[bluenote420]

Thanks for the advice. I don't think getting a new amp is really an option, for various reasons...but I might look into an attenuator. I play in bands mostly in small club gigs, so it has to be loud enough, but can't be knocking anyone over. This may sound naive, but could I crank the clean volume to 10 and use a volume pedal to keep the overall volume to a workable level, while still getting the overdrive sound?

[Sauce]

Using a volume pedal like that will be pretty similar to using the volume knob on your guitar, in other words it should just clean up the sound as you back off the volume. It might not do for you what you want it to.

 

'Scuse me if I'm being dense though but you said you want a good slide/standard tone out of the amp. Do you not even like the clean sound you're getting? What don't you like about it? Do you just want a dirtier sound? Elaborate and we can help you better!

[Caevan O’Shite]

Have you tried setting the Drive high with the Master low, with the Channel-Select "in" (set to the "Drive" overdrive channel), with or without the "More Drive" engaged (panel-button "in"), as has been suggested by several of us above?

 

The louder you have the amp, the more output-stage and speaker overdrive you'll get; but using the amp's preamp to generate preamp-stage overdrive will likely get you a lot of what you want here, and it can also push the output-section and speaker even harder, getting overdrive from it, as well.

 

I don't understand what the problem is here; that amp has a lot of control over a wide range of gain, with a lot of overdrive/distortion on tap. Engage the Drive channel, crank up the Drive knob, and keep the Master knob as low as you have to to control the overall volume/loudness level. Want even more overdrive? Engage the "More Drive" channel. Hey, overdrive! It's like having a tube-based overdrive/distortion pedal built into the amp...

 

Experiment with just how high or low to set the Drive and Master to get the balance of preamp overdrive and output-stage overdrive that most pleases you. Set the tone-controls to taste. Switch back to the "normal" channel for much cleaner tones, or roll-back your Strat's volume-knob to vary the amount of overdrive.

 

Try using the neck-pickup or the neck-and-middle pickups for slide, too. It'll give you a fatter, darker, rounder tone that often suits slide very well.

 

Don't bother with a volume-pedal for that, just use your guitar's volume-knob if you want to clean-up the sound (that is, backing off on it will REDUCE the amount of overdrive/distortion). That's like trying to increase water pressure coming out of a hose while turning-down the faucet back where the hose is attached...

 

Trying to "crank the clean volume to 10 and use a volume pedal to keep the overall volume to a workable level, while still getting the overdrive sound" will simply REDUCE the overdrive that you'll get. It will be self-defeating.

 

Here are some links for you that might be helpful:

 

Hot Rod Deluxe Tone Settings from The Unofficial Fender Hot Rod Deluxe 'site

 

The Unofficial Fender Hot Rod Deluxe 'site

[miroslav]

Thanks for the advice. I don't think getting a new amp is really an option, for various reasons...but I might look into an attenuator.

 

Thing is...many attenuators cost $250-$300, though you can find used ones cheaper on eBay.

 

The Weber Mini Mass attenuators are fairly inexpensive, and I think they do as good a job as the more expensive ones...just get one that is has a larger Wattage rating than what you need.

If you have a 25W amp...get a 50W Mini Mass...etc...

[Caevan O’Shite]

Even if you get an attenuator, though, learn how to get all you can from the amp WITHOUT one, how the conrols and your guitar all interact, BEFORE you get an attenuator. Then you'll be able to get the most from it. If not, you're problems won't go away, they'll just change a little and multiply.

[Junior 1]

First off, I agree with Lefty Blues. That Windsor is a killer amp and sounds great at low volumes. I bought a Crate V18 recently on closeout. It's 18 tube watts and gets very loud in a 12x12 space. I crank the gain and use very little volume and get decent crunch. When I put my Green Screamer in front, it sounds great. It's easier for me to play my Valve Junior with a 1x12 cabinet though. 5 tube watts is great for a small space.

[Gifthorse]

Alot of people complain about attenuators coloring or compressing tone. I think this is true, but I think this perception is partly because when your amp is at deafening volume your speakers are pushing more air. Suddenly you turn your volume down in the attenuator and people wonder why it doesn't sound the same.

 

Well, are your speakers going to sound the same at lower volume when they aren't reacting the same?

[Terrell]

Yes it's hard to get cabinet thump at low volumes... I love to hear it kicking like a bass drum...

[miroslav]

Alot of people complain about attenuators coloring or compressing tone.

 

I've not found it to be a big issue...and yeah...most times it's the difference between hearing very LOUD sounds VS. hearing a subdued sound.

The ear makes its own adjustments and reacts differently to LOUD and soft sounds.

Too loud...and everything starts to flatten out...you begin to lose the subtleties in the high and low frequencies. Too quiet...and the low end just disappears.

That is all cause by your ears...not the attenuator.

 

But yeah...if you take a 50W-100W amp...dime it...and then use an attenuator to bring back to .25W levels...it will be rather compressed.

 

I liked the HotPlate quite a bit, and will get one again...but what I like about the Weber Mini Mass that Ive been using lately, is that even when you completely turn the dial up to full (no attenuation)...you still get a decent amount of level suppression, but yet it sounds very open. You don't notice the attenuator at all...it just feels like your 25W amp became a 12W amp.

It has something to do with how the Weber attenuators are designed...they use a moving speaker motor for the load which makes them more interactive with the output circuit of the amp, thus providing a more realistic load to the amp.

 

[Caevan O’Shite]

"...they use a moving speaker motor for the load which makes them more interactive with the output circuit of the amp, thus providing a more realistic load to the amp."

 

Such a reactive load, as opposed to a resistive load, is key and crucial, IMHO, with any of these types of attenuating and/or speaker emulating devices.

[Larryz]

Hey bluenote, I wouldn't crank it up to 10 on the clean volume and then cut it down with a volume pedal...if you think you have too much volume problems now, wait until you accidently push down on the volume pedal and blow the crowd away...that hot rod delux is a 1x12 with about 40watts out the door which is plenty...using the master volume down low and the drive and more drive will give you some good starting points and play with your volume on the guitfiddle...then these guys can give you good advice on overdrive and attenuaters etc...I like the clean sound the best but understand the controlled overdriven sound you're after..

[Gifthorse]

Aren't Weber attenuaters pretty cheap?