Has anyone here ever used a Hot Rod Deluxe or Deville for some rippin' surf rock? I got the chance to nab one now pretty cheap, but I've never had the chance to play one. Any one have any history with these amps?

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Was fortunate enough to play a televised show at the last Vancouver Olympics and had a Hot Rod Deluxe as a rental amp. On the second last song (on TV mind you, LOL) my pedal board died so I just plugged directly into the Deluxe and cranked it up pretty good. Sounded pretty killer!
This coming from a vintage amp junky.
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I use a Hot Rod Deluxe, I rate them pretty high for surf - they have a great clean sound. Good value for money for a tube amp, I reckon. The reverb is not so great, so use a pedal or a tank if you want plenty of reverb.

The Hot Rod Deville is the 60W version, and is really loud. A lot more clean headroom than the Deluxe, but playing it at home is a no no and it's really only suitable for medium to large venues.

If you have an option to buy one pretty cheap, I'd go for it. The are great, reliable amps for surf. And louder than you expect.

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I think that the Hot Rod series offers very good clean sounds and bang for the buck. I don't care for the reverb on them, nor the lead/overdrive channels. I had a Hot Rod Deluxe, and it was the loudest 40 watt amp that I've ever played through. For surf, they are more than adequate with a reverb tank.

Bob

tubesNtweed wrote:

The HR Deluxe is pretty good, but the HR Deville will blow your ears out.

Yes, but remember, one doesn't HAVE to turn every amp up as high as it will go

Seriously, the Deluxe is great but in a gigging situation with a drummer or if you're trying to carry the room with it, it's going to dirty up before it's gets loud enough to be useful. In other words, it's going to get to a point where it won't get much louder, just more dirty. And it does this pretty soon on the dial.

A bigger amp, with more wattage, and more clean headroom is going to be clean at a higher overall volume - it may still start to break up at the same position on the dial but will be louder at the point it does so.

BTW, I prefer the 410 over the 212 Devilles.

If you're going to mic it, save your back and wallet and get the deluxe (or really save yourself and get a Pro Junior!) but if you need more clean volume, then you need more wattage/more speakers.

Steve

CrazyAces wrote:

tubesNtweed......I Love the Pro Junior. One of the best things they've done in twenty years

I have a PJ and it's a fabulous little amp. It's small enough to grab and go, and it's loud enough (even at only 15 watts) to play rehearsals. I use mine with a 60s band it's fine in our practice space. I've used it with classic rock bands too and it's still cool. I played in an oldies band and used it through a Marshall 212 cabinet and it carried a huge banquet hall. I've even played it through one of the speakers in a Twin cabinet and it was as loud as the other speaker still connected to the Twin!

However, it does start to get dirty around 5 on the dial (goes to 12) depending on where you have the tone set (higher tone brings in more gain too). So at the volume I'd need to play it at, by itself, at a gig means it's going to be getting a bit hairy.

It's also a blessing for me because having only two controls - Volume and Tone - means I don't tweak it for hours to get a good sound. It sounds like it sounds, which is good. I did re-tube it with JJs and that made a HUGE difference from the stock Fender tubes.

Steve

stevel wrote:

tubesNtweed wrote:

The HR Deluxe is pretty good, but the HR Deville will blow your ears out.

Yes, but remember, one doesn't HAVE to turn every amp up as high as it will go

True. I kinda meant for home use the Deville ridiculously loud. It's almost like it has two settings: pipsqueek quiet and hardly any volume or thunderous roar. The other guitarist in our band has a HR Deluxe and you can't get a good sound out of it at anything below 2, and at practice with our drummer it's on like 3 and still plenty loud, never had it above 4. Then again we use a 100w P.A. system and don't play that loud anymore, gotta save the ears

I think the early Hot Rod amps are quite good. Little things seem to go wrong with the MIM line of them. However, they sound just as good as the earlier ones. If I had to pick, I'd choose the DeVille because I could play out with it. I'd use the Blues Junior for recording purposes.

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I had a beautiful blonde 4x10 Hot Rod Deville on "loan" from a friend for about 2 years. He had changed out the input main pre-amp tube to an ECC81/12AT7 (I think it comes with an ECC84/12AX7). That cut the output to about 70% of normal so I was able to play with the volume between 2 and 4 without causing a Richter Scale Event. It was a sweet amp with great definition, although the reverb was "meh".

Sometimes I wish I'd kept it..but my Surf Green Jazzmaster was on "loan" to him as well, and I decided getting the JM back was more important.

So lowering the output of the #1 position pre-amp tube is one way to tame the beast for home use. For playing out at large venues, popping the original tube back in is easy. Although I did not find it necessary.

You're not drunk if you can put your socks on while standing.

Last edited: Nov 10, 2012 21:50:57

tubesNtweed wrote:

I wonder if there's a mod for the volume taper for those that own a HR amp?

I remember some point in the past when I had one of the volume pots in my Super Reverb replaced because it had gone bad. I had complained to the tech about the jump and whatever he put in there was much smoother - I do remember though that previously where I had both channels on about 4 and 5 to be the same volume, it now had to be more like 3 and 6 - one channel wasn't quieter per se, but it took it further up on the dial to reach max volume.

I've never tried the AY thing.

Steve