tube amp question

What kind of tube amp is it? When most people refer to tube saturation they are simply talking about cranking it like they used to - diming the master volume and using the gains/pre-amps/levels to control the actual volume. This overdrives the suckers like nobody's business. Likewise you can dime the pre-amps and use the master volume to control the volume, thus creating tube saturation, but this is incredibly loud and not so effective.

To keep it clean simply find a nice mixture of the two. Volume does not necessarily dictate drive, as you can have plenty of volume and more headroom than you know what to do with. So just play around with it. Find a nice mixture, a good balance, and you're good to go.

Sorry if I am telling you things you all ready know... if this question is in regards to a specific amp, which one is it?

Lastly, you could just buy a Hiwatt. You couldn't overdrive those things if you stuck a Jaguar engine in the chassis. :)

Take care,
-Bryce

i was thinking about buying a hot roid deluxe

The Hot Rod won't start breaking up until about 4 or 4 1/2 on the clean channel. This gives you a good amount of headroom.

Bigger wattage=Bigger headroom (generally)

You can also increase a tube amp's headroom by changing its bias, and by changing all sorts of other technical stuff which I'm not too sure about yet (just as well!). You could, of course, get a solid state amp if you want a ridiculously clean sounding amp.

can I recommend a fender deluxe reverb or a marshall dsl401

Bigger wattage=Bigger headroom (generally)I'm kind of hypoglycemic, just starting on a snack for lunch, and when I glanced at that I momentarily thought it said:

Bigger wattage=Bigger headache (generally)

Now, that I'd agree with.

sure i want that overdrive, but what about if a song is all clean channel; amd ypou want a clean channel that can cut through?

i also dont want any big wattage amps cause i had enough problems with that with the carvin amp.

which i put for sale on craiglists

maybe wes can help on this, i know he has a hot rod deluxe

plus if i sell of my carvin i'd only have a $750 dollar budget

What kind of venues are you going to be playing in?

If it's clubs then the hot rod should be okay I think for clean. Of course, you could get everyone else to just turn down a bit! (try asking a drummer that!)

Um, slight hiccup here is that the HRD is not a low volume amp by any stretch of the imagination. Generally, it may be a hair quieter, but it would have no problem keeping up with your Carvin.

It sounds like a good fit for you would be an amp with fewer speakers. I think a fair number of people here would agree that a good 1x12 is more than adequate for most needs, can get pretty loud without overdriving, but can be overdriven moderately well in bedroom settings.

I love my classic 30, and would recommend anyone look into them, the Fender Blues Jr, etc.

maybe wes can help on this, i know he has a hot rod deluxe

plus if i sell of my carvin i'd only have a $750 dollar budget

Yeah Wes where are ya?

He does have an HRD and has been a great help to me. I just picked up a used '00 model for under $400 not a week ago and I'm still getting aquainted to it. I think Wes said he's performed quite a bit with his and it does just fine.

The HRD is Plenty Loud with lots of headroom. There are also Re-Tubing schemes you could apply to give you more or less headroom.

Check out: EuroTubes

BTW, I'm very pleased with mine so far.

Here's a link to a great site on the HRD (if your interested)

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

Good luck in your Quest.
Dag

i been to that site, its good.

ive had my eyes set on a hot rod deluxe since the begening, but got steered away by the carvin. i regret it now.

xSSx

Here I am!

As someone here mentioned, the HRD starts to break up around 4-5 on the Volume control. The control goes from 1-12. Now, that might not sound good, but you really must understand how FN loud this amp is. I have played probably a couple hundred gigs with this amp in small to fairly large clubs. I rarely get it over 2 at a gig! And that's with drums, bass, and other guitars.

The band I'm in now is LOUD. It is probably the loudest band I've ever been in. But I still have my HRD Volume around 2.

Someone mentioned bias. That is important. Fender biases the HRD cold so that the tubes will last longer. I biased mine to make it break up earlier and go into saturation. But it is still plenty loud and clean before breakup.

I play mostly rhythm now, so I play clean a lot. My amp is plenty loud without any breakup at all. I use a pedal (Zoom GFX-1) for distortions. I use the Clean channel at all times.

Someone mentioned the Marshall DSL401. I also own that. It is a great amp, I absolutely love the tone. I like it's Overdrive channel much more than the Drive channels on my HRD. But no way can it compete for clean volume at all. I really do not believe you could play the DSL401 clean in a band situation (unless the band keeps it down). It starts to break up much earlier than the HRD.

But you can mic the DSL401. It is a great amp.

You will NEVER need to mic the HRD.

If you want a great clean, go with the HRD. It has a great clean. Probably the ONLY amp with a better clean is the Twin or Twin Reverb.

The HRD is not the world's greatest amp at all. But it is the best amp under $700 in the world (IMHO). Fender claims it is the top selling tube amp of all time. Hey, that says it all. You must be pretty good if you are #1.

ok cool, thanks wes. imma get the HRD