New Toy Fender Hot Rod Deluxe - Wes where are you

Congrats Chris!

For more distortion, select "more drive" channel, crank the drive, turn the master up to @ 4 and plan on getting arrested. 8)

Yes, the HRD doesn't have the best distortion, then again, it wasn't designed for it. The Boss pedal will help. If you want a little more distortion you can make it a “close back” amp and take it off when you want it back to normal.

Yes, I own the HRD too. :D

Edit

Here is a link for some HRD Settings. I would browse around. Justin put together a great site for HRD owners.

Yes sir.. congrats Chris,

Give this amp a lil time and you'll fall in love with it.

Play around with the drive channel(s), you'll need to crank the drive up to around 5-7 to get some good crunchy tones then set your Master to taste. Then the MORE Drive will kick it up another notch.

Mess around too with the MIDs.. I usually keep my Mids and Treble set at the same then back wayyy off on the base. The HRDlx is a Bass'y Boomy lil box.

Check out the rest of the site that Mike gave to ya, Justin is a genious with the HRDlx.

Wish I was on the east coast.. I'd come see Wes too.

Congrats again :)

Darren

Congrats. I like it better than the one I just got. I just could not justify the extra dough right now. I'm envious.

You'll have to have us all come over to help you break it in...lol

Here's a link to E-bay attenuators. it a good place to watch for a good deal on one. You may want to consider getting an equalizer pedal to put between your guitar and the preamp.

Joe

Thanks guys I'm slowly breaking it in and haven't gotten arrested yet.

Joe I'll have to check out the auctions but I do have an equalizer pedal already.

Take your time with it, getting good tone out of a new amp doesn't happen in a second. Check out the effects of pre- and poweramp overdrive and see how various kinds of pedals work. Using a SD1 as a booster is much different from using a DS1 as the foundation for your distortion. Just my opinion, but poweramp tube saturation is the 'finishing touch' of tube sound, so play around until you find a sound you really like without cranking the master and then experiment with powerbrakes/hotplates etc. to bring in the right ammount of poweramp tube overdrive. Oh, since you have the EQ you might want to try using it as a booster. Espescially pushing the mids up will have your pre-amp tubes overdrive faster resulting in more preamp gain.

Have fun. Both with the amp and the date. :D

OK I'm gonna ask stupid questions here.

Arjen/Joe - I'm not sure what you mean by pre-amp/power amp.

Here's how I set up my gear Guitar>DS1>Equalizer>Input Channel #1. That's it. There is sometype of pre-amp input on the right side of the amp that I have no clue what to put in there.

Also I have a general question about the overdrive channel. What is purpose? I know in theory what it's suppose to do but since to me the overdrive/distortion you acheive with this channel is pretty weak and I will be using pedals anyway. Isn't it better to run my pedals through the clean channel making the other channel pretty useless.

Mike/Dag,

Thanks for the info. I put the HRD site on my favorites list definitely have to check it out when I get home.

Rparker,

I always meant to ask you where in NC are you? I just moved from Charlotte back up to CT, we could have jammed or whatever you could call what I do. Smokindog's right near me in Rock Hill and that boy can play, you guys should hook up.

Mike/Dag,

Thanks for the info. I put the HRD site on my favorites list definitely have to check it out when I get home.

Rparker,

I always meant to ask you where in NC are you? I just moved from Charlotte back up to CT, we could have jammed or whatever you could call what I do. Smokindog's right near me in Rock Hill and that boy can play, you guys should hook up.

congrats on the amp :D If and when I get a Tube amp, that will be the one!! I didn't know you moved already :cry: I had lots of fun jamin with you :D Sorry I haven't had a chance to jam lately, been having some problems at home, but things are lots better now :D --the dog

Chris: Your hotrod is a combo, meaning it consists of three parts:

1) Pre-amp. Most of the knobs on the amp effect this part. It has it's own bunch of pre-amp tubes in it.

2) Power-amp. This basically takes the sound of the pre-amp and creates the volume needed to drive the speaker. This got it's own section of poweramp tubes. Your master volume knob effects the power amp. The more you drive the poweramp the more power-amp saturation you get. It gets thicker and richer, and the sound gets more compression and sustain. But doing so creates massive volume levels.

3) The speaker. This takes the energy coming from the poweramp to move the speakers and make sound. An attenuator goes between the poweramp and speaker and takes some of the energy away, so you keep most of the sound but lose as much volume as you want. Ofcourse, this means the speakers won't be driven as hard which also effects sound.

By using a booster pedal you increase the signal going into the pre-amp, so the tubes in that area start to overdrive. It is a different kind of overdrive then when you pump the master volume, which is poweramp overdrive. To get distortion at low levels you can do these three things, basically:

1) Set the master volume low, boost the sound into your pre-amp and increase the pre-amp volume, overdriving the tubes.
2) Use a full distortion pedal to get all your distortion from, keep both master and pre-amp volumes down.
3) Pump the master and lower the volume by using an attenuator.

These three ways result in vastly different sounds, and you can combine them. Note this is the story in short so I'm cutting corners here and there but it should give you a clue.

Chris

So sorry I missed this. Congrats on the HRD! :D It is a very good amp, you will come to love it.

Yeah, the Drive channels on the HRD are definitely not Hard Rock. They do sound like the overdrives you heard in the late 60's and early 70's. But you can get Carlos Santana easy. The drives sound very similar to his tones. You can also get Stevie Ray Vaughn. Crank up reverb for a great Surf tone.

So, if you want metal you need a good distortion pedal. I use my Zoom GFX-1. I go into the pedal and straight into the guitar input.

The HRD is ferocious loud, I'm sure you know that by now. One trick to play at home is to run your guitar into the 2nd guitar input. The Volume control is not nearly so sensitive using this input.

The PreAmp section is the 2 instrument inputs, Volume, Drive, Bass, Mids, and Highs. Everything to the right of PreAmp Out and PowerAmp In is the Power Section.. Master and Presence. Reverb is seperate.

The PreAmp Out and the PowerAmp In is your effects loop. You can come out of PreAmp Out into a multi-effects pedal. Then from the output of the multi-effects pedal (or single pedal) back into PowerAmp In. So this places your pedal inbetween the PreAmp and Power sections.

You can run from a pedal into PowerAmp In. This will bypass your PreAmp section, your Volume, Drive, and Tone controls will have no effect. You do all adjustments through your pedal.

I wouldn't worry about all that now. I prefer to run all pedals straight into the guitar inputs, you probably will too.

As for the attenuator, I have the Weber Low Power 50 Watt Load Dump (quite a name). It is about $75, plus you need two speaker cables you can get at the site. One must be male/female and the other male/male. Setup is super-easy, takes about 30 seconds. Nothing to it. The attenuator simply goes between the amp and the speaker. The Speaker Out (actually there are two) is underneath the head on the back side of the amp. You can see it. Just reach in there, no need to take the back off.

Weber Attenuators

My unit is the first one in the third row.

The attenuator allows you to really crank Volume and Master up and yet keep the volume low so you can play around the house.

As for making the amp sing, it does it all by itself. But you've got to crank it. You will hear the clean channel start to break up when you get Volume up around 5, and the same for Master. Warning! THIS IS LOUD. I have been able to get my amp cranked at gigs at times, never at home.

Anyway, maybe too much info at once. Just experiment. I agree with Dagwood completely on the Bass, this amp is boomy. So maybe keep bass down around 4-5. This amp loves mids. Go all the way to 12 if you want. A great lead tone that will cut through anything. Highs? Anywhere from 4-8, depending on your taste.

This is a good sounding and well built amp. It's a keeper.

So have fun and write back if you have any more questions.

Wes

Chris

I just noticed another question of yours. Yes, use pedals through your clean channel to get distortions.

But that does not make the Drive channels useless. They can still be very useful.

You could have a great tone through your pedal that you love for the rhythm section of a song. Now you want to play a solo. Well, you could go to another preset on your pedal.

But... you can use the Drive and More Drive channels for a big boost to play your lead. You can keep Drive down low so that it does not distort the tone from your pedal. Almost clean. But have Master cranked up. Then when you switch to Drive or More Drive you can get the big volume boost you need for the solo. I have used this trick many times, works great. This can make a great distortion from a pedal go over the top. The amp will go wild. :twisted:

So try this. This is a good way to make use of the Drive channels.

Arjen/Wes,

Thanks for the detailed repsonses I will definitely be trying everything I can.

Wes If you happen to read this post again I hope to see you tomorrow night at Silverbrook if everything works out. Will using the attenuator get the amp "singing" yet still keep the volume managable for home use? I'm thinking yes so I hope that's true.

Anyway thanks again for all the suggestions to everyone that posted....to bad it still comes down to the player.

Doing so will add the rich harmonic texture of poweramp saturation, increase sustain and 'fatness'. So yeah, if that is what you mean with singing, that's what will happen. :D