Hot Rod Deluxe + Keyboard = BAD sound

[lovecity]

One more...

Recently our organ player got a used 4X10 HR Deluxe. Sounded cool when she was trying it out.. but she didn't really turn it up.

When we did practice at full volume, the amp was breaking up REALLY early on and mostly on bass notes (or just lower on the organ).

The amp is 60 watts.. and I figure that with that wattage and the 4x10s this thing would perfect!

2 things I suspect... Tubes (one is glowing blue!) and the fact tat they are Mesa Tubes (never used them).

I'm just trying to figure out if it's something easily fixed or if she should get something else.

Any advice?

[whojamfan]

You are killing the speakers, they are not made to handle or accurately reproduce those low frequencies. Guitar speakers are voiced very "nasally", which makes everything but guitar sound like ****(YMMV). The organ needs to go through a keyboard amp(or Pa) with no less than a single 15 inch speaker and a couple of hundred watts behind it if you want all of the notes to be clear and punchy. It's like playing a bass through a guitar amp, it can sound ok at low volumes, but when you turn it up it loses dynamics and starts futzing out.

I'm sure she could sell or swap that Deluxe and get a big Peavey keyboard amp. I've said it in another post, but those things are built like a tank and dirt cheap-especially the 80s and 90s ones. If you don't like the way it looks, unscrew the logo off of the grillcloth, get a square yard or so of leopardskin fabric from Walmart, and cover the grillcloth with it. Any one of these online amp builder/parts stores will have days of knobs to choose from, order what you want, pop 'em on, and onstage it looks like you have some exotic boutique amp for about 30 bucks and some elbow grease.

I had a blue power tube in a 60s Bandmaster Reverb I used to own(stupid rent), and was told it was fine. I promptly had it replaced and had one less thing to be paranoid about whether I needed to be or not

Let us know how it works out

[lovecity]

When we record.. we use my AC30 at a fairly loud volume and that's had no ill effects... and the amp she was using prior (although a bit muddy) sounded fine.

I mean... there's a setting on her keyboard for a Twin!

We'll do some tests with the tubes and see if it pans out....

I'll keep you guys in the loop

[kennyhowes]

Is it a combo organ, or a synth?

[lovecity]

It's a synth OF a combo organ....

Nord c-1.. it only does hammond b-3, Vox Con and Farfisa

This is gotten after numerous deaths of 60's combos

[kennyhowes]

I see.

I ask because I ran my Vox Organ into my AC30 without incident for a few years, but I know people who have blown up 185w Fender Twins in 5 minutes with a synth...

[collin]

Great topic.

Isn't a 4x10 HR Deluxe actually called a HR Deville?


Anyways, I blew up some of the speakers in my 4x10 Blues Deville (same as HR Deville without the extra distortion), using an MCI Guitorgan---basically a combo organ stuffed inside a guitar.

I was kinda bummed, but I should have figured a guitar amp can't handle the frequencies of a keyboard (even when the notes match a guitar's frets....).

I'm currently in the market for a Fender Vibratone or Leslie style portable speaker.

It's just such a pain dragging more than one amp to a gig etc, if you're not using the organ full time.

[doctorwho]

Hmmm ... I have my Korg X-5 synthesizer running through a Vox AD120VTH head that's plugged into an Avatar 2x12 cabinet containing JBL D120Fs ... at practice volumes, I have never heard any distortion from the set up. Of course, it's not easy to get D120Fs to distort ...