Rickresource Rickenbacker Forum

Wondering what your thoughts are re this amp. I'm going to wait until my 360/6 comes in and then take it around shopping to see how it plays through various amps but I've heard a lot of good things about the Hot Rods. I tried one out a while back and it was nice. But I know I'll get a good cross section of opinions here too. What do you think-yeas, nays, pros, cons?

Distortion rather flabby, clean good with my Ric 6-string, not so hot with my 360-12VP. Hope that helps.

I have a Blues Deluxe. Very similar without the "more drive" channel. It's not meant for shredding, for sure. But clean, it's a great amp with my RICs, even my 610/12 with scatterwounds.

I second Bob's opinion on the Blues Deluxe. Great clean amp with the classic Fender sound. Works fantastic for both Tele's and my 370/12. It's actually too loud for me in most situations - at 40 watts I rarely get the volume above 3. The Drive channel is too grainy for me, I run it clean with a Barber Tone Pump for overdrive, and with a Janglebox for the 370/12.
That said, I'm currently looking for something with less power at the moment (12-25 watts)- something I can open up more and get a bit more of that natural tube warmth and breakup. Depending on your normal gigging situation you may want to consider the same.

I've had my Hot Rod Deluxe since '97 and it's been a great amp. I only play it clean for the most part, but once in a while the "Drive" sounds pretty cool. Forget about the "More Drive" though - it's too over the top, IMO.

Lots of owners mod theirs (extensively, in some cases), but never felt the need for that stuff. I did put in a pair of Yellow Jackets (EL-84 tubes) and that was enough for me. The stock speaker is still OK to my ears, but then again I'm not one to pour a lot of money into an amp that was fine from the get go.

Btw, I play a variety of guitars (various Strats, a Tele, Gibsons - humbuckers & P-90's, and my 360/12v64) and they all sound great with the amp.

I must say that I've got a love/hate thing going on with it though. OK, not exactly "hate" but... Well, I'm always thinking of selling it and getting something else. Then I'll take it to a jam and rediscover how great it is. But it's heavy to cart around. At least for me. Carrying it in/out of my 3rd floor apartment is no fun at my age.

But it IS a really good amp - especially for the price. For more scoop on it, check out Fender Discussion Page at www.fenderforum.com - more info and opinions on there than you can read in a week. Or feel free to e-mail me anytime.

As for other amps, I've got a Fender Vibro Champ and a Princeton Reverb and the Ric sounds great into those too. But the other day I played it into a Dr. Z... OH MY!!!! I'm seriously thinking about getting one of those - but I think I'd still keep my HRD too.

The Fender Deluxe has a good clean and warm tube sound. It has good power and is a fair deal in today's amplifier market.

Its Achilles Heal, however, is the input jack which is wired directly to the circuit board below it and, because of its flimsy design, is prone to a disconnect sooner or later. If you look inside, it is just like your PC.

A few more dollars on the quality of the input jacks would make a tremendous difference. Plastic moves when it is seated in metal, and is a no no in my books for any input jack. In the end, it was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. Had I the good fortune to have known the right tech at the time a proper modification may have saved it for me. Greg, Charlie?

Peter, is that true of all new Fender amps? I just bought a twin reverb that I love. Will I have to baby it?

No John, that is not true of all Fender amps. There are many differences between them. Fenders are my favourite amplifiers overall and I have three older clunkers that I just love.

Let me preface this post by saying I am a total neophyte with amps (as will become painfully obvious with this posting). I generally play small clubs so I'm looking for a balance between an amp that has enough power to fill such a venue and one that isn't going to kill my back lugging it around. Also I generally don't play with drums or a bass player. I was thinking that a tube amp in the range of 20-40 watts would be about what I'm looking for. Does this sound about right for my needs? What other Fenders might you recommend Peter that fit this bill?

There was one other point I wanted to clear up about tube amps. As I understand it, one of the charms of tube amps is that they will "break up" at a certain point to give some natural overdrive. How much do they typically have to be driven to get this? For example, in a 40 watt amp like the Hot Rod Deluxe, around where would it start to beak up? Is this mostly a function of an amp's wattage or does it depend on other factors -e.g.,the guitar, amp settings, etc.

Again, sorry for the naive questions but I'd rather ask you guys than some local guitar shop wankers!

I had a HRD for a while. I agree the clean sound is it's best feature, and boy does it get LOUD! Too loud for me, in fact, so now I have a perfect amp in an early '70s Princeton Reverb.

Another possible choice is the Mesa/Boogie F-30 combo amp.

I run from modern PCB amps in most cases. The only ones I own are my 1993 Korg reissue Vox AC30, and a early 90's Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier. I also have an early 80's MTI made Ampeg SVT that has a PCB, but older PCB designs aren't too bad. I still prefer to work on PTP or turret board or eyelet board construction in all cases.

For your needs Bill, it depends on what type of music you play. If you play blues or rock and are looking for a clean to an overdriven sound at moderate volumes, then a vintage Fender Deluxe Reverb or Vibrolux would be the way to go. You can have someone disconnect the negative feedback and tremelo and you're in business for some nice blues tones. If you play something else like heavy metal or something along those lines, then a Fender isn't the right amp as its too clean. If you're not playing with drums or a bass player, than your volume needs go down considerably and you might be able to get by with a vintage Princeton Reverb. There are modern equivilants to the vintage ones, and they are usually cheaper to buy, but they are also not made as well and don't sound as good, and won't last as long. There are people around who build amp kits too, and you could have someone build you something for a little less than it costs to buy some of the vintage stuff sometimes. Also, the speaker efficiency is often more important than the amp watts as far as how loud the amp will be. Get an efficient speaker and a Princeton Reverb will be as loud or louder than a Deluxe Reverb with a stock, semi-efficent speaker, and that is 15-17 watts compared with 22-25 watts.

Tube amps overdrive more naturally as far as human ears are concerned. They also sound louder to our ears for the same wattage as compared to a transistor amp. This is because of certain distortions that the tubes and the amp designed around them create. On paper, or on a scope, transistor amps actually give superior performance in most cases, but what matters in the end for an amp is how it sounds. The other thing most tube amps give you is really nice touch response, wheras most transistor amps are lifeless and sterile, and don't respond well when you dig into the strings for example. As far as where an amp will breakup...that all depends on the design of the amp, the amp settings, how hot the pickups are on your guitar, how hard you play, etc.

I don't play anything really heavy - mostly folk, folk rock stuff but some other genres too. I do a lot of Bob Dylan, Bruce Cockburn, Beatles, Joni Mitchell, original stuff that tends to that style. I also lay a lot of Celtic folk stuff from the Pogues to Christy Moore. I think you get the general idea. A solid clean sound is definitely something I would need but I would like to have access to a bit of variety too.

How is a Korg reissue Vox different from a Vox? I played an AC30 a few times in the guitar shop and it was heavenly. Way too heavy and big to be hauling around though. And not cheap!

The Korg reissue AC30 was the first reissue of the original AC30 that was accurate to the original and was made from 1993 to 2004 (I think) in the Marshall factory in England. The new ones are known as the CC series and ar emade in China, and have lots of features that the older ones didn't have. They sound good though, and some say they sound better than the Korgs due to better transformers in the CC ones. To me the Korgs sound just fine, and its been very reliable and a great amp. Yes they are heavy though, and often overpowered for smaller gigs if you want some crunch.

For your needs, pretty much any old Fender would be fine. You may try a Vox AC15 too...the new ones made in china are supposed to be nice. You may also consider some of the modelling amps, since they have tons of tone possibilites, and do a decent job emulating the tube sound. Fender, Vox, Line 6 and others make modelling amps that might fit your needs.

Thanks for your input Greg, some useful thoughts here. I would like to go the tube route though. I've tried some hybrids that were pretty nice though (including the new Vox VT hybrid). I'm not going to do anything anyway until I get my 360 and try it out through a few different amps. Incidentally, I called the music store today-Rickenbacker said it should be ready in May which will make it an even year's wait!

What about Fender Blues Jrs? What say everyone on these?

By the way, what is a modern PCB amp?