Best Rich, Full, Glass-like Clean Amp? ~circa Fender Hot Rod Deluxe...

[joshhpmusic]

Hey peeps,

 

So I got a used H&K Tubemeister 18 Head with a Panama Guitars 1x12 cab, and it just seems that tone hasn't really been cutting it for me. Specifically, I'm looking for a really smooth, rich, and clear clean sound. That's all I ask for. Something good for the likes of jazz, modern R&B/soul, and John Mayer-ish tones.

 

I've been considering a Fender Hot Rod Deluxe III, used for under $500, but not sure if I want to pull the trigger on that due to reliability issues and the number of people that even say it doesn't sound all that amazing. Before you bring up the volume pot issue, that isn't really one of my concerns as I know I could just replace the V1 preamp tube with something like a 12AY7.

 

My options can be either a combo amp or just an amplifier head, as I have the Panama cab, but I would like to keep it under $500, new or used. I also plan on getting a Line 6 Helix LT amp modeler/processor, with a PA speaker, but also want a nice tube amp to have in my home studio for jamming and recording purposes.

 

So should I jump on the HRD, III or original, keep the H&K, just get a Helix, or something else? Recommendations of all makes, large scale or boutique, would be appreciated!

 

Oh and I am playing mostly through a custom warmoth strat fitted with P90s.

 

Thanks so much,

-Josh

[Axisplayer]

If that is what you are looking for, it is hard to beat a Twin Reverb, Super Reverb, or a JC120. Clean, full, able to cover most anything cleanly. They are all classic staples for a reason. They will also be a LOT to handle in a bedroom or home studio, but man they sound great when you can use them.

 

For $500 or so, you would have to look carefully and find a good deal used because new they are WAY high for your budget. I have seen examples in your ballpark, but cosmetically seldom perfect.

 

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...y=roland+jc120

https://www.youtube.com/results?sear...win+reverb+amp

[Mikeo]

I had an original Blues Deluxe from the 90's and it got ruined. Don't ask.

Many many years ago I was looking at replacing it with something. I put the DRRI and HRD side by side. pushed the volume to where I wanted it and gave em both a nice test drive.

 

The 65 DRRI imo is better.

 

It's also now a bit more money.

 

You need to do the same and figure out's what's best for you. Bring your guitar and effects with on the test drive.

 

New my DRRI cost me about 700 bucks. It's a really nice basic building block, that you'll have forever. Mic it for bigger gigs.

 

I also own a PRRI, and it not bad, but the DRRI is the one.

 

Last night I was playing through a Mesa Nomad. They were kind of pricey in there day, but long forgotten and now a bargain.

 

 

I have also owned a DC 5, and many other Mesa amps. There's the F series and the single rectifier series. Before you run out and look at Mesa amp, understand there treble, mid and bass eq setting. They have manuals and suggested setting on there web site. Mesa's eqing is way different than anything Fender makes, super touchy an lil bit here and there makes or breaks your opinion of their amps.

 

All might be a few hundred more use than you will spend on a Fender HRD. The Fender HRD's are popular , cause they ain't bad for the price, but they make them in Mexico to keep the price down.

 

Paul Rivera makes a nice Fender like amp with the Pubster and Clubster. He should, he worked for Fender for years.

 

This is the one you want over the HRD series. Made at the Corona Plant.

 

https://reverb.com/item/7376610-fender-blues-deluxe-reissue-1995-1-x-12-40-watts

 

more and in the price range you are looking at.

 

https://reverb.com/p/fender-blues-deluxe-reissue-40w-1x12-guitar-combo-amp

 

Best wishes.

 

I'll swing by the amp forum again, in case you have any other questions.

 

 

 

Oh, and welcome aboard.

 

 

[DeepEnd]

One quick thought: Panama cabs come with Celestion style speakers installed. That means a basically British sound, and that may not be your cup of tea. You may want to swap out the existing speaker for something like a Jensen or Weber and see how you like the sound. You should be able to keep it around $100 or so, well under your budget.

[WRGKMC]

I think the head you bought is designed to break up when gains are turned up. Plus it uses a pair of EL84 power tubes like many vox amps do so you'd expect it to overdrive when cranked.

 

If you want to stick with tubes and get a clean plus sound you simply need something that wont saturate at low volumes which either means a higher wattage amp or one that doesn't bias the tubes so hot so they overdrive.

 

Fenders are well known for being designed to avoid drive and distortion. It was Leo's big thing having a background with big band guitarists who played jazz. Of course kids soon learned you could abuse the amps to get driven tone from them too but they actually weren't designed for that purpose, it was purely accidental that sound became popular.

 

There are a bunch of great options available.

 

My buddy has used a Hot Rod for 20 years performing full time without issue. I have another who uses a Bogner and has a second Riviera he has his buddy play through. Both produce incredibly rich tones clean and can have the drive tones cranked up too.

 

A Rolland Jazz Chorus is a SS amp but its noted for clean tones.

 

I'm with Mikeo on choosing an amp however. Take your guitar down to the local guitar shop and test it out on some amps. Even if you don't find the ideal amp you'll find out what you don't want which is half the battle.

[Mikeo]

I think the head you bought is designed to break up when gains are turned up. Plus it uses a pair of EL84 power tubes like many vox amps do so you'd expect it to overdrive when cranked.

 

If you want to stick with tubes and get a clean plus sound you simply need something that wont saturate at low volumes which either means a higher wattage amp or one that doesn't bias the tubes so hot so they overdrive.

 

Fenders are well known for being designed to avoid drive and distortion. It was Leo's big thing having a background with big band guitarists who played jazz. Of course kids soon learned you could abuse the amps to get driven tone from them too but they actually weren't designed for that purpose, it was purely accidental that sound became popular.

 

There are a bunch of great options available.

 

My buddy has used a Hot Rod for 20 years performing full time without issue. I have another who uses a Bogner and has a second Riviera he has his buddy play through. Both produce incredibly rich tones clean and can have the drive tones cranked up too.

 

A Rolland Jazz Chorus is a SS amp but its noted for clean tones.

 

I'm with Mikeo on choosing an amp however. Take your guitar down to the local guitar shop and test it out on some amps. Even if you don't find the ideal amp you'll find out what you don't want which is half the battle.

 

This.

On that note, some 17 years ago I set off to get a Mesa Maverick 2x12 combo. Headed off to a shop called New York Pro Guitar shop in Hudson NY. The Maverick I loved, but while I was there he also had a Bogner Shiva. Damn that was nice too for additional grand. I was like ouch, that's a lot of coin for an amp.

 

I did get the Maverick, but it was 70lbs, and never made it too far. It was just too heavy to haul around. The Shiva wasn't any lighter and might have weighed more.

 

If I ever do another tube amp and I may, I have been looking a the Swart AST 1x12 combos for years.

 

I also have my eye on one of the Quilter Micro pro combos. I'm not sure if the 8" speaker one, 10" speaker one or 12" speaker one I would like best. I definitely don't need the 12" 200 watt HD one.

 

 

[joshhpmusic]

These are all great recommendations- I checked out a lot of them but it's all a bit overwhelming. Seems to me like most of them are all good in their own rights, but none astoundingly great in the clean section and/or within my budget. In the process I realized that it's really just not worth my time and effort right now to find the right amp and shell out the cash too. I'm most definitely going for a Line 6 Helix LT with PA soon, which I know I'll be ale to get a plethora of incredible tones out of.

 

And in the meantime, I'm thinking I don't hate the Tubemeister quite as much as I thought I did. Mostly because I changed out the power tubes for Saratov's (made a huge difference) and the preamp tubes for a Tone King something-or-other and a JJ.

 

Now I think the reason it still sounds a little "dead", or lacking in depth and warmth, is probably up to that Panama cab's "V30" style speaker.

Can anyone recommend a good 12" for getting a really smooth, dynamic, warm sound?

 

Thanks so much,

-Josh

[WRGKMC]

In order to choose a speaker you have to know where you're at before you can choose where you want to go. Words like glassy, warm, punchy, dark, piercing are laymen terms that really don't express the details needed to make both wise or correct decisions.

 

What we need to do is analyze what you got then decide where you need to go.

 

The graph below shows the V 30 has a fairly flat response and has a fairly strong output. Your Mid and Treble controls on the amp should give you a fairly truthful response using this speaker. If anything its bass end is a but weak so you may have to crank it higher then usual which can make a low wattage amp fart out a bit when cranked.

 

[ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"V30.JPG","data-attachmentid":32129885}[/ATTACH]

 

Since this V 30 is fairly flat, where you set your EQ controls van tell us where you need to go with a speaker change. If your tone controls are all set to 12 o'clock and you don't have to boost or cut the lows mids or highs then a speaker swap would involve a speaker swap with a similar frequency response. My Cream back Celestin's for example have nearly an identical flat response curve and sound good with nearly any amp.

 

If you find you're having to crank the treble and bass to get your amp to sound good, then maybe this speaker might be a good choice.

 

The eminence Patriot series like this Canibis Rex are designed for producing an "American" tone associated with Fender amps. As you can see in this graph the frequencies take a larger bump in the highs between 2 and 5Khz. This is what's considered to be Glass Tones to those who lack it and ice pick tones to those who have too much of it. If you're having to crank the treble on your amp up, a speaker like this should fix that problem. If you run your treble in the middle this speaker will likely wind up giving you ice pick tones, especially with a fender guitar.

 

Compared to the top end the mids will sound a bit scooped but its about the same as the V 30. If you run the mids center then you can probably continue to do so. Lows are much stronger compared to the V30. The lows are in the 100dB range and remain strong down to 100Hz compared to the V 30 which begins to taper off at 150Hz. If you were having to boost the bass or the bass sounded flubby this speaker should help allot there.

 

The manufacture advertises this as: The Eminence Cannabis Rex guitar speaker lets your laid-back style come through. Clean and full, with lots of body and sparkle. Smokey smooth with high end definition. Country, Jazz or Classical guitarists take notice.

 

That doesn't mean a whole lot to me because a speaker makes no sound on its own.Its the matching of the speaker to a particular amp and the speaker to the cab that makes the biggest difference

 

[ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"003 Rex.JPG","data-attachmentid":32129886}[/ATTACH]

 

 

 

 

What you cant tell by these charts and descriptions is how the speakers will respond to your pickups and pick attack. You can have nearly identical frequency responses but the way a speaker feels when you dig in can be very different depending on your needs. I prefer something that goes from warm and clean to blusey to almost violin like when driven. Others prefer a speaker that goes from clean to metal with spikey attacks when overdriven so their power chords attack.

 

How a speaker, and amp work together when they are fed by different pickups are that third rail you may need to also iron out. Your glass like tones may already be there and you simply aren't feeding the amp with the right pickups to produce it. Overwound pickups typically produce too much mids and not enough highs and lows. Vintage would tend to have extended highs and lows (which is why I prefer them). If they are too weak they start sounding like an acoustic guitar. With the rig you have an the V30 you should be getting a very flat response if you're using the right pickups.

 

 

Vintage pickups tend to overdrive less which can also help with a head that has allot of gain. Don't rule out pickup height either. A 3mm can produce allot more drive then a setting of 4mm with a normal vintage wind. With hot wound you could adjust them down 5mm and it has no effect at all besides more mud. Single coils like Fender pups tend to have narrow and focused magnetic field so they have a strong upper mid attack. P90's have a much wider magnetic field and focused center. Because that field encapsulates a wider area of the string they tend to have warmer bottom end and are excellent for full bodied jazz tones. Driven they have a more complex and warmer drive tone compared to a Fender.

 

All of this effects what you get from an amp. When I switch from a LP to a Tele the differences in tone are stark. The important thing is I have enough EQ control on the amp to get my signature tones or at least close enough so I can play well. I don't expect my LP to be as bright as my Tele nor the Tele as dark and warm as my LP. They are different instruments made of different woods using different bridges pickups etc. I expect them to sound different and change my playing styles accordingly.

 

The pedals you use are another big factor too. I'll skip that for now other then to say they will alter your pickup outputs. Hopefully you're making amp judgments based on the guitar bypassing all effects. Makes no sense buying an amp to match a pedal when its cheaper to match the pedal to the amp. Some pedals can do an amazing job matching pickups to the amp however so they have to be included as part of the chain is you use them. Even if its only an EQ or frequency enhancer it can do allot to negate issues with getting a good guitar to match an amp.

[DeepEnd]

To add to what WRGKMC said, here's the response for a Jensen C12K, which is fairly typical Jensen:

 

[ATTACH=JSON]{"data-align":"none","data-size":"full","title":"Jen_C12K.jpg","data-attachmentid":32130042}[/ATTACH]

You'll notice stronger bass than either the Celestion or the Eminence, which sometimes sounds "warmer." Modern Fender amps typically have Eminence speakers, Jensens have more of a classic tone.