Question:
after month's of being a tightwad, i dropped the bomb and ordered a crowther hot cake, for a fender deville. (last attempt to salvage the amp as im playing through a les paul and its not the best of combinations...) supposedly the HC is known to excell through clean-ish amps...'65 twin, AC30, Dr. Z?, etc.. and im hoping that this will help the weak drive channel of the fender. other than the hot cake, any other ideas as far as OD's for clean amps?
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I've heard swapping the 6L6's (6V6's?) on the Deville for THD yellowjackets (turing the amp into a class A amp) does WONDERS....
check the reviews on HC, they all love the YJ's for their devilles, I have tried them in my Deluxe Reverb and they sound AWESOME
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hmm, thats interesting...is that the same thing that is supposed to allow EL84's in place of the 6L6's? i dont know very much about them, as ive never looked into it...how do they affect the output wattage?
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The output is cut in half, but, it is going From Class AB to Class A, I had a volume change, but it was good, instead of playing the amp at '2' I can get up to '4' now, so you can actually get better sound....
there is no biasing needed, simply pop out your 6L6's, and pop in the Yj's (on some models a ground wire is req'd, but it isn't a big deal) and WHAMMO
Yes, they utilize EL34's
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I could think of many ideas. There's ton of OD pedals that work well with Fender HR series amps. One of the weaknesses of the HR series is a weak stock speaker. You might try swapping those for a nice pair of just about anything else.
The HRDvl and HRDlx come with stock GT tubes. Some say that a swap in tubes will give you better tone (this hasn't been my experience so far...but I'm still breaking my new JJs in). I'm really curious as to how Yellow Jackets change an amp from Class A/B to Class A though...and they utilize EL84s, not 34s...
just curious, what other things have you already tried to "salvage" the amp with?
Answer:
Originally Posted by thesteve I could think of many ideas. There's ton of OD pedals that work well with Fender HR series amps. One of the weaknesses of the HR series is a weak stock speaker. You might try swapping those for a nice pair of just about anything else.
The HRDvl and HRDlx come with stock GT tubes. Some say that a swap in tubes will give you better tone (this hasn't been my experience so far...but I'm still breaking my new JJs in). I'm really curious as to how Yellow Jackets change an amp from Class A/B to Class A though...and they utilize EL84s, not 34s...
just curious, what other things have you already tried to "salvage" the amp with? Yes, 84's thanks....
I dunno how they work, but they sound sweet
I know they come with JJ telsa tubes...
Answer:
Originally Posted by thesteve I could think of many ideas. There's ton of OD pedals that work well with Fender HR series amps. One of the weaknesses of the HR series is a weak stock speaker. You might try swapping those for a nice pair of just about anything else.
actually the thought of this had only just stuck me a couple of weeks ago, and i had been looking at weber blues, or maybe a pair of greenbacks? but as of late, have nothing to show for it. i would imagine it would be a worthy investment, however. as for previous attempts in the salvage department, i am ashamed to admit, nothing...aside from a tube change. so i suppose that im sort of jumping to conclusions as far as my wanting to rid myself of it. im hoping that the yellow jackets will help considerably, and from what ive heard, they should. a pair of decent speakers i imagine would also aid the overall sound of the amp.
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i'm going to replacing the stock in my HRDlx with a Jensen/Jensen-clone (not sure...got it from eBay)...i'll let you know how that turns out in a few days.
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sounds good, also..this is becoming more of an amp thread than anything else, so feel free to move as needed.
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this just came to me, before i drop anything on the YJ, am i going to lose any of the cleans that im definitely attracted to as far as fender is concerned?
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Originally Posted by omensixaxe this just came to me, before i drop anything on the YJ, am i going to lose any of the cleans that im definitely attracted to as far as fender is concerned? you'll probably end up losing headroom with the wattage drop.
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I love my YJ's. I go back and forth between using them and using 6L6's in my 1974 Marshall 100 watt JMP. And just by using the YJ's you don't make your amp a Class A amp...your turn the output section of your amp into a Class A amp. The tubes stop functioning in push/pull (AB) and run full power all of the time. That's why Class A amps have so much kick with the lower wattage. The craziest Class A amp I've played was a Komet. It's 60 watts. INSANE! But it sounds amazing.
The Hot Cake...Yummy! I love that pedal. IMHO it's the most transparent OD I've ever played. 90% of the time I play through my Gibson Goldtone (it's a 12", 15 watt, Class A amp). The Hot Cake inspired me to dump my Tube Screamers. For the price (used, of course) there's not a pedal out there that can touch it.
Peace,
Mark
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Originally Posted by Woltrap The craziest Class A amp I've played was a Komet. It's 60 watts. INSANE! But it sounds amazing. how do you know it's Class A...I couldn't find any designation of such on the website.
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actually, i got the bluesberry and im happy with it, just not overjoyed. ive found it to be somewhat of a "one trick pony." the transparency is excellent, and it cleans up VERY well. it still gets pretty fizzy when the gain is cranked..(think 3 'o clock and up) but it acts an excellent boost as well. so call it mixed feelings. its interesting though that you flushed your TS collection over it. ive found that its not like a TS at all. more like an overly natural, amp-like OD rather than a tubescreamer, which ive found seems to find their own feel and sound to the whole equation. ive heard that komet's were class A too..but not sure where i was told that. still, i know little about the amps themselves so it could go either way.
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I've got an HR D 4x10, which config do you have?. Could you describe specifically what you don't like about the Drive channel? You said "weak" - not enuf gain?.... There may be something that can be done.
You might find guitarvana with an OD pedal, I think their "mojo" is probably in the fact that they boost the signal, and drive the amp differently; slamming the first tube stage with a hotter signal creates more saturation at that and subsequent stages. Either that, or its the wonderful sound of the clipping diodes they use for distortion.
BTW, I have not used an LP thru mine much, but when I did I wasn't crazy about it on first impression either, but that's just personal taste. I'd have to spend some time with it and see if I could tweak it into submission. I love it with a strat or tele though, that 4x10 config for me is the ultimate "Fender" thang. I did a couple mods to mine which give it a little more tonal flexibility.