Fender Hot Rod Deluxe Question?

[Boy_Narf]

Hello Everyone,

This has nothing to do with Orange but I'm sure tons of people on here have experience with this amp.

So I was playing my friends Hot Rod Deluxe yesterday, and switched over to the drive channel (which he has never used). Anyhow, when ever I switched the amp from dirty to clean there was a loud pop, and roughly a 1 second delay before the clean channel engaged.

I have been checking some of the fender forums, and it appears that the pop is normal. I have not however found anything regarding the channel switching lag.

Is this normal for this amp?

Thanks,

[Neiloler]

It's covered here: http://www.justinholton.com/hotrod/

[Icarus]

Let me start by saying i have no experience what-so-ever with this amp(good start eh? ) but i did get the same thing with my old triple rectifier. To remedy this i had to switch the amp on as usual to standby then before switching to 'on' i would switch channels a few times going through the(many) buttons on the footswitch, once i did this the popping was gone as was the slight delay in switching.

I'm thinking the fender has a different footswitch jack than the din connector on the mesa and probably a different switching method but as i said, i know nothing about this amp and its a nice and easy fix if it works for you.

EDIT: Doh, just seen neil posted a thread on it.

[Neiloler]

Hey man, that's practical advice, way better than a link.

I know it's basically caused by the relays building up some sort of charge or something and not reacting quickly. One of the solutions I believe was to switch it a bunch so the relay would electronically "acclimate" to the right coil charge (not sure...) levels? Not sure.

If it were me, I'd want to fix it so I didn't have to do that. I believe the Unofficial Hot Rod Users' Manual details fixing it. It's been a while since I looked at it myself (been a while since I owned a Hot Rod ), but seriously, that site is AWESOME for Hot Rod owners of all makes and models.

[Jondog]

I used to have one, didn't like it very much for the drive. Nice clean tones though. However, those amps seem to be full of malfunction. I've read tons of complaints on them. Things like, the channel switching failing, the pops, bad pots, tube failures and lots of solder joints actually weakening and breaking when the amp gets hot and vibrates.

[chinese fork tie]

tell yr boy to switch the HRD for a silverface and a good fuzzbox. you get the great cleans, better reverb, tremolo and you don't have that shite sounding drive channel to muck up the amp.

[brianr0131]

tell yr boy to switch the HRD for a silverface and a good fuzzbox. you get the great cleans, better reverb, tremolo and you don't have that shite sounding drive channel to muck up the amp.

one of the worst I ever heard in a tube amp

[Cordboard]

It's covered here: http://www.justinholton.com/hotrod/

Glad to see that this website has come back to life! It has been a while...

You can always hot rod your hot rod and make it a cool amp. I have a 4x10 I bought new in 96, changed the tubes, experimented with a little bias fiddling and play it whenever I get the chance to go for power tube distortion on a 60W amp! That is, not often...

All jokes aside, it makes for a great pedal platform.

[ESBlonde]

The HRD is Fenders longest running production run and biggest (unit) selling combo ever. So there are a lot of amps out there and you can expect a lot of failures although proportionally they are very tiny (otherwise Fender would be bankrupted with warranty claims).

The more drive is possibly a bit OTT but the drive (up to about 4) is very usable. It makes a good platform for a guitar setup at a price thats just right.

[Ohara]

I have a HRD and never noticed any popping or lag sound when channel switching, cause well to be totally honest, I have only ever used the drive channel once, maybe twice. I don`t like the sounds it is capable of, to my ears anyways, I find the clean channel absolutely amazing when used with a touch of chorus, but the drive is lacking in all departments for my tastes.

But if you want to run pedals they are a great amp, for the money.

[defrag]

Finally... The Unofficial Hot Rod Owner's Guide is back!
What a painful year w/o.