Need suggestions for Hot Rod DLX 212 improvements

**thebigcheese** · 01-21-2013

So here's the deal. The frontman in my band has a fetish for Fender amps that the bassist and I (who are kind of tone snobs, I have to admit) have never really understood. For a long time, he was convinced that his Frontman 212R was fantastic. It was only after months of badgering and the Frontman finally starting to die that we convinced him to get a tube amp, and the Hot Rod Deluxe 212 was what he wanted. The problem is, he's not that great a player and he has a Gibson Les Paul Studio from a not-so-great year, and right now his tone is just mud. Trebly, yucky mud. Given that he hasn't even finished paying off this amp yet and will probably never want anything else (good tone to him seems to just mean he can hear himself), what are some things we can try to improve his tone to be more articulate and clear?

We are currently trying to get him to get a new guitar. He really likes the look of Teles and I think that might help a lot, as playing my Strat seemed to improve his tone in that I could actually hear what he was playing. Has anyone tried any upgrades to the amp itself that have yielded good results? I don't know if he'd go for swapping the speakers just because then someone would have to buy them (though I have one 8 ohm G12H, so we could just get one more). I wanted to try it through some of my cabs to see if maybe a closed-back cab would help, but the impedance requirements of that amp are really bizarre (I think it wants a 4 ohm load, last I checked). When I had a Blues Jr. a long time ago, I did the Billm mod to it, though I don't remember how much good that did. I am more than able to mod the thing, if I can convince him to let me.

Suggestions?

**antichef** · 01-21-2013

Well, my ears may be more like your front man's than yours, but if you can get him to turn the volume on his guitar from 10 down to 9, that might clear things up.

edit: I've also got a Blues Jr., which I think is in the same line as the hot rod. It was biased really hot, and I thought it sounded muddy. I changed out a resistor to lower the bias (I think this was described in the BillM mods), and it got a lot better. I still don't like it very much.

**ocnor** · 01-21-2013

He is most likely setting the controls wrong. He shouldn't run the drive any higher than about 7 or it will turn muddy. Have him turn the drive down and run a tubescreamer in front of the amp.

**Greg_L** · 01-22-2013

Get a new guitar player. That's probably easier than convincing someone they're doing it all wrong.

**thebigcheese** · 01-22-2013

Originally Posted by ocnor

He is most likely setting the controls wrong. He shouldn't run the drive any higher than about 7 or it will turn muddy. Have him turn the drive down and run a tubescreamer in front of the amp.

He actually tries not to get any drive from the amp, so the gain is set pretty low. He often practices on my OR15H rather than bringing his amp to my house for practice, but we did get him to bring the amp to practice once so we could just sit down and figure out a tone. I also sat down with it at GC to just fiddle with it and sent him a picture with my tone settings to see if that helps. I do our mixing and it's really hard to get him to sit in the mix when his guitar takes up so much real estate.

Trust me, we've been trying to get him to just sing as much as possible, but the problem is he and I are the ones who started the band way back when and we're close friends, so I can't just kick him out altogether. And he really wants to be able to play guitar. I know a lot of the problem has got to be his playing and his guitar because he still sounds muddy through my OR15, which isn't a muddy amp at all when I play it. I'm trying to at least get him to stop hitting open D/E all the time when he's playing chords, but a little more articulation out of the amp would help, too.

**antichef** · 01-22-2013

What kind of pickups does the Les Paul have? I'm still thinking a slight roll-off on the volume knob will help.

**thebigcheese** · 01-22-2013

Originally Posted by antichef

What kind of pickups does the Les Paul have? I'm still thinking a slight roll-off on the volume knob will help.

We're not exactly sure. It's an early 2000s, so if that's the same as current models, that's a 490R and a 498T. I dig the Burstbuckers in the new satin series, but he doesn't have that for sure. I haven't really tried rolling off the volume or the tone, but that could help. I have played around with pickup height to get what I can out of them. He rides the neck pickup for the most part, so I've been trying to convince him to get a Pearly Gates, my favorite neck pickup. I have some pickups off a PRS SE (no idea what model, though), but I doubt those would be an improvement.

I haven't tried swapping out tubes yet, either, so maybe I should dig in to that before I convince him to let me swap components...

**antichef** · 01-22-2013

I've been playing an SG with 57 Classics. Both the bridge and the neck have this little range from about 9.1 to 10 where there's a significant boost in output and things can get muddy.

Changing tubes may or may not help - if the bias is hot (like my Blues Jr.), then I doubt a tube swap would help. The hot rod is higher in the line - it may have an adjustable bias - the Blues Jr. was fixed. If there's an amp tech nearby he or she could make quick work of it, I'm sure. It's worth noting that I'm spouting off at the mouth without actually having heard anything - I'm just speculating, and feel somewhat comfortable based on how horrible my Blues Jr. sounded at first.

**thebigcheese** · 01-22-2013

Just looked it up on Eurotubes and it looks really easy to adjust the bias. It is adjustable and designed to be simple to change, including test points for a probe. I'll give that a shot, as well as having him roll off the volume a bit. Maybe I can try different caps in the guitar, too, just to see.