player opinions
Fender Hot Rod DeVille 410
Name: Anselmo Blotta
Band: Buffalo Billys
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Model Year: 1998
Price Paid: $1,200
Performance
I love my Fender Hot Rod! It’s great for a twang sound playing with a 6120 Gretchs. The drive channel is a little difficult to control. I always turn the tone middle and bass as high as possible when working with the volume control. And that’s excellent for getting the best tone out of my Fender. I’m from Argentina and play swing with a big band!
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Performance Rating: 9
Sound Quality
It’s great... It’s the perfect amp for my Gretchs.
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Sound Quality Rating: 10
Construction
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Very Solid.
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Construction Rating: 10
Name: Ron Adkit
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Band: -----
Model Year: 1998
Price Paid: $750
Performance
It’s easy to figure out and use. Loud.
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Performance Rating: 8
Sound Quality
Great blues amp with decent overdrive. The clean channel loses its tone when the amp gets loud and makes chords lose their clarity. It’s not like it was distorting either it just sounds bad at high volumes. Has pretty good reverb. Returned it and got a Marshall which had a clean channel that sounded clear to full volume.
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Sound Quality Rating: 6
Construction
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It was built solid enough.
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Construction Rating: 8
Name: Robert Bartlett
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Band: -----
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Model Year: -----
Price Paid: $250 (Australian) plus HotRod DeLuxe amp
Performance
Well, did I do the right thing by trading my DeLuxe and parting with an extra $250? Honestly? Yes, simply because the DeVille 4x10 delivers that big Fender amp sound. I think it’s comparable to a Bassman and a Twin and more usable than both. A previous review at this site complains of the amp being too loud in the overdrive stages. I tend to agree but I have completely cured that problem and made the amp all-round sweeter by replacing the GT 6L6 power tubes with Bob Smicz’s TADs which reduce the whole gig from 60W to about 5W but WAIT FOR IT those 5Watts are LOUD enough to gig with, not so loud that the amp gets out of hand and they enable you to use the amp’s sweet spot at a volume that even other band members can tolerate (and that’s saying something). It’s easy to work and play, I set it on clean and don’t touch anything other than my guitars and the level of reverb which can be either over the top or subtle to taste. The presence control is something of an un-needed extra, giving the amp a slightly harsher edge when employed (to my ears) so I tend to run that at about 1, reverb at about 2 and let Mr. Fender do the rest. The amp can be a bit toppy until you start to play with the EQ and then there’s enough bottom available to rumble the cat out of his basket. ALL but ALL Fender amps have their warts and this one is no exception but they’re so easy to turn off (the warts that is) and the clean sound is so glorious it’s probably the closest you can get to a 59 Bassman without shelling out the US $2500 - $3500 they’re asking for ’em these days.
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Performance Rating: 10
Sound Quality
Effects are clean now with the TADs in. When I was running the Groove Tubes there was all sorts of crackle and hum. I suspect the tubes were not the best/unbalanced/not matched/on their last legs who knows? TADs cured all that. ALSO... mine was an American model so it came without an earth pin on the plug. I replaced the original for the three-pin system (like the UK’s) that we have here in Singapore and that helped with noise too. I also found that turning off the desk light nearby when playing my single-coil Strats and Teles, yes and the Les Paul Standards and Juniors too, cut out 99.9 per cent of extraneous noise. Bloody obvious solution but often overlooked. The tone of the amp is everything you would expect from a good, tube Fender and certainly more flexible than its older counterparts, you know, Twin Reverbs are awesome but they deliver only at volume levels that most of us even in bands, let alone bedrooms, rarely get up to. There’s no mud to the sound (that’s a product of guitars so far as I’m concerned and something I’ve fixed by retrofitting my instruments with good-quality CTS pots and either Sprague or Jensen caps.)
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Sound Quality Rating: 10
Construction
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Top quality, solid as a rock, even the backboard which is wafer-thin on some other Fender ReIssue models.
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Construction Rating: 10
Name: George Torrisi
Band: Kryptic
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Model Year: -----
Price Paid: $1700 Australian
Performance
I have the later version of this amp which has a clean channel, a drive and a more drive. The clean channel gives you that traditional Fender Valve sound. I do some clean gigs using a Fender Squire and I can sound just like the Shadows. My main guitar is a Les Paul Studio light. Fantastic sustain. I have a few problems with the drive channel. It is too loud. I find it hard to control in small venues. However if the amp is cranked up, it will distort naturally. Great for Hendrix numbers ( using Squire ). I can also get that Carlos Santana sound in Smooth using drive channel cranked up loud with Les Paul and great ACDC. However, if I play at a small venue, I use a BOSS ME8 drive as at low volumes the amp is hard to control and does not distort well. It weighs a ton and I have trouble lifting it. Overall a good amp.
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Performance Rating: 8
Sound Quality
As stated above the amp gives a really clean tone in the clean channel. The drive channel is not too good unless you crank the amp up, the tubes naturally distort. Then it is good. Else, you are better off buying separate pedals. Fender needs to improve this feature.
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Sound Quality Rating: 8
Construction
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I have had the amp for 1 1/2 years. So far so good.
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Construction Rating: 8
stats
Average Ratings
- Performance: 8.6
- Sound Quality: 8
- Construction: 8.6
Ratings Key
- 10: Excellent
- 0: Useless
Available At Guitar Center
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Fender Hot Rod DeVille 410 Black
Company
- Fender