Why is this happening to me?

[Brandon]

Ok..I play in a little four piece band in Tulsa, Ok and we cover a variety of country/southern rock music. Let me give you some equipment info before I get to my question. Tele w/ Fralins and a strat mid p/u, with a 5-way switch - boss compressor - boss distortion - danelectro - boss delay - boss chorus - hot rod deluxe (settings: treb=6,bass=5.5, mids=8, pres=6, & reverb at 3. Whew.......ok. I sound ok while were are going through some chicken picken stuff, but my amp sounds like it has a distortion to it. When I switch to my mid p/u to fingerpick something like "The Dance" by GB it still has this bothersome "breakup" I love the Don Rich, Roy Nichols, "chicken pickin'" thang, which calls for some breakup in your tubes. I'm not going to ask the ..."what are your settings?" question, but I can't seem to get a good clean "ballsy" sound. Do my settings look somewhat right? Can the attack on my compressor be set wrong? Should I be using compression? What happens to an amp when the tubes get old? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I think what I need is the fender twin (100w) to tell the truth. Any pointers on "dialing in" that true vintage tele sound would be great.

[Acephspades]

Sounds like the same thing I went through with my HRDlx. I play country as well. I always loved the HRDlx at home but it seemed to thin out and sound raspy at gigs. IMO it also seemed to lack the punch I was needing, oh and that glassy chime at home volumes seemed to disappear in the band setting.

My settings were very similar to yours ( I play a tele). Bass=5, mids=12, treb=6-7, reverb=2-3, presence=aroound 6ish. IMO I think the amp lacked the mids to cut the mix. Everything was too trebley for me but it seemed like if I turned the bass control up it got kind of "farty". Before you laugh I sold mine and bought a PV Bandit. PV amps generally have a very pronounced midrange in comparison to Fenders and that little amp really cuts through the mix. I don't use the clean channel that much, which is a nice sounding channel, instead I use the lead channel on the vintage setting with the pre-gain down around 2.5, bass=7, mids=4, treble=6 reverb=5, presence=5, T-Dynamics 50% and that give me a warm, thick tone that gives me a little edge when I pick hard and thickens back up when I lay off my attack. It's a pretty good little amp.

[Tim Bowen]

Originally Posted by Brandon

Ok..I play in a little four piece band in Tulsa, Ok and we cover a variety of country/southern rock music. Let me give you some equipment info before I get to my question. Tele w/ Fralins and a strat mid p/u, with a 5-way switch - boss compressor - boss distortion - danelectro - boss delay - boss chorus - hot rod deluxe (settings: treb=6,bass=5.5, mids=8, pres=6, & reverb at 3. Whew.......ok. I sound ok while were are going through some chicken picken stuff, but my amp sounds like it has a distortion to it. When I switch to my mid p/u to fingerpick something like "The Dance" by GB it still has this bothersome "breakup" I love the Don Rich, Roy Nichols, "chicken pickin'" thang, which calls for some breakup in your tubes. I'm not going to ask the ..."what are your settings?" question, but I can't seem to get a good clean "ballsy" sound. Do my settings look somewhat right? Can the attack on my compressor be set wrong? Should I be using compression? What happens to an amp when the tubes get old? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. I think what I need is the fender twin (100w) to tell the truth. Any pointers on "dialing in" that true vintage tele sound would be great.

Wow, where to start...

"Mids=8"

Seriously? Blackface Fenders (and such) are indeed a bit shy in the mids, but if you're bumping the mids that much to compensate, your cleanish tones for rhythms and fills will probably suffer significantly, although the gainy lead rides might sound cool. Set your base tone EQ a bit more on the 'flat' side, and call on pedals for more mids/gain/compression/whatnot.

I often hear of tele players complaining of such. Instead of bumping lows and mids if the high end is a bit harsh, simply reduce the highs at your guitar's tone knob. It's a much more effective fix on the bandstand.

- boss compressor - boss distortion - danelectro - boss delay - boss chorus

I'm no true bypass snob, but running all those buffers in your chain is likely compromising your base tone quite a bit, and by default, several of those peds add to the mids emphasis/loss of high end. There's no real reference to the base tone of the amp, not that you can't work around it in a pinch. What sort of cables are you employing? You might consider using George L's patch cables. I notice that you don't use a clean boost in your chain... first thing I'd suggest to folks that run a rig such as yours is that a boost is pretty much mandantory. You can run it as the last gainer, or last in line and closest to the amp, depending upon your needs. Running an el cheapo (also buffered) MXR Micro Amp late in the chain could possibly solve many of your problems.

& reverb at 3

For live work, I rarely employ reverb, as it's the tonal/presence/punch kiss of death, in my experience. A really great sounding delay is probably a better fit for ambience, in my opinion. I do use Fender amp 'verb @ 3 and above for cutting tracks, but this is usually for hyper-clean tracks, baritone parts, hi-strung stuff. Reverb destroys a tight EQ quicker than anything else.

compressors

A great "hot button" topic here, and elsewhere. If you choose to leave such as a BOSS or a Dynacomp 'on all the time', you'll likely be second-guessing your rig's dynamic transient response, on a regular basis. They're great as an "effect" - Lowell George slide stuff, 80's pop and rock, modern country... however, if you plan to leave a comp engaged much of the time, you might do well to consider some more high fidelity offerings, which are routinely discussed here, ad infinitum.

Good luck!

[Big John]

I'm 99% sure its the amp !, i have one too and am a great defender of the 'much hated around here' HRDlxe but i have started using it with a country band here and like you i want 'clean' but no matter what i do the bands dynamic always puts me in that zone where it just starts to clip and it is becoming annoying !!
The actual sound and tone of the amp is great but its not what i want, when i want it if that makes sense, on any other gig i do that little bit of 'hair' on the tone sounds just like it should.
I have backed off the 12ax7's to 12at7's had the 6L6 bias checked (it was a bit on the hot side) and that helped a little bit it's still doing it, maybe its a 40W 'thing', it just doesnt quite have the headroom.
To make matters worse i played a festival last week where the backline was provided and played a late 70's Twin (normally i would stick my nose up a little) and it sounded glorious !!!
Guess we are just going to have to take a gym class and lift that Twin !!!

[kiwi blue]

Originally Posted by Brandon

I think what I need is the fender twin (100w) to tell the truth.

You've answered your own question. It sounds like you are after a traditional country clean tone. Generally a higher powered amp will give more clean headroom and a nice clear sound. It simply gets louder before the valves distort.

The HR Deville is a pretty good poor man's Twin, as it gets very loud before distorting, but ideally you need to tweak speakers and tubes to get the best tone from them. Mind you, this is true of most modern Fenders, including the HR Deluxe.

A few years back I was making the transition from acoustic guitar to electric and I needed a decent amp in a hurry. The only suitable and affordable choices available locally at the time were the HR Deville and HR Deluxe. In the shop I preferred the Deluxe. When I took them into a studio on appro, I found (like you) I couldn't get a clean enough tone from the Deluxe at a volume that would compete with a band. I bought the Deville.

Since then I've developed a taste for a bit of valve break up and I have the opposite problem - I can't get the Deville to distort at low enough volume.

It's also possible the levels on your pedals are set too high and the signal is pushing the preamp into disortion.

Personally, I would eliminate as many pedals from the chain as possible. It probably won't affect headroom, but it will give your tone more sparkle and they are mostly not necessary. You probably need a good distortion pedal if you are going to mix in Southern rock using an amp with high headroom, and maybe a comp for country.