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If you buy a Hot Rod you can always put a 12AT7 in V1 and replace the speaker for a Jensen C12K (aren't they cheaper in Italy?) and practically have a GB amp!
Originally Posted by gianluca
Dutch guitarist Martijn van Iterson uses a Hot Rod amp with his ES125 and I love his tone!
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12-05-2014 08:24 AM
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They both are exactly the same. The GB is a HRD with a different speaker, a 12AT7 in V1, and a pine cab. Power unit in a GB is a HRD unit. Basic difference is the speakers and the HRD has a plywood cab.
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Be careful (especially if you are buying a used HRDx), GB is based on HRDx III not the earlier HRDx models which have few but apparently important circuit mods.
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The only good thing about the III version is the taper pots & the reversed faceplate. The sparkle mod on the III is bad for jazz though. The III version is much brighter and trebly then the previous HRD version. Also the QC these days on the Mexican made Fenders is not the best. Also make sure you bias your amp to around 70m. They all come from the factory set at 60m. Fender does that for there 5 year warranty but that is way too cold for your power tubes. Makes the amp response lifeless. I have found 68-72m to be the sweet spot for the Fender hot rod amps for max headroom and a sweet jazz sound.
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From the Bill M Blues Jr page (goes for the Hot Rod too), he offers a 'Sparkle Control' to reduce the highs:
Sparkle Control for Blues Junior III (and others)
With the Series III, introduced in September, 2010, Fender implemented a “sparkle mod,” which means that they removed a voicing capacitor, C9 on the cream board, which limited the amp’s high-frequency brightness. The Series III is definitely brighter than previous BJrs, but it can also be harsh and strident, even irritating. The Sparkle Control makes the amount of sparkle reduction adjustable from zero (stock Series III) to the same as the series II, to even darker, like the old green board (1995-2000) Blues Juniors. When you pull up on the knob, it defeats the control and gives you the stock BJr III amount of sparkle.The Sparkle Control operates much like a tweed-era tone control, rolling off harsh highs gently, across a spectrum that covers the treble control and steadily declining through part of the high midrange. Instead of the usual tone control location in the preamp, the Sparkle Control is positioned just before the output stage, so it “seasons” the tone regardless of your bass, mids, and treble settings.Why not just turn down the treble control? The treble control actually has a “balance” function built into it. When you turn up the treble, it reduces the input from the bass and mids controls, and vice versa. When you turn down the treble, it increases the bass and mids, which is why your amp will distort more easily if you back off on the treble. With the Sparkle Control, the ratio stays the same, but the highs are tamed.You can make a Series III sound like a series II, a Series II (2001-2010 cream board) sound like a Series III, and either of them sound like the old 1995-2000 green board. It will also brighten the green board, giving it a high-end sheen that you didn’t know was there.It works well with the presence control and gives you a wide variety of additional tones and inflections.In this picture, the small knob on the left is the presence control. The one between the Middle and Master is the new Sparkle Control.I’ll have recordings up shortly.
Click for larger image.
Source: Billm Audio » Sparkle control tames brightness on Blues Junior
Last edited by Little Jay; 12-05-2014 at 03:40 PM.
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Originally Posted by Little Jay
From the Bill M Blues Jr page (goes for the Hot Rod too), he offers a 'Sparkle Control' to reduce the highs:
Sparkle Control for Blues Junior III (and others)
With the Series III, introduced in September, 2010, Fender implemented a “sparkle mod,” which means that they removed a voicing capacitor, C9 on the cream board, which limited the amp’s high-frequency brightness. The Series III is definitely brighter than previous BJrs, but it can also be harsh and strident, even irritating. The Sparkle Control makes the amount of sparkle reduction adjustable from zero (stock Series III) to the same as the series II, to even darker, like the old green board (1995-2000) Blues Juniors. When you pull up on the knob, it defeats the control and gives you the stock BJr III amount of sparkle.The Sparkle Control operates much like a tweed-era tone control, rolling off harsh highs gently, across a spectrum that covers the treble control and steadily declining through part of the high midrange. Instead of the usual tone control location in the preamp, the Sparkle Control is positioned just before the output stage, so it “seasons” the tone regardless of your bass, mids, and treble settings.Why not just turn down the treble control? The treble control actually has a “balance” function built into it. When you turn up the treble, it reduces the input from the bass and mids controls, and vice versa. When you turn down the treble, it increases the bass and mids, which is why your amp will distort more easily if you back off on the treble. With the Sparkle Control, the ratio stays the same, but the highs are tamed.You can make a Series III sound like a series II, a Series II (2001-2010 cream board) sound like a Series III, and either of them sound like the old 1995-2000 green board. It will also brighten the green board, giving it a high-end sheen that you didn’t know was there.It works well with the presence control and gives you a wide variety of additional tones and inflections.In this picture, the small knob on the left is the presence control. The one between the Middle and Master is the new Sparkle Control.I’ll have recordings up shortly.Click for larger image.
Source: Billm Audio » Sparkle control tames brightness on Blues Junior
Maybe it's the treble roll-off in my inner ears but I could not get a "harsh and strident, even irritating" treble from my GB HRDx's clean channel, I did not try it for the overdrive channel (I had turned treble knob all the way down for that).
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It's that sweet Jensen C12k you have in your GB. You can't get a harsh sound out of those lovely speakers IMO. It is the same speaker Fender uses in their Deluxe and Twin. A lot of people love the Cannibis Rex but I like the Jensen C12k way better but it is just my single opinion. Everyone has their own tone that pleases their ear.
I think the Fender GB is a great amp. Wonder how much $$$ old George gets for every amp sold ?
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Originally Posted by medblues
I did find the amp a little brite, but better than dark and was adding a bit more bass than I typically would on a Fender. But adding bass sounds more natural than adding treble and bringing up the hiss and noise of everything in the signal chain.
After some of the comment this morning I was checking out posts on HRD III and they said the difference in the HRD III versus old models is Fender added the Sparkle mod that other had been doing on older HRD amps. The main complaint was not for in on the Clean channel but when the Dirty channel is in use. Some were clipping a capacitor on a pot to change the sound, others trying other things. On thing people seems to do a lot was increase the bias on the power tubes. They were saying Fender is on the modest side around 60 because of the five year warranty and they suggest bring it up a little to 70-72. Others were saying they were do the tube changes to JJ's for the 6l6's and assorted ones on the pre-amp. There people were talking the regular HRD not the Benson.
So lots of info on the web for this amp.
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I heard that old HRDx's were having switching between channels problems and the overdrive was not as usable as the IIIs. Reverb is supposed to be warmer on the IIIs too (in addition to potentiometer and brightness control changes). I had a fully Bill M modded Blues Jr which I traded up for the GB HRDx. Did not read any good reviews of IIIs vs older ones yet.
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Only thing you need to do on your Benson is bump up the bias to 70m. The GT power tubes these days are very good.
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Up until 3 days ago, I've been playing through a fender hot rod deluxe III... nice amp.
then a used, but mint cond. fender george benson came my way...and i checked it out...in my opinion. at least for jazz, the george benson fender hot rod rules.. warmer, less harsh, less brittle sounding. swapped out the fender hot rod for the george benson...It was a no-brainer.
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The switching between channels-thing is a flaw in the old USA-made series Hot Rod and Blues amp. There are two ceramic 470k/5w resistors that can become very hot and can cause solder joints to break. Since these resistors deliver the 16v that also powers the channel switching relays, all kind of unpredictable random things occur. My old Blues Deluxe suffered from that, but I fixed it by resoldering everything (and some other measures). Originally Posted by medblues
It's a good thing to bare in mind that these amps are all PCB-amps with pots and tube feet soldered directly to the print and in time - depending on how much you gig and travel with your amp - it will develop cracks in the solder joints (and other problems). It's easily fixed, but something to bear in mind and it doesn't hurt to check the PCB with a looking glass from time to time and reflow suspicious looking solder joints.
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Originally Posted by Little Jay
There are some Mod kits out there that address this and other issues with higher quality key components and better metal switchcraft input jacks.
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Yes I know the kits, but it's easily fixed with some parts from the local or online electronics store and costs only a few bucks..... But of course you need to know what you're doing (internet is your friend
). The kits are more easy of course.
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I did do a a/b comparsion between the george b. and the standard hotrod deluxe III.. long story short,
get the george b.
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So here's what I did with my HRD:
-replaced stock speaker with Eminence Cannabis Rex
-installed a 5751 in V1, a 12dw7 in V2, and a 4024 (12at7) in V3
-installed JJ 6l6gc output tubes, biased to 65mv
-bass on 3
-treble on 1
-mid on 5
-presence on 1
-reverb on 2 1/2
with my ES 175's volume and tone on 7 1/2, these changes transform the amp and give me plenty of usable clean headroom with oodles of classic jazz tone.
with just the 12at7 in v1, not nearly as nice.....
Benson owners should try that tube in the v3 position instead of v1- just swap it with the 12ax7.
Bill
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I totally agree. A 12AT7 has the wrong plate voltage for V1. Perfect for PI/V3 though. 5751 in V1.
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I even went a little further with my Blues Deluxe (but my mods work for the Hot Rod too), after I put a 12AY7 in V1 and a 12AT7 in V3 (didn't like a 12AT7 in V1) and a Jensen C12K as the speaker.
After that I did the 'Twin Stack Mod', a very simple mod jumpering two lugs of the mid pot so it works the same as in Fender's BF/SF-circuits (the mid-pot in de Blues/Hot Rod series is actually incorporated the same way as in a Marshall-circuit), just google it for the details.
I liked that a lot, it moved the amp a lot more into blackface/sliverface territory soundwise: more mid scoop and being able to completely dial-out bass if you want. Then I changed the .022uF cap of the middle pot to .047uF as in most AB763 Fender circuits, also changed the original 25k midpot to 10k (à la Twin Reverb). While in there I changed the ceramic treble and bright caps to silver mica - that really smoothens the highs imho (I left the values the same as they were already correct for AB763-circuits.)
Lastly I cut a hi-pass cap in the reverb circuit (also a common mod), which takes a lot of hiss out of the reverb and sounds a lot better on low volumes to my ear.
My Blues Deluxe sounds now a lot closer to my Twin Reverb and is almost like a 6L6-Deluxe Reverb.
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Thanks, I've seen those mods, but didn't want to modify the circuits or increase the mid scoop.
if you look at the frequency response of this amp with all tone pots on 5, it has plenty of scoop now.
By turning bass and treble way down and mids up, the official flat jazz tone a la Polytone comes through.
It now sounds more like Henriksen or Mambo than Fender.
BTW, in 1967 I had a pre CBS Twin Reverb with JBL D120s and a pre CBS telecaster.
Both sold long ago, but wished I'd kept them in a closet!
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I am not sure about that. My impression is that, while there are subtle changes with respect to which tubes are used, the HRD GB is still a Fender tube amp, adding that typical Fender type sound pattern to your guitar. I surely enjoy playing mine, but if I want to know how my guitars 'really sound like', I would definitely go elsewhere. Originally Posted by Joe DeNisco
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finally I have bought an GB hot rod and I can confirm it is really a great amp.
to me it is better than a twin reverb.
I play gig with heavy drummers and I never had any issue about clean tone.
here two clips about the tone I can get
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Nice ! Now, just for grins , trade the first and third tubes and be set for a treat!
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The clarity is amazing isn't it?
funny thing is, now I play my gb10 through my gb hot rod and I sound NOTHING like George Benson. More like George Carlin... I am glad it worked out for you Gianluca!
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Michael Landau has a signature Hotrod now as well. Two clean channels with separate volumes for both instead of the dirty channel.
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amazing, yes Originally Posted by Joe DeNisco
the first E and B are never thin and you can shape very well the basses.
I'm curious to hear some clip from you with the gb10 and the fender gb: I mean, everyone can listen to what mr. benson can do with that gear; but I'm curious to hear a "normal" human being. like you and me .
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