I’ve always liked to modify my music equipment to suit my liking. Upgrade my guitars electronics, build my own effects (with more or less success to be honest…), experimenting with tubes in my amps, toying with all these things has always been fun to me.
In a few weeks I’ll play a gig with some colleagues on a pretty big stage in Cherbourg, so I thought checking if everything was ok with my Deluxe Reverb wasn’t a bad idea, as I mostly play acoustic at home and the amp is rarely used. Then I remembered some pretty annoying details with it, so it was a good opportunity to bite the bullet and finally fix a few things.
First, the overly sensitive reverb tank.
This has always been a pain in the ass because I couldn’t use the amp if it was touching the floor. Even slowly walking around it on a pretty hard floor was triggering thunder. The problem could even occur when the amp was on a stand or a flight case, though to a lesser extent. It can be a cool effect if you want it, but not for me thanks, especially in the middle of a quiet song… When I was gigging a lot more at substantial volume, it would make the amp so unusable that I had bought a reverb pedal. That’s a shame because the Deluxe is partly known for its desired reverb sound. Yet I had given up.
So I thought I would give it another try, the amp was well worth it. After some research I quickly realised I had already checked the « usual suspects », springs, cables, tubes, nothing to report, all clear. I also had put foam under the tank without success. Then I stumbled upon a note about reverb tanks orientation. In short, they are built to be mounted in a certain direction. Without much conviction, what the hell, let’s try it upside down ! BINGO. No more unwanted noises, I could jump next to the amp like a 80’s heavy metal guitar player without starting a thunderstorm. This was a pretty simple tweak at the end, but I couldn’t imagine the guys at fender’s factory mounting the tank the wrong way round… What a waste of time.
Secondly, make the reverb more controllable.
I like the effect but I’m not into reverb-drenched super-wet guitar sounds. Christian Bland for example has a killer tone don’t get me wrong, but you know, to each his own and I’m more of a dry guy. I needed a way to make the reverb pot more usable for my usual « almost dry » tone.
This is a classic mod, just replace the 12AT7 driver tube with a 12AU7, this reduces the reverb and therefore the effect is much more controllable with the knob. Easy peasy.
Finally, a much less efficient speaker.
The Deluxe Reverb is a 22W tube amp. It gets pretty loud, especially if you want to reach that desired « sweet spot », where the tubes start to sing and the magic happens. I have some dirt pedals I can rely on to provide the amount of overdrive I need, so I don’t need to push the amp to its limits. But it’s clear the Deluxe Reverb need to be pushed a little to perform as it should… I like an « edge of breakup » guitar sound, and at this setting the amp gets loud, like unreasonably loud for daily practice at home… Sincere apologies to my neighbours for all these years.
Shortly after I bought the amp, I had upgraded the speaker with a Cannabis Rex, a favourite among DR users which sounds quite good, but wasn’t exactly the right move for my volume problem. The Weber DT12 seemed like an ideal much less efficient candidate for its replacement. Its efficiency is supposed to be around 94db, so I thought it would make a notable difference with the CR’s 102db’s !
I took a shot and I’m glad I did. The expected difference is real and I can play my amp at a much more home friendly level. It sounds great too, has a slightly less medium sound (compared to the Cannabis Rex) that I’m digging. Now thinking of selling my weber attenuator…
My Fender Deluxe Reverb is now ready.
