Worship Musician March 2018 | Page 50

GEAR REVIEW [ FENDER HOT ROD DELUXE IV AMPLIFIER | Doug Doppler ] the Normal (clean) Channel KEY FEATURES has the perfect amount of natural 3 Channels tube compression that makes you want to play 40 Watts with a clean tone. One of the other tweaks they made 3x 12AX7 Preamp Tubes was to the reverb, which 2x 6L6 Power Tubes sounds way better than its 1x12 Celestion A-Type Speaker predecessor. FX Loop The Drive and More Drive Spring Reverb Channels feature a Drive control that is not active on WATCH DEMO VIDEO the Normal Channel. As I The Hot Rod Series IV is the latest incarnation of started toggling between the this incredibly popular line of Fender amps. The channels I discovered once I combination of classic Fender styling, modern got a great tone on the Normal features, and excellent value has resonated the new line of (awesome) pedals he designed Channel, the Bright switch (pushbutton) and with players so much that the Hot Rods are for Fender. As we chatted I mentioned how Presence control allowed me to switch guitars Fender’s best-selling tube amps. Over the past impressed I was with the gear Fender was at will without having to touch the Treble, Middle, few weeks I’ve played the daylights out of this turning out, especially the Hot Rod Deluxe IV. and Bass controls. I’ve never played another Hot Rod Deluxe IV Fender sent for review, and Stan got a big smile on his face and shared amp at this price point that began to deliver this for the money you’d be hard pressed to find the following, “I was involved with the Hot Rod, kind of versatility. As I hope you can see in the another amp that delivers the range of tonal Blues Jr. and Pro Jr. updates. With the Hot Rod demos, I loved the tones I was getting on all goodness that this one does. in particular, the team wanted to take another three channels. swing at the overdrive channel and give it a I also have to tip my hat to the team at Fender bigger, more modern voicing. I developed the For the demos I used various combinations of because over the past year they’ve really prototypes that were then turned into the new an MXR Dyna Comp Mini into the amp, with demonstrated that they care about the House production versions.” an MXR Carbon Copy and M300 Reverb in of Worship, and that speaks volumes to me. the Effects Loop, also using some of the built Fender recently invited me to an event where I Although it responded beautifully to my MXR in reverb on the amp. Altogether I was able to got a chance to speak with Stan Coley about Dyna Comp Mini pedal you’ll hear in the demos, create a sound that to my ear was a glorious wash of clean, overdriven, and distorted tones, without having to use a drive pedal. The three- channel design on the Hot Rod Deluxe has always appealed to me, but in all honestly this is the first time I really felt they got it all dialed in. My only regret is not having been able to run two of them in stereo in a “master > slave” configuration via the FX Loop! FENDER.COM $799.99 MAP 50 March 2018 WorshipMusician.com