Fender Deluxe Reverb Amp Settings

Kuras · August 2023

Hi all

I watched Scott McKeon at Bar Lotte in Frome last night. What a spectacular player and bloody lovely chap. He was using a drip edge Deluxe Reverb with no pedals, it sounded amazing! His Strat had awesome sustain and didn't have that edgy/ear fatiguing/glassy top end that puts me off of strats. His is definitely one of the best Strat tones I've heard.

I made a note of his amp settings, he had the volume on 4, treble on 4 and bass on 6. I have just tried my Jazzmaster with those settings and it sounds better for certain styles of music that my normal settings where I tend to have the bass and treble around 2/3 depending on what guitar I play (Casino, Les Paul, Jazzmaster). I doubt I'll be able to get the volume up to 4 with the gigs I play, and I'm not a loud guitarist generally, I like volume but want to fit in the band.

My question is, with the Fender tone stack, what is the difference in terms of having the EQ relatively high (6) rather than low (2/3)? Is it driving the amp harder? Everything seemed much more alive, it seemed more compressed, my guitar sustained more and it felt more alive when I used Scott's settings. And, if you're a deluxe reverb what EQ settings do you use?

Not sure I would set it to high EQ settings for everything but I am thinking.. Have I made a blunder by setting my EQ low.

Cheers

Whistler · August 2023

Joe Bonamassa really knows his stuff because he experiments. Joe would tell you to set your mid and treble at centre and discover what using the bass control does to your sound. Then repeat for the mid and then the treble. You will then know what to expect and be in a better position to dial in a combination and know what to expect.

My Fender is a custom deluxe, no reverb and only a tone knob. I set that at 6 (it goes up to 12) and set the tone on my guitar at 5 (outof 10) and then check that 10 on the guitar will not be excessively brittle. That gives me a broad range of usable tone possibilities.

ICBM · August 2023

The Deluxe Reverb has a fixed mid resistor, so turning the bass and treble down gives a more midrangy sound than turning them up. Turning them up makes the sound less middy and also reduces the 'insertion loss' of the tone stack a bit, so the overall gain is increased slightly.

I don't tend to have specific settings since I don't play through them very often, but I'd guess somewhere around treble 6/7 and bass 4/5 would be normal for me, volume to wherever needed, and reverb on 3/4.

Roland · August 2023

There’s a theory of 366 for Fender amps. Bass 3 Mid 6 Treble 6. I think it’s a bit too harsh, but the soundman tells me it works OK in a band mix.

BoltGuitarsUK · August 2023

Hey, I (Rob) was always told that the EQ is passive reductive on the older/classic fender amps because the center point of the frequency, or the top of the hump, sits at 10 (or 12).

Not an expert, and this might be bullshit, but it seems to check out to my ears.

I play a Jazzmaster (bridge pickup) through a deluxe with bass on full, mid and treb on half. Never changes.

stickyfiddle · August 2023

If using one channel on my TM I generally have treble at 6-7 and bass around 5-6, volume on 4-5, exact numbers dependent on the guitar and room and context.

I've also been trying jumping the channels and having the Normal at 6/3 (Bass/Treble) and Vibrato at 8/3 - that's a really lovely sound on those settings at any volume.

Worth bearing in mind none of these numbers are gospel though, as all amps will have slightly different pots, so you always want to dial it in with your ears once you're in the right ballpark.

But I would add that part of getting a Strat to sound great into a DR is getting it loud enough that it starts compressing - that's what takes off the spiky attack of those high notes that can get unpleasant.

marxski · August 2023

Just chiming in that the speaker in the amp can have a big difference tonally to the equation. Fender used Oxford, Utah, CTS and many get retrofitted with others over the years of course.

ICBM · August 2023

Roland said:

There’s a theory of 366 for Fender amps. Bass 3 Mid 6 Treble 6. I think it’s a bit too harsh, but the soundman tells me it works OK in a band mix.

It’s also not far away from the point where each control seems to do the most over the smallest turn, and I generally find there’s some truth in that being where any amp sounds best.

I hear the bass kick in around 4 usually, so I set it just above rather than just below that point - I like the looser (not just bassier) response that gives.

It’s also worth mentioning that the fixed mid resistor on the Deluxe and other ‘no mid’ amps is equivalent to the mid control at 7 - except for the Champ, where it’s at 15

.

bobeffect · August 2023

I'm enjoying my DRRI at home and at gigs with a Celestion G12 Gold. Gives it a useful mid lift. Not everyone's cup of tea no doubt but better for me than the stock speaker. Bass just kicking in at 4 and treble at 6 and volume at 4 to 4.5. Mic'd and tilted back pointing at me at gigs. Don't raise the bass above 4 at gigging volume....it's already got a slight cut on the desk anyway.

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Fender Deluxe Reverb Amp Settings

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