Fender Hot Rod Deluxe has very little sound, stuck and need help! Turn it on and all of tubes light up. Has a horrible muffled sound with volume at 5. Master volume can be put to any level, and it doesn't effect volume levels which is odd. I checked for any bad soldering connections and didn't find anything. I don't know what else to do. Any help would be appreciated, thanks! -John

Check your tubes. They may be broken and have to be replaced.

Sounds like you need to replace a tube.

For the Drive channel you need to use the Drive control AND the MASTER volume control. When the Drive channel is active, the Channel Indicator lamp should be RED indicating the Drive Channel is active. The Drive control knob is used to adjust the preamp volume and distortion level of the Drive Channel. This gives you a clue as to what to check if adjusting the controls doesn't work -- the preamp tubes. Having said that, ONLY try to check these tubes with the amp OFF! Never stick your hand up into the chassis of a live amp. It could be lethal. Your preamp tubes are the ones farthest from where the power cord enters the chassis. They have a rubber like stabilizer on them. They have a tendency to wiggle loose, which is part of the reason for the stabilizer. Again, if you're not familiar with the insides...stay out and get an amp tech to help you.

The Normal Channel only uses the Volume Control to adjust volume.

First thing would be try another guitar with the amp. This will eliminate if it's a problem with the guitar or the amp itself. If the guitar is working properly then check all the tubes to be sure they are all seated into there slots completely. Depending on how much use they have been played it may be a good suggestion to then replace your tube's. Occationally the tubes will start loosing power, making sound fluctuate up and down or distortion sounding static in background noise. You will notice a big difference with newer tube. But remember the bias must be set correctly to match the new tubes so they won't over heat. You can check out youtube for setting the bias. Anyway this is my suggestion and I wish you good luck.

CHECK VOLUME CONTROL BUTTON.

Hello. You might have a "Tube rattle" problem. This is very common in these amps.
google "tube rattle" and you will find alot of people having the same issue.
There is some rubber tube dampers that you can buy to stop the rattling.
Hope this will help

/Daniel

Fender hot rod´s have an common problem on the plate resistors of the preamp and phase inverter tubes.

Check if the 100K and 82K resistors on the tube socket board are not brown. Those resistors usually need to be changed to bigger ones 1/2W.

this guy made a good document about this fix:

http://home.comcast.net/~fredholz/Justin-Holton/Fixing%20Loud%20and%20Intermittent%20Crackle%20or%20Static.pdf

More than likely a bad solder joint. Where is the next question. How confident are you with voltage measurments? The rails in tube amps are high and can kill you so if you are not inclined to do so please don't. The reason I suspect a solder joint is that it is a failure over time, cold solder joints expand and contract with heat. When they heat up they break connection. Not saying 100% that is your problem but it is very likley.

Are the tubes bad? Do they light up? Check the tubes and install replacements if necessary. If it's a preamp tube that went bad, just replace that one tube. If a power tube went bad then replace the set of power tubes. Be sure to get a matched set when replacing power tubes, and to bias them.

First try turning the volume control down before turning switch to operate.

IF this seems to fix it, IF the unit has a tank reverb, the vibration of the reverb springs MAY be causing the problem. The solution then is to reduce the volume before applying power WHICH is a good idea anyway... from an electrical engineer.