MusicRadar

The world's favourite amp has been given a few changes.

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• Review

Let's assume for a second you've never seen or heard one of these amps. This would mean that you've barely been to a gig, jam, rehearsal room or music store for over a decade. They're everywhere - the most popular, semi-pro and pro valve amps on the market, and they remain the cornerstone of Fender's modern amp line.

The watershed year was 1995. Ritchie Fliegler arrived from Marshall and promptly discontinued Fender's most successful amps of the time - the Blues DeVille and Deluxe - and evolved them to Hot Rod status, complete with an extra drive stage.

"The Hot Rod's normal channel is a brilliant base for pedals, thanks to its high headroom and dynamic range."

Now for 2010, they receive a version III update, which includes a new top panel, different pot tapers, 'tighter' overdrive and new speakers in certain models. Here we have the biggest seller, the 40-watt Hot Rod Deluxe III.

The latter black and silver Hot Rod colour scheme (the first Hot Rods were Tweed) comprises a simple black Tolex-covered quality ply cabinet, fronted with a silver grille cloth. It's a narrow-panel, top-loading fifties-style cab, with mid-sixties livery, basically.

The bigger change here is the control panel, which to date has been silver, with the decals facing backwards. Version III brings a black panel with white lettering with the decals facing you when you stand in front of the amp. It might seem like a small thing, but the legion Hot Rod users out there will tell you that this will make a massive improvement to legibility either on dim stages, or under reflective lighting.

The controls themselves remain as the previous Hot Rod Deluxe, with its dual-channel set-up, powered by a trio of 12AX7 valves. There are two inputs, the first at 1 meg-ohm, as is usual in most quality valve amps, and the second lower than that, which has the effect of attenuating high-end and level.

If you have overly bright, or mega high-output pickups, or perhaps you want a warmer sound for jazz, for example, it's worth experimenting with the second input.

The normal channel has a single volume with no master control, and there's a bright switch for extra zing and presence should you so desire. We had hopes of a separate master volume added to this channel to increase versatility, particularly at lower levels and make it easier to balance with the drive modes, but Fender has chosen to keep it simple.

The second channel is all about overdrive, with the additional mode 'More Drive' selectable either via the top panel, or via the included footswitch. The result is three sounds at your feet - clean, drive and more drive - via the included, and much improved two-button switch.

The two principal electronic changes over the previous Hot Rods are firstly that Fender claims to have 'tightened' the overdrive: "More attack and less slop on the lower strings," according to Fender senior product manager and amp expert Shane Nicholas.