I FINALLY decided to take a me day and sit in the basement and try and get in a solid day with the gear i have rented. I found a tone i was pretty happy with and was getting ready to capture it for you turds and then this happened
Just all of a sudden i strummed a chord and then it sounded like jabba the hutt started trying to devour my tone and shit it out simultaneously. Did i leave this amp on for too long? Did i fry the circuitry? Blow a tube? I have it turned off for right now but holy boy it doesn't sound good at all. This is my rental amp and i'll be pretty bummed out if i gotta buy it in this state.
No Traynor tones today. I might be back with some orange tones though. We'll see.
WhiskeyJack wrote: ↑Sat Mar 10, 2018 7:50 pm
Ok dummys. I'm not winning at life here.
I FINALLY decided to take a me day and sit in the basement and try and get in a solid day with the gear i have rented. I found a tone i was pretty happy with and was getting ready to capture it for you turds and then this happened
Just all of a sudden i strummed a chord and then it sounded like jabba the hutt started trying to devour my tone and shit it out simultaneously. Did i leave this amp on for too long? Did i fry the circuitry? Blow a tube? I have it turned off for right now but holy boy it doesn't sound good at all. This is my rental amp and i'll be pretty bummed out if i gotta buy it in this state.
No Traynor tones today. I might be back with some orange tones though. We'll see.
I'm definitely no amp tech, but I'd start with the all the cables, then to the pre-amp tubes man...
Gibson, Fender, Ibanez, Jackson
Ceriatone, Marshall, EVH
TC Electronic, MXR, Yamaha
My music @ Reverbnation
I don't know how far you want to go with tinkering, but I bet we can figure it out. My first guesses would be a dirty input jack, dirty pots, or a dirty tube socket. It sounds like something is dirty. Like, literally dirty. Dirty jacks, pots, and tube sockets can sound just like that.
Yea it sounds dirty is right. Like how the tone pots on my epi soind when i move them around.
But would that sound just come on like a light switch though because of dirt? One minute it was rockin, tight and clean and then in the blink of any eye it just did that. I wasnt fiddling with anything either. So weird.
I turned it back on and and all the tubes light up and none appear to be discolored. Ill have to have a closer look in better light i suppose. Maybe take a can of compressed air to it?
WhiskeyJack wrote: ↑Sat Mar 10, 2018 10:15 pm
Yea it sounds dirty is right. Like how the tone pots on my epi soind when i move them around.
But would that sound just come on like a light switch though because of dirt? One minute it was rockin, tight and clean and then in the blink of any eye it just did that. I wasnt fiddling with anything either. So weird.
I turned it back on and and all the tubes light up and none appear to be discolored. Ill have to have a closer look in better light i suppose. Maybe take a can of compressed air to it?
Sure it can happen just out of the blue. Tube amps are great when things are good, but it doesn't take much to throw one off kilter. The one I've been modding freaked the hell out just over how some wires were routed. Temperamental bitches.
Anyway, canned air won't do anything. You need contact cleaner. Do you really wanna dig into a rental amp? You can, but it might be better to just return it. They'd probably rather just get it back instead of having some yahoo dig into it. You might be held responsible if you start messing with it.
Greg_L wrote: ↑Sat Mar 10, 2018 10:28 pm
Do you really wanna dig into a rental amp? You can, but it might be better to just return it. They'd probably rather just get it back instead of having some yahoo dig into it. You might be held responsible if you start messing with it.
vomitHatSteve wrote: ↑Mon Mar 12, 2018 1:07 pm
Hitting all the jacks with some detoxit might get that dirt and won't void your warranty. Might be worth trying that at least.
is there an effects loop?
If so try plugging and unplugging a cable into both sides of it a couple dozen times if you don't have contact cleaner or use cleaner if you do
Went over to user: Hatfield Creeks place last night (works for the store i have this rented from) with the IronHorse to see what was up. He made sure everything was seated properly and all wires and connections were where they needed to be. He cleaned the contacts with some deoxit, and tested a few resistors that were showing some scorching on the board thing and they seemed to be working perfectly just a little hot. None of any of that really seemed to fix anything so he moved to inspect the tubes a little closer and he said that one of the power tubes when tapped lightly with the end of his lighter was transferring sound through the cab? A micro phonic tube? I listened and one power tube did this very loudly and the other one did as well but it was WAY less noticeable. none of the little tiny tubes did that at all?
I just sort of leaned over his shoulder rubbernecking with a really tasty coffee porter to keep my mouth from asking too many newb questions. In the end i am just going to take it back and keep it rented and they will retube it and see if it fixes the issue? no penalty or cost to me.
I also asked if it were possible to retube option with that thing that might give me a bit more gain but apparently it has all the right tubes for that sort of thing based on the specs he looked up?
A microphonic tube is certainly not a good thing. Get new tubes in it and see what happens. "Scorching" anywhere in the amp is not a good thing.
Some soldering spots might look scorched though. Sometimes the flux and rosin turns brownish when soldering and that can leave a burned appearance. That's not a problem. Brownish from soldering and black from actually burning are two different things.
Greg_L wrote: ↑Thu Mar 15, 2018 1:49 pm
A microphonic tube is certainly not a good thing. Get new tubes in it and see what happens. "Scorching" anywhere in the amp is not a good thing.
Some soldering spots might look scorched though. Sometimes the flux and rosin turns brownish when soldering and that can leave a burned appearance. That's not a problem. Brownish from soldering and black from actually burning are two different things.
This discoloration was more of a brownish color around the leads. I called it scorching but that might the wrong word. It deifnitely is black. Just brown. like it was hot. It didn't appear to be from the soldering either. I should have taken freaking pictures. I'll snap some before i take it back.
All tubes have been replaced it is no longer any microphonic stuff happening i guess, but it is still being a turd and has other issues. It is being sent away to an amp repair guy in Edmonton. not on my dime thankfully the store is taking care of all that. I just need to make the decision here in a few days if i want to continue to rent it to keep building up a credit towards a purchase of it. In my mind it's not going to break the bank at all, maybe 300CAD for a 40W amp that has just been rebuilt. Weather it is an everyday amp or not i think it will be a good option to have laying around.
WhiskeyJack wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:44 pm
Update on this Rental:
All tubes have been replaced it is no longer any microphonic stuff happening i guess, but it is still being a turd and has other issues. It is being sent away to an amp repair guy in Edmonton. not on my dime thankfully the store is taking care of all that. I just need to make the decision here in a few days if i want to continue to rent it to keep building up a credit towards a purchase of it. In my mind it's not going to break the bank at all, maybe 300CAD for a 40W amp that has just been rebuilt. Weather it is an everyday amp or not i think it will be a good option to have laying around.
Just thought ya'll might like to know.
See what's actually wrong with it first. It's very unlikely it is being "rebuilt". I'd bet they fix whatever is wrong the cheapest way possible.
WhiskeyJack wrote: ↑Tue Apr 03, 2018 1:44 pm
Update on this Rental:
All tubes have been replaced it is no longer any microphonic stuff happening i guess, but it is still being a turd and has other issues. It is being sent away to an amp repair guy in Edmonton. not on my dime thankfully the store is taking care of all that. I just need to make the decision here in a few days if i want to continue to rent it to keep building up a credit towards a purchase of it. In my mind it's not going to break the bank at all, maybe 300CAD for a 40W amp that has just been rebuilt. Weather it is an everyday amp or not i think it will be a good option to have laying around.
Just thought ya'll might like to know.
See what's actually wrong with it first. It's very unlikely it is being "rebuilt". I'd bet they fix whatever is wrong the cheapest way possible.
Yea rebuilt was a poor choice of words. I guess i should have said in for a tune up.
Yea rebuilt was a poor choice of words. I guess i should have said in for a tune up.
Do you want that amp?
Yea man it's not a bad little rig for the price of it. I can make use of it. It isn't a bank breaker or a dream rig but i like it. Like i said i was getting there and really starting to find some sounds i quite liked and was rockin out and then poof... it shit the bed. I might walk away on it if they ask me to make good on any kind of repairs. That wasn't the deal i was looking for really.
Next year will be more of a big ticket gear year for me with all the major house stuff being wrapped up in 2018.
