It is currently Tue Mar 17, 2020 5:12 am

All times are UTC - 7 hours



Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 10 posts ] 
Author Message
Post subject: Noise and Cricket sound with Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue Amp
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 3:11 pm
Offline
Hobbyist
Hobbyist

Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:55 pm
Posts: 2
Hello everyone,

I am new to these forums. I've been having some issues with my Fender Blues Deluxe RI amp that I bought last year from Guitar Center (GC). Looking back at it, may be I should have returned it in the first week but I had a bit too busy of a year..a bit too much!..which was a distraction enough. But I bought a 2 year GC warranty on it in addition to the default 5 years Fender's warranty that comes with the amp.

Problem description:
In general, the amp is good but in 2-3 minutes after I start playing, it starts making a sound like crickets make in night. No, there is no cricket nest in there. It just sounds like crickets on coke actually...very annoying. It is a sporadic noise..which means that it may just kick in any minute after you start playing but not always there when you first turn the amp on. It does go away for a few seconds sometimes and comes back again. The behavior is same on clean and muddy channel. Muddy channel just a bit more annoying probably because whatever the fault is causes the amp to be noisy in addition, and with drive..it just explodes. If I switch on my Tube Driver overdrive, it amplifies the horrible noise. The sound is considerably higher and audible with single coil instead of humbuckers on my Les Paul (both toggled on the same guitar using coil splitting).

What have I tried doing to fix it so far?
- I have turned the amp on and off many times to see if it will go away.
- I have positioned the amp differently, have tried it in more than one venues and different sockets.
- I have tried different cables.
- I have tried switching the tubes that I thought were microphonic. I am not sure if they still are. Allow me to explain that a bit...

I hit the tubes with a screwdriver (gently..which I learned is an incorrect method to check a microphonic tube) to see if the sound will be channeled into the amp. It did. Although, I do not know how much of that assessment and channeled sound is acceptable because that might just be the reverb. The amp comes with 3 - 12AX7-C GTs and 2 - 6L6s (5881) GTs. I finally bought a 12AX7-R to try and replace one of the more microphonic tubes (the one farthest from the power tubes) to see if it would make any difference. It didn't. I have 3 spare GTs. So I took the middle preamp tube out, tried all 3 over there. No luck. I took the preamp tube closest to the power tubes out, and tried all 3 tubes there, no luck. The one farthest from the power tubes is the new 12AX7-R..so this time I did not try the 3 spare tubes there but in past I have done that. The power tubes did not make that microphonic sound into the speaker.

- I tried turning the reverb and presence to zero, no luck. Reducing the treble reduces that sound a tiny tiny bit.

I believe this is all that I have done so far. I do want to get it fixed since this is my only tube amp that I own and I got it after saving up for sometime. So it is frustrating to see that it is unplayable.

I might very well be focusing on tubes for no reason. It might be a circuit issue. I believe it can be one or the another. I don't see what else could possibly cause this problem after all that I have tried. But that is just novice me.

I am trying to see if anyone around here has noticed this kind of problem with this amp or another amp before? Or if you guys have any suggestions how I may try to narrow it down to one issue or fix it?

PS: If you guys want, I can record and put an audio sample of what the noise is like.

Thanks.
Best Regards.


Top
Profile
Fender Play Winter Sale 2020
Post subject: Re: Noise and Cricket sound with Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:05 pm
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician

Joined: Sun Dec 19, 2010 12:00 pm
Posts: 1389
My advice of advices is to bring back to the dealer for maintenance of course. 8)

However what you can do is the follow: wink:

Try to put your guitar in "Power In". With this configuration the preamp will not be used. Let us know if you have the "cricket noise".

(BTW, mine was very noisy (shhhh...white noise) due to V1 noisy, actually V2 but I wapped V1 and V2 )

_________________
Tissan

*'52 Telecaster RI, '57 Stratocaster RI, Gibson ES175 RI, Washburn Hawk 1980, Epiphone Casino MIK 2000, 57' Deluxe Knotty Alder, BDRI ...*
https://soundcloud.com/pierrou
http://www.youtube.com/user/Jazzenfamille


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Noise and Cricket sound with Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue
Posted: Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:13 pm
Online
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Fri Feb 05, 2010 4:31 am
Posts: 14050
Location: Province de Québec, Canada
tubes problem and / or power tubes bias too hot; return it to the dealer


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Noise and Cricket sound with Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 10:44 am
Offline
Hobbyist
Hobbyist

Joined: Mon Jan 24, 2011 1:55 pm
Posts: 2
Tis-san wrote:
My advice of advices is to bring back to the dealer for maintenance of course. 8)

However what you can do is the follow: wink:

Try to put your guitar in "Power In". With this configuration the preamp will not be used. Let us know if you have the "cricket noise".

(BTW, mine was very noisy (shhhh...white noise) due to V1 noisy, actually V2 but I wapped V1 and V2 )


Thanks for the reply. I could not reproduce the cricket noise today. It is sporadic but the noise in general was there (which leads to cricket noise I believe). Cricket noise is kind of an irritated version of the original noise of the amp. I mean bad noise, not the acceptable hiss. May be there is no tube issue at all. I have started to believe that it is a circuit issue because I have done a good tube experiment.

I know the GC guys I go to are idiots...most of them. They do not want to recognize any problem. A radio noise to them is acceptable while to me an amp should never be noisy...beside a regular hiss sound at high volume. I will call them anyway now. But it will be very useful if I can gather enough knowledge beforehand too, knowing how they are and how it might turn out to be over there.

I tried plugging the guitar into Power Amp In. Noise of the amp is lesser, but it is there. Here is a 3-4 second long recorded clip of the cricket noise:

http://www.zshare.net/audio/856858320cc33a83/

@ Everyone: I am not sure how useful this clip will be but please check it and see if it gives you any idea of what/where the problem might be.

Thanks guys!


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Noise and Cricket sound with Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 1:37 pm
Offline
Professional Musician
Professional Musician

Joined: Sun Dec 19, 2010 12:00 pm
Posts: 1389
This noise is very strange ! Not really white, Cricket you're right.
Due to design pass I'm familiar with white, pink, blue, popcorn and 1/F^2 noise, Cricket is a new one a kind of mix between hum and white with a sauce of popcorn !
I think there is a component failure in your amp and I recommand to bring back to the dealer.

_________________
Tissan

*'52 Telecaster RI, '57 Stratocaster RI, Gibson ES175 RI, Washburn Hawk 1980, Epiphone Casino MIK 2000, 57' Deluxe Knotty Alder, BDRI ...*
https://soundcloud.com/pierrou
http://www.youtube.com/user/Jazzenfamille


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Noise and Cricket sound with Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue
Posted: Tue Jan 25, 2011 1:53 pm
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star
User avatar

Joined: Sat Jul 03, 2010 2:18 pm
Posts: 6544
It this cricket chriping noise regular? Like once every half-second or something, when it's noisy? You could have a motorboating amp. Which could be caused by just about anything. Sorry, I feel the best solution is to take the amp back and get a new one (as long as it's still under warranty).


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Noise and Cricket sound with Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 12:54 am
Offline
Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician
User avatar

Joined: Sun Jun 28, 2009 6:05 pm
Posts: 684
Location: Canada
Does the chirping noise only occur when you play in front of people? Could be your material. :lol:

_________________
The ultimate Rolling Stones experience!
https://www.facebook.com/TheMainStreetExiles


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Noise and Cricket sound with Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue
Posted: Wed Jan 26, 2011 9:29 am
Offline
Rock Star
Rock Star

Joined: Mon Apr 05, 2010 2:37 pm
Posts: 8708
Location: Natural Bridge, Virginia
I'm not able to listen to your sound clip, but if it seems that the tubes are OK and are not microphonic, check for cabinet vibrations. I found that my BDRI had several very loud vibrations on certain notes. Checking things out I found that several wires, and especially the ribbon cables, were vibrating against the back panel. I redressed all the single wires and ribbon cables to move them away from the back panel and applied clear RTV to the ribbon cables where they cross the edge of the PCB. I also put a washer on each of the back panel screws between the back panel and chassis to space the back panel away form the chassis slightly. If you amp has a tube cage, get rid of it. They vibrate like crazy. All of my noises are gone (except room vibrations when I crank it) and the amp sound significantly sweeter now that the haze of noise has been eliminated.

_________________
Bill

Image


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Noise and Cricket sound with Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:40 pm
Offline
Hobbyist
Hobbyist

Joined: Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:02 pm
Posts: 1
I'm having the same problem with my fender blues deluxe reissue. Of course it started just after the 45 day period the musiciansfriend.com has for returns. I plan to take it to a fender service center.

I wouldn't exactly describe it as crickets, but it usually occurs after the amp has been on for awhile...10-30minutes...and sounds to me like a high pitched (cricket) cycling noise...almost as if a fan were causing it. Tried different outlets and made sure nothing else was running, but it still does it.

Anyone found an easy fix?


Top
Profile
Post subject: Re: Noise and Cricket sound with Fender Blues Deluxe Reissue
Posted: Thu Feb 17, 2011 10:46 pm
Offline
Rock Icon
Rock Icon
User avatar

Joined: Wed Mar 31, 2010 12:48 am
Posts: 26417
Location: Tombstone Territory
You paid for a warranty......USE IT!

Arjay

_________________
"Here's why reliability is job one: A great sounding amp that breaks down goes from being a favorite piece of gear to a useless piece of crap in less time than it takes to read this sentence." -- BRUCE ZINKY


Top
Profile
Display posts from previous:  Sort by  
Post new topic Reply to topic  [ 10 posts ] 

All times are UTC - 7 hours

Fender Play Winter Sale 2020

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Google [Bot] and 2 guests


You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum

Search for:
Jump to: