Ok - one more - bad sounds from Amp

[redshark92]

Hmmmm - I'm not sure if it's good or bad that I already have another question for the group, but here we go.

Sadly, most of my playing is through headphones, atm, because by the time I get a chance to practice on a weeknight, there's at least one member of the house hold in bed, so I was glad to get an opportunity to actually plug into my amp a bit tonight.

Only to discover I'm getting some nasty sounds out of it.

It's not really noticeable on low strings but gets more noticeable on the higher strings and is very obvious on the high E.

The Amp is a Fender Princeton Chorus.

I'm not sure exactly how to describe it - it's almost like a bit of distortion and also sounds a bit reverb-ey (if that makes any kind of sense).

I first noticed it while I had my guitar plugged in through my Digitech Rp250 (Guitar -> Digitech -> Effects return) and found the same problem when I ran the guitar directly into the amp, or through the Digitech into the main input on the amp.

The guitar into my bass amp, or a little battery powered amp I have on hand sounded fine. My acoustic, with a sound-hold pickup produced the same sound.

So it definitely seems to be the amp, as different instruments produce the same sound, but not when played through another amp.

For some reason I suspect something to do with a speaker. In the morning I plan to test this by routing the sound from the Princeton Chorus into another amp while bypassing it's speakers and I'll see if it duplicates then. I guess that'd tell me if it's something in the electronics of the amp, or an issue with one of the speakers.

Any other ideas? If I can't find an easy solution I'll bring it to a real tech, of course, but I'd like to try what I can first, and at the very least that'll give me more info to give to them.

[chuck]

sounds like you are on the right track by eliminating sources of the problem .

[BlackAngusYoung]

I'm used to headphones pretty much exclusively, too. I have 2 Vox AmPlugs and they're not the perfect design, but I'd recommend it to anyone needing to use headphones.

I don't really have any help to offer...
Just wanted to mention that I have recently had a similar speaker problem, but with household stereo speakers. I was trying out a new (used) set and noticed a buzzing noise like you describe. What I thought was interesting was that some songs played all the way through and sounded fine, some buzzed continuously and some just buzzed the odd time during the song. It seemed to me that the buzzing noise happened when the lead singer hit certain notes. So I'd guess that your speaker is somehow busted but it's only noticeable when it tries to play certain sounds... the ones made on your first string or two.
Something charming about speakers, i guess. They can seem to work great and still surprise ya.

[redshark92]

Well I plugged in again a few days later to try to do some more trouble shooting and a few times since then and everything sounds fine now.

I'll just keep an ear for it to happen again... Maybe it was just something in the air that night.

[Yew]

Yeah, at our practice room, my band often notice all sorts of rattles when we play, nothing to do with our amps or equipment, we are just vibrating parts of the room and things that are a tad loose are making noise (only on certain notes, so its related to simple harmonic motion..

[redshark92]

I've noticed that phenomenon before, too. This was weird because it sounded like it was coming from the amp... Oh well, if I notice it again I'll do something about it, otherwise full-speed ahead!