After everythings back in: noise. || unreg?

[unreg]

Feb 13, 2021 16:05:57 GMT -5 frets said:

Hi Unreg,

In my opinion, you don’t need the lugs. You have thoroughly shielded the cavity, you’ve done more than most guys regarding EMF. I say your good to put everything back in and get rockin’. 💃🏼🕺🏼🎸🎸🥁🥁🎹🎹🎼🎼🎤🎤

hi frets,

My guitar has been reassembled with it’s new long shaft volume pot! It was so much easier with my soldering temperature reduced. 😊 But, there is still that noise.

Now, since my guitar is all good(?), maybe it’s the amp? Is there a method, using a multimeter, that I could check the amp for noise fault? 🙂

This noise will perish. When, I have no clue, but it’s going to perish.


Note: there is no noise when the volume is turned all the way down. But, does that fact eliminate my amp from being a potential noise problem?

[newey]

Mar 16, 2021 15:30:31 GMT -5 unreg said:

Note: there is no noise when the volume is turned all the way down. But, does that fact eliminate my amp from being a potential noise problem?

No, it doesn't tell us much of anything.

Easiest way to tell if it's the amp is to find another amp to play through- if the noise is gone, your amp is the culprit (or, perhaps the room you're in). If the noise is still there, then the guitar is in the crosshairs. But I would also be sure to swap out the cable as well. Make only one change at a time, it's a process of elimination.

Also try to eliminate the room's particular electrical environment by trying the amp plugged in elsewhere, hopefully on a different circuit.

[unreg]

So, after plugging my guitar into my bass amp, and moving my power strip closer so the bass amp could be plugged in, and even with the guitar’s volume at max, my guitar was silent on the bridge pickup; when the neck pickup was on there was an almost silent buzz.

But, it’s a bass amp, so that doesn’t matter?

My fender frontman 25r amp has a problem, right? I would make a thread in the amp forum, but there aren’t any other “My amp needs to be fixed of its buzz problem” threads that I can see. 😔

Thank you newey sir so much! 👍😀

[newey]

I also have a Frontman 25R, it's pushing 20 years old now and has some noise to it. I don't play it much anymore, not because of the noise particularly, but because it's stashed at my cabin, and when I'm there on the weekends I usually just strum the acoustic. I keep a Yamaha Strat-clone up there to pair with the Frontman but I seldom play it.

[unreg]

newey, I remembered you had a frontman before posting this thread.

I am going to get another amp? Any amps you recommend me since I’ve only played e.guitar on a fender frontman 25r?

Note: The recommended amp must be about the same width as the frontman 25r, and it should sound at least as nice.


This thread may be in the wrong forum?

[newey]

We've just gone off topic, happens all the time. You can always start a "What amp do you recommend" thread in the Amplifiers section.

Most of the amps I have now, and ones I had in the past, were purchased second- or third- hand, except for the Frontman, which the wife gave me for Xmas one year long ago. I can't really recommend anything to you, it's such an individual thing. Everyone has a sound in mind, yours is no doubt different than mine.

A few things to keep in mind, at least my 2¢ :

- If I'm going to buy something used off the internet, where I can't hear it and play it beforehand, I'm not putting down a lot of money. If I get burned, the damage will be minimal. I have a Peavey StudioPro 40 that I bought off Ebay about 10 years or so ago, I think it cost me $65 or something. Sounds great, has a great onboard 'verb, single 12" speaker. Some of the pots are a bit scratchy but it all works fine. But if the price hadn't been right, I would have walked away. I also bought a little Peavey Blazer practice amp off the net, meaning to give it to my grandson along with a guitar I had built for him. I ended up giving him another amp, I'm keeping the little Blazer. Don't really have a need or a use for it, but it's a terrific little practice amp, for what it is- 8" speaker is never going to sound like much. But I think I paid $30 for it. I love old Peaveys (and new ones, although I don't own any). The old ones had a well-deserved reputation for being indestructable.

If I'm going to spend some serious dough on an amp, I want to be "hands on". And for major purchases, I'm patronizing my locally-owned brick-and-mortar music store.

For not much money at all, around $160 brand new, I bought a Quilter amp-in-a-pedal that I plug into a 1X15" cab. It sits alongside a pedalboard with Boss Tremolo, reverb and distortion pedals, everything I need in one compact package. You're not going to gig with the thing but it's a lot of fun in the practice room.

If you're looking at used amps, you can usually tell when the thing has been used for gigging, it'll have some battle scars. Stay away from that stuff, amps are fairly fragile things and you don't want to buy a problem. But there are bargains to be found, lots of people start to learn guitar and don't stick with it, after the thing gathers dust for a few years they get rid of it. If it's in basically pristine condition, it likely belonged to some bedroom warrior, was used very little and not abused (since mom/girlfriend/spouse/whoever would be yelling at himm to turn it down). Those are the ones you want to snap up.

Hard to recommend something to someone else, all I'd say is shop around. And of course the budget matters, too, you haven't said what you are looking to spend.

[unreg]

Thank you newey sir! 👍😀

That makes a lot of sense why you can’t recommend an amp. I appreciate your 2¢, actually maybe $20 worth. I’ll go to the brick and mortar store to test amps.

I really have no clue about a good decent amp price bc the fender frontman 25r was free for me when I purchased my guitar at Guitar Center? At least, I don’t remember paying for it, but maybe it was something like $60? I’m sorry; I dunno.

I definitely can’t gig with the frontman, but it works, for me, for making recordings of my songs. I don’t plan on gigging; music is just so fun to play with! 😀


(I don’t mean to change the subject again; this is relevant to what newey helped me learn here.) Now, I can use my bass amp to change the strings and set intonation efficiently with ashcatlt’s guitar tuning iStroboSoft phone app. I love it a lot. ❤️👍😀

[newey]

IIRC, when my wife bought me the Frontman 25R, this was roughly 20 or so years ago, they could be bought new for around $120. At one point, after she bought it for me, I saw MF had them on sale for $99. Nowadays, there's not much in that price range, as prices have gone up of course. Look to spend closer to $200 now to get something equivalent to what you have now.

Lots of guitarists use a bass amp as their main rig. The old tube Fender Bassman was legendary among guitarists back in the day, they probably sold more to guitarists than they sold to bass players (there are of course a lot more guitarists out there). If one uses a pedalboard for one's effects, there's no reason a bass amp won't do pretty much everything a guitarist wants. Bass amps tend to have more heavy-duty speakers installed, but in terms of the electrical circuitry, it's basically a guitar amp without a gain stage. And the gain stages on a lot of solid state amps aren't great- including the FrontmanR. I always used a gain pedal rather than the onboard gain as it sounded better. And it always bothered me that they made the gain stage foot-switchable but not the reverb.

If you want to narrow your search down a bit, try playing one of Fender's "Super Champ" models (I think yhey're still making those). This is a hybrid amp with a tube preamp and a SS power section, 10" speaker, has onboard digital effects of various sorts. Last time I looked they ran about $300. I've played through these a couple of times and really liked them for the price, I won't say it sounds like an all-tube amp but but it mimics one pretty closely and it's a third of the cost. I generally dislike hybrids (I've owned 2 of that type and ditched them both after a time), but I thought the Super Champ sounded pretty good.

As another general rule, I would say get the biggest speaker you can that will fit your space, since you said space was an issue. Assuming the amp quality, etc is roughly the same, a 12" speaker will sound much better than the 10" in your Frontman (BTW, I replaced the stock speaker in my Frontman with a Jensen, that made a big difference, too). And IMO a 15" is even better. But of course the reason practice amps have smaller speakers is to keep the overall package small and light.

[unreg]

Thank you so much newey sir! Your posts are extremely helpful! 👍😀

[frets]

Hi Unreg😄😄,

I’m sorry I didn’t see this thread until today.

[unreg]

Aw it’s ok frets 🙂, newey and thetragichero taught me a bit about amps! 👍😀