why is my amp making this noise?
ezyrydr
Posts: 55
OK, today I bought myself the Fender Deluxe Reverb 65 Re-issue. I brought it home and for the most part it sounds great! It was on sale for $799 at GC and I'm happy except for one problem.
When I plug into the "vibrato" channels and I crank it up till I get some drive then the high frequencies have a fuzz sound. This occurs only on the vibrato channel, the "normal" channel is fine. This noise occurs whether or not I have the vibrato or reverb actually on or not, that doesn't matter.
When I use my overdrive pedal (Modded TS-9) you can really hear the noise I'm talking about. Even at low volumes; if I'm getting any sort of gain out of the amp with the help of a pedal the highs have a fuzz noise along with them. Any volume through the normal channels with the tube screamer and it sounds great, no fuzz.
so what's causing this noise? it's not overwhelming, it's pretty faint but I definitely hear it and it's enough to bother me since I just spent over $800.
thanks guys!
When I plug into the "vibrato" channels and I crank it up till I get some drive then the high frequencies have a fuzz sound. This occurs only on the vibrato channel, the "normal" channel is fine. This noise occurs whether or not I have the vibrato or reverb actually on or not, that doesn't matter.
When I use my overdrive pedal (Modded TS-9) you can really hear the noise I'm talking about. Even at low volumes; if I'm getting any sort of gain out of the amp with the help of a pedal the highs have a fuzz noise along with them. Any volume through the normal channels with the tube screamer and it sounds great, no fuzz.
so what's causing this noise? it's not overwhelming, it's pretty faint but I definitely hear it and it's enough to bother me since I just spent over $800.
thanks guys!
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
i'm not an expert but the one thing i would suggest is that the capacitor bypassing the volume control on the vibrato channel (C10 on the schematic above) is producing this effect. the purpose of that cap is to let some high frequencies through when the volume is low in order to reduce any percevied lack of sparkle when the amp's turned down.
lots of people remove this capacitor, the so-called "bright cap".
there are other differences in the channels but this might be your culprit.
i have this amp as well but i have not done this modification. until recently i had a different, somewhat darker, speaker in the amp. now that i switched the speaker back to something more along the lines of what the amp normally has, i may do the mod.
Hum, or fuzzy noise is perfectly normal , increasing as gain levels increase. Single coils are MUCH worse for it. Depending on how much gain etc, you get it wiht humbuckers too, much less with active pups like EMG's.
If it's "faint", as you describe, it counds like it's just usual noise to me.
Not really. I assumed that one channel was higher gain than the other, which is usual, in which case I would expect more hum on one channel than the other. I noted that he said ?crank it up until I get some drive". If he's using single coils, I would expect some hum from any amp.
Did you ever notice the massive background hum on all the PJ bootlegs ? I mean, there is a huge hum that you can really easily hear there, esp at the end of tracks, when it just cuts out. That is a bit diffferent to the scratchy, gets on your nerves bug in teh room hum htat comes from singles and dirty power though.
hum isn't the issue. i'm aware of single coil hum and this isn't the problem. it's a fizzy fuzz noise that happens when i'm playing. it's not there when i'm playing clean but when i have some gain, either by turing up the amp all the way or by putting my tubescreamer in front of it, then i get the fizzy noise. this only happens on the vibrato channel and not on the normal channel
my guess was that one of the preamp tubes has issues and needs to be replaced. if it's something with a cap or anything else then i'm pretty clueless.
some of the more savvy tube experts may also be able to suggest a "warmer" preamp tube as well. different tubes definitely have different character.
i really do think it's the C10 capacitor in the vibrato circuit primarily. based on your liking the normal channel and everything i've read about and experienced with this amp.
i know what you're talking about and i have similar issues with fuzz pedals with some amps. i have a vox AC15 that sounded great on it's own but couldn't handle fuzz. i've altered the bright cap and added a high frequency cut control to help with that. but i like to mess with amps so...
generally, most of my OD pedals never have their tone controls over 10o'clock as well.
there are plenty of ways to deal with the issue but they're all $$$$. speakers, tubes, certain pedals to blend the two channels etc. but it really may be as simple as removing one capacitor.
google "bright cap mod" and you'll see lots of talk about it.
mind you, if you've absolutely dimed the vibrato volume, the capacitor should be out of the signal anyway so perhaps it is something else. i've never though the amp sounded good turned all the way up anyway on either channel.
it is frustrating because you'll set up your amp to sound great clean and then it's too fizzy with distortion pedals. but if you set it up for a great gain sound, it'll sound too dull when playing clean. such is life.
If it's brand new, it's under warranty so I wouldn't do any bright cap mods or speaker changes yet, although they are cool ways to beef these up. If you do mods now, the warranty is kaput.
Take your guitar and Tube screamer and cords to guitar center and plug into another DRRI and see if it has the same issues. Mine had smoke coming out of it a week after I bought it and they fixed it. Loose tube socket. They're great amps, but they're factory built, shipped across the country and bounced and things can loosen up in them, particularly the tubes.
If it isn't a tube, then doing the bright cap mod may help, too, as that's a known issue with these. That's easy and cheap. Also try turning down the treble to see if that factors it out. These are bright amps!
That being said, these amps DO have some quirks with different overdrive pedals. It's a reissue of 1965 when most guitar players weren't using all the distortions and overdrives. If they wanted distortion, they just turned it up!
My favorite IS the modded tubescreamer (By Vaughn Mods) and it's pretty bright into the Vibrato channel but I don't get the fizz you talk about.
The vibrato channel is more complex with the tubes for the vibrato and reverb and more likely to have some noise.
By the way, this speaker is in mine and it sounds great.
https://taweber.powweb.com/weber/12f150.htm
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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I replaced the tubes and the vibrato channel still sounded terrible.
So now I have a choice to make.
-play the DRRI through the normal channel and by a holy grail pedal for my reverb. Then try the bright cap mod. (at that point i can no longer return the amp)
-return it. i can get a discount on a traynor ycv40 so maybe I'll check that out? might still be heavy or loud which is why i was selling my Deville in the first place.
my deville hasn't sold on craigslist yet so that also makes me think about returning the DRRI
-be really confused.
Maybe you could ask if a tech can take off the cap and still have it under warranty? Probably not, but it's worth a shot. It's just a matter of removing one capacitor.
My Tubescreamer was modded by Vaughn's Mods, and it has a three position EQ switch that boosts the lows a bit and that sounds great through the vibrato channel, although I see you already have a modded one.
http://www.wpa.net/~vaughn/ts9/ts9.html
I have the Trimode mod on mine and the bass boost is great for single coil pickups. I have some old RCA power tubes and a few old preamp tubes in there and I never had to clip the bright cap on mine.
It also has a clean boost setting that works pretty well when I have the DRRI volume on 5. It sounds nice right around there and the clean boost pushes the amp just right for me. DRRI's are kind of flubby sounding turned up high.
Maybe you could try a clean boost on your vibrato channel and see what happens.
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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There is a simple mod to get reverb and trem on the normal channel of the drri but once again its a mod all the same.
Ok, well,
Exhausted, ,, meet Ezyrydr. I don't know Ezyrydr well,, but I know Exhausted is a top notch guy. You'll be trading your amps this week and everyone will be happy!
So here is the guitar player quandary:
Buy a new amp and mod it without worrying about the warranty, make it what you want and possibly mod it several times until it's right,
or stick it out so that if something goes wrong, the warranty covers it.
Myself, I would modify it because I'm a kind of "not worry about it" kind of guy, and you could spend days
Weeks
Months!
Trying to find your sound.
If your new DRRI is YOUR sound through the normal channel, then you have a couple of options. It's a great amp, and it's a relatively simple design and there are some great ways to customize them.
1) Mod it so the normal channel runs through the vibrato channel. Like Exhausted says: easy to do.
2) Pull out the capacitor on the vibrato channel. Really easy
3) REALLY void the warranty! :http://deluxereverb.waynereno.com/index.htm
Don't be mankind. ~Captain Beefheart
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i've never found an amp that's been 100% perfect for me. even with my deluxe reverb i changed the speaker a couple times. the only one i have not messed with yet is my princeton reverb.
so i did just add a 47pF bright cap (same value as the deluxe reverb) to the normal channel of my 18watt. that channel was too dull and lacked bass so i changed one cap to increase the bass response and one cap to add some top end and that's it. it brought the channel alive and makes it useful for clean tones now.
i love modding. of course, i built the whole amp in this case but still. that channel was stock but needed something extra to work for my needs.