Bare Knuckle Pickups Forum
Forum Ringside => Guitars, Amps and Effects => Topic started by: sambo on January 12, 2007, 10:25:58 PM
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ok how do you tell if a valve has blown in an amp?
would it be such a big difference that you really couldnt miss it kinda thing? or would it just noticably degrade the tone?
cause ive been finding the ENGL really harsh/a little fizzy for the past week or so... and it just doesnt sound like i remember it did....
reeeally annoying... might just be me imagining things...
agh!
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SOMEONE?! ANYONE?!
how do you tell if a valve is blown?
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Sam if it has "blown" then it just doesn't work. Depends what you mean, though, by "blown". Are you sure you haven't changed a setting without realising?possibly a stupid thing to suggest as I am sure you would have thought of that but it has been known.Could it be that your ears have acclimatised to the sound and you are hearing something you haven't before. I am not an expert to be honest-I am sure the knowledgeable posse will be galloping over the hill soon.
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another thing is, might the speaker have broken in? thought that would surely have the opposite effect?
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Be of good cheer sambo I reckon; Engl controls have a high degree of interactivity so that it might seem as if you're only tweaking things a tad until you boost a volume and it gets too crunchy. A combination of settings at one power level may well change tonally when you go to another.
I'm not putting this brilliantly well, but try a few of the following: drop Presence to 0; drop Treble to 0; ensure the LEDs indicate that you're going through a Lead channel instead of a Crunch one; keep Middle up between 6 and 10; drop your Master Volume down whilst ramping up the Lead Volume...it could be that with a little pushing of the "pre" stage of the amping, this can begin to add that pleasing valvy compression and smoothness.
Your description at present just suggests to me that all is well: Engls naturally have a high ceiling of treble and presence...the fact that you're experiencing this would suggest that all is very well with the amp, and it may just require a reduction of these.
There are many heads here much more knowledgeable than me, so I'm sure it will all be tickety-boo. By all means PM me if you wish.
Oh yes: are you playing the same guitar as before? Have you altered pickup heights? Are you playing in the same room, at the same volume? Just rhetorical questions you understand.
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i think it must juts be my ears adjusting to the sound properly.... maybe a little bit of the speaker breaking in or whatever i dunno.
and beatle- so if one valve goes... nothing works? cheers.
and yer that did concern me Zigmund... i noticed how the actual sound changes a lottt just when turning up the channel volume between 1-4...
gonna have to mess around with all the controls again i guess. i'll try what you suggested- thanks.
agh!
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Try this setting on the drive channel: Gain 1 o'clock, bass 3PM, mid 2PM treb 1PM and Presence 10-11AM.
How does this sound on your screamer?
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Sorry Sambo, there are amps that will keep going but on reduced power when one gives up the ghost-at least as far as I recall. I must admit I am no amp expert and I stand to be corrected but I think it is not as simple as that I am afraid.
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thanks hunter- ill try that soon (im at band practice at the minute)...
and beatle- hmm annoying. i guess it reassures me that one of them hasnt gone though.
cheers
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+1 on what zigmund said, basically.
I run my treble on the high gain channels at about 3-4, with a presence around 4, (EDIT: and that's with the bass and mids at 9!) and the savage se is smoother and less trebly than the screamer. (i increase the presence to 6 for really modern stuff, but that's about it)
When I got my engl at the start, I had the treble around 6 or 7, and presence to a similar amount, lol.
Could just be that your ears are changing, lol. It happened to me, anyway.
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lol! shiiiite, i think that must be the problem...
that and a mixture of what zigmund said.
on a side note- i realised something REALLY embarassing today lol...
when i used the H&K cab with the ENGL... i put it in the wrong output... i was so gutted when i realised it...
being a complete idiot i looked at the "1x8 or 2x16" on section 1 of the outputs... and banged the cab in there... totally ignoring the fact that the combo's speaker was already plugged in there...
whats the worst effect that this could have on the amp??? :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops: :oops:
and also- used it through our bassists bass cab today... (using the RIGHT output this time :oops: )
sounded LOVELY...
definitely getting myself a cab soon.
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^ what's the cab's impedance?
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8ohms... ?
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so i was running two 8ohm 'units', (the cab and the combo's speaker), into the section of outputs which is for 2x16 or 1x8....
how bad is that? lol
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it's highly unlikely you've done anything to your amp. setting the impedance to match up on the amp and cab is more an issue of maximum power transfer.
:twisted:
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ahhh i see.
thanks HTH, thats a weight off my shoulders.
i really cant believe i did it in the first place though... it makes me seem like such an tw@t...
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there's one way round that supposedly does no harm, and one way round that might. I can never remember which is which, though. :oops:
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:lol:
so what your saying Dave, is that as long as i pick the one that isn't supposed to cause any harm... i wont cause any harm? :lol: :lol: :lol:
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amps can sound different depending on tube life, how clean or dirty your electricity supply is, how your walls are painted, what objects are in your room, how and where u sit when listening to your amp, what angle your amp is facing into the room, component life, strings corroding and various other factors..
personally i'd just mess with the eq until you find your setting again.
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^ yes.
if I understand right, what you did was plug 2 8 ohm cabs (giving 4 ohms, i think?) into the 8 ohm speaker output.
odds are you're ok, just don't do it again.
actually, come to mention it, i think you're ok the way you did it. I know a 3 ohm speaker into a 4 ohm speaker out, or 15 ohm speaker into a 16 ohm speaker out, is OK.
But don't quote me, lol.
EDIT: scratch that, that may just because they near enough match.
disregard everything in this post but "don't do it again". :lol:
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mm guitar tone is affected by so much shite... its annoying..
but you were right James- 'fixed' it pretty much... just by experimenting a cr@p-load at band practice today..
and dave- yer your logic seems to make sense there... (about the 2x8 = 4 thing)...
i really should be more careful though lol.
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Glad to hear it's fixed. I used to always wonder what EQ settings to use and I used to always adjust them to what sounded the best at home when playing on my own but when practicing/playing in a band situation I could hardly be heard. Next time try these settings;
Bass 10 o'clock
Mid 3 o'clock
Treble 12 o'clock
Presence all the way off
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Phew!
Glad it's sorted!
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cheers guys!
and Steve- those settings are actually really close to what i eventually settled on!!! :) except i had more presence, so i'll try your suggestion out a bit later.
thanks lads!
also; what do you lot think to this beast:
http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=014&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&viewitem=&item=330073488314&rd=1&rd=1
picking it up tonight- cant wait! :D
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Sam, you will LOVE that. I remember telling you about em awhile back. One I played in US last year was great, gorgeous neck!
Have fun.
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Nice axe - very Metallica ;)
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cheers guys :)
yer someone (who doesnt play guitar) actually said today it looks like a Hammett signature! lol..
and yup i remember you telling me Nick.... the neck is definitely one of the main reasons i like 'em... just hope it plays nicely (although it should do considering the amount of work done).
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Well done eggchaddy...erm Sam.
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:lol:
its my dads account okay!!!!?!
i would obviously have a much more sophisticated and witty ebay-name...
like.... sambo or something...
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heh, eggchady.
I never got round to trying the slsmg (i wanted to, just to see) but the sl3 soloist was nice, I assume it's of similar quality.
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lol,
well the build quality is f*cking awesome!!!
and the neck is absolutely stunning...
EMGs im not too keen on after playing it quite a lot last night... although for some reason i loved the clean tones i got from the neck pickup... which i thought was odd seeing as EMGs are meant to be metal-monsters :?
and there was a little bit of buzz so i raised the action (i prefer higher action anyway)
now its pretty much perfect for me... although its gonna take a little while to get used to the slightly longer scale length...
i might take it to a luthier/guitar shop (feline...?) at SOME point and get a set-up/fret dress e.t.c. just to try and get rid of the little bit of buzz that there is....
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Nice one sam,
I'm not a pointy guitar nut, but that looks good
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^ ^ are you sure the truss rod doesn't just need a minor tweak?
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cheers rob.
and i have NO idea Dave...
anything past the action is way beyond me in terms of how a guitar is set-up...
what would adjusting the truss rod actually do then?
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^ probably remove the buzz.
Luckily I have a kramer I'm not too fussed on so I can experiment on that, lol. I wouldn't try it on a brand new expensive guitar, lol.
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Sam, don't do eeeet :)
If ya not sure about it leave it alone, esp. as it's set neck?
BTW, WTF with the evilbay name!?!?!?!?!
Oh, and my next axe will have 81/60n EMG's which I will play alot other than metal on, Southern Rock/Blues stuff. It's all good bud.
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lol,
EMGs im not too keen on after playing it quite a lot last night... although for some reason i loved the clean tones i got from the neck pickup...
is the neck pickup an EMG60 ??? - they are VERY nice pickups in the neck, I really like 'em. Hetfield (apparently) used to have 'em in both bridge and neck ('some' of Puppets sounds that way)
Are you going with some suitably metal pickups or something more restrained?
:twisted:
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yer i wouldnt touch the truss rod myself... but something to consider having looked at by a luthier i guess..
its an 81 and an 85...
as for pickups if/when i replace them... i would probably go with painkillers...
(suitable for an all mahogany guitar???)
or nailbombs...
i love the cleans of the EMGs so can kinda understand why you say you'll be wanting to play a lot of stuff with your next set Nick...
i will definitely get rid of the active circuitry though as i am cr@p at anything replaceable... i just KNOW that the battery will run out on stage when i dont have a replacement... and im really not too keen on the idea of that happening lol.
HTH are 60's passive?
if so... might go for a combo of EMG + BK????
what do people think of EMGs vs. BKPs in general?
cheers,
sam.
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HTH again... just to ask a more detailed question...
would you say it would be a stupid idea to mix a EMG 60 neck with say a painkiller or nailbomb in the bridge?
i say this mainly because i need a really nice clean tone (which the EMG would (hopefully)) give me in the neck, but also a very orangic heavy distortion sound... which the painkiller/nailbomb would hopefully provide from the bridge...
the EMG 81/85 / their distortion in general seems to be almost fizzy-ish... ? maybe not fizzy as such but a bit too metally for my tastes...
dunno... just not too keen on it really, but as i said before LOVED the clean tone of the neck.... played it to my mate through the engl today and he was blown away... said it sounded like an acoustic almost...
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60's are active, far as I'm aware.
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EMG60s are active. You can mix active and passives no problems IF you have seperate volume pots for each pickup since EMGs use 25k volume pots and passive humbuckers use 500k.
I wouldn't personally mix 'em though, there are neck pickups that BKP offer that will give the same clarity. Talk to Tim and tell him which EMG you liked in the neck position and he'll suggest something suitable.
:twisted:
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ahh i see.
well that would be a problem for me then as the jackson only has a single volume pot.
would it actually be worth gutting all the electrics and switching back to passive for the sake of getting BKPs?
ive never tried a BKP humbucker so have no idea what they are like actually play/hear in person...
youve obviously had experience of both HTH... is it worth ripping out the EMGz altogether? does it depend on what particular sound im after?
cheers for the info so far.