Weird amp issue

  • Thread starter Thread starter Meanjoegreene
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Meanjoegreene

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Playing my amp at pretty low volume. Seemed fine then it’s like it got bassy and scooped. I thought I was going nuts but I swear it happened. I’ve done all the normal stuff. The cab ohms are the same, connections are good and no red plate tubes.

Could have been some volume drop but I don’t think it’s too drastic. It’s not a terrible sound but definitely odd. It’s a bright Marshall style amp so it shouldn’t have gone metal all of a sudden.

Any ideas ?
 
Meanjoegreene said:
It’s a bright Marshall style amp so it shouldn’t have gone metal all of a sudden.

Any ideas ?
Click to expand...

Sounds like it's become a teenager.
In all seriousness, what amp/mods? I dunno a lot, but it would probably help others be able to help you.
Bright cap solder? Input jack? Cable? Loop? PI?
 
This is so weird but I think I’ve figured it out…the mid knob no longer functions. It’s like it’s stuck on a fixed frequency.

Everything else seems fine…never had anything close to this happen before.

The amp is a stock Friedman X. Only issue I’ve had is a couple bad power tubes a while back. They’ve been replaced, biased and everything has been great sense. That was probably over a year ago too.
 
Take some contact cleaner, or Deoxit and spray the mid pot. Might just need a good cleaning. I was going to suggest a pre tube, since they can start to go and not show any visible signs but if it's the mid pot then it may be oxidized. Cleaning might solve it.
If you've never done it, just take the amp out of the headshell, turn it upside down and spray cleaner into the opening on the pot, at the same time turn the knob back n forth.
Hopefully this solves the issue.
 
Appreciate it

It’s strange and honestly not even a bad tone, ha ha. I was playing a super bright guitar then all at once it went kinda scooped and the bass got more pronounced probably from whatever happened to the mids. All the knobs have the same sweep except for the mids…no change thru the whole twist of the knob.

Hopefully it’s the pot and not a cap or something. I’ve checked pretty much everything else including verifying the cab ohms…it’s a 4x12 and i initially thought a speaker crapped out.
 
But y’all don’t think I’m crazy and missing something major, right ?

I’ll recheck as I was rushed this morning but I really think it’s the mid pot or something to do with the mids. I tapped on the knob a little trying to get a crackle but everything stayed solid.
 
I banged around on the mid knob and it seemed to kick in again. I guess at some point maybe I’ll take it out of the shell and try some contact cleaner. No pops or anything when I hit and wiggled it…but then all of a sudden the brightness of the mids came back.

So weird but hopefully just a random thing
 
Have you swapped out preamp tubes? That's what it sounds like to me.
 
It’s so weird but tapping the knob just a bit seems to have worked

Now just need to play it for 30 minutes or so and see if it happens again
 
It’s definitely a cool amp with bright mids. I’d love to hear it next to the new Plex.

I really do think I’m imagining this but it actually seems brighter and more raw than before…like maybe the mid pot has been a little off for a while. But that’s probably not correct and just seems that much more apparent after the mids kicked back in.
 
De-Oxit in all the pots sounds like a good idea at this point. I’m betting that’s it. If it was a failing component or a true cold/damaged solder joint, it ‘probably’ would not be so intermittent (?)
 
Meanjoegreene said:
It’s so weird but tapping the knob just a bit seems to have worked

Now just need to play it for 30 minutes or so and see if it happens again
Click to expand...
If it changes when you tap it< it's most likely a solder joint.
 
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