Any guitarists? Help please-new amp 'popping' sound.

[conanthewarrior]

Hi people- I yesterday got myself a blacksar HT-5R metal head after demoing it against an orange Tiny terror, with a few different cabs, and ended up with the blackstar with a 1 by 4 8 inch driver cab.

Last night, I was cranking it a bit more as I had more time-but I noticed something strange.

I tend to play fairly hard-just always have, but I noticed that with the gain around 2 o clock it would make a 'popping' sound if I hit the strings hard-played softer the pop did not happen.

I backed the gain off to around 11 o clock, and could play hard again.

This being my first valve amp, why is this? Was my hard strumming sending too much signal into the amp, causing the pop sound?

Or is there another issue-it was a noticeable pop, but I backed the gain off, and it sounds about the same at 11 O clock played hard, as it did at 2 o clock played soft.

I am using a clockface for example of my settings E.g 2 o clock would be about 7 on the amp, with 11 on a clock being around 5 on the dials. (so full blast would be 5 o clock, 10 on the amp)

Any advice would be great, as its my first valve amplifier, I want to make sure its perfect,as I already spent a lot of money on it. They forgot to include the footswitch-I have to collect it next time I go by the shop, its not far though so no biggie.

EDIT: I have played it this morning, with MORE gain and volume, and no pops today!!!

Its not a crackle of a bad cable-its an actual pop when played hard.

The only thing I did this morning was remove my Boss CE-5 from the signal chain-it was on last night, but even off the problem would happen, so I moved that out.

I am going to try it with it in again, as I want to be able to use chorus as most metal I play is from the 80's, and has a chorus effect.

I am worried that because I only tested it for ten minutes this morning, it started happening last night after about an hour of playing (Not overly loud, volume 1/4 and gain set to around 7 out of 10) it happened, so I am worried it only will happen when the tubes(valves to us English) are hot-mid practice for example.

Hope someone can help me, thanks, Conan.

 

[robot zombie]

Hmmm, the tubes should actually perform best when they've been running for a while. They're supposed to heat up before they can do what they're supposed to, electrically. Do you give them a warm-up before you use them? I'm talking about flipping on the power, but leaving the standby engaged for a minute or two.

What this does is feed less voltage into them initially. When you kick off the standby, full voltage flows into them and that's when they should really get going. Some tubes really don't like having full power pumped into them from the jump. You don't want to be cranking them right away. It's like jumping from first to third gear in your car.

Sometimes new tubes simply require a break-in period before they work like they're supposed to, as well. They need to wear in before they even-out and settle into a balance with one another. This is especially true if your amp happens to have been sitting unused for a while before you bought it.

What kinds of tubes do you have in that amp, anyway?

If its not a connection issue or a bad knob somewhere, then it could be a problem with one of your tubes or maybe just improper biasing, though I somehow doubt that, as that usually presents itself in the form of undesirable distortion, crackle, and murk.

Now that I think about it, sounds more like a capacitor problem. The only thing that makes me think its tube-related is the fact that the problem seems reliant on the strength of your input signal.

Any fluctuations in volume when this happens or is it just popping?

I would just take it into the music shop and have a pro look at it. Can't hurt to have it inspected and re-biased. The popping could be due to a lot of things. But if you don't know what you're doing, tinkering with a tube amp yourself can be a little... ...electrifying, if you know what I mean.

 

[MrScaryZ]

Hi people- I yesterday got myself a blacksar HT-5R metal head after demoing it against an orange Tiny terror, with a few different cabs, and ended up with the blackstar with a 1 by 4 8 inch driver cab.

Last night, I was cranking it a bit more as I had more time-but I noticed something strange.

I tend to play fairly hard-just always have, but I noticed that with the gain around 2 o clock it would make a 'popping' sound if I hit the strings hard-played softer the pop did not happen.

I backed the gain off to around 11 o clock, and could play hard again.

This being my first valve amp, why is this? Was my hard strumming sending too much signal into the amp, causing the pop sound?

Or is there another issue-it was a noticeable pop, but I backed the gain off, and it sounds about the same at 11 O clock played hard, as it did at 2 o clock played soft.

I am using a clockface for example of my settings E.g 2 o clock would be about 7 on the amp, with 11 on a clock being around 5 on the dials. (so full blast would be 5 o clock, 10 on the amp)

Any advice would be great, as its my first valve amplifier, I want to make sure its perfect,as I already spent a lot of money on it. They forgot to include the footswitch-I have to collect it next time I go by the shop, its not far though so no biggie.

EDIT: I have played it this morning, with MORE gain and volume, and no pops today!!!

Its not a crackle of a bad cable-its an actual pop when played hard.

The only thing I did this morning was remove my Boss CE-5 from the signal chain-it was on last night, but even off the problem would happen, so I moved that out.

I am going to try it with it in again, as I want to be able to use chorus as most metal I play is from the 80's, and has a chorus effect.

I am worried that because I only tested it for ten minutes this morning, it started happening last night after about an hour of playing (Not overly loud, volume 1/4 and gain set to around 7 out of 10) it happened, so I am worried it only will happen when the tubes(valves to us English) are hot-mid practice for example.

Hope someone can help me, thanks, Conan.

Tubes can do all kinds of weird shiit you may have a bit of Microphonic character or a kinda bad tube .. best way to find out is leave it on overnight sometimes with a bit of burnin it will either settle down a noisy valve or hasten its demis

 

[conanthewarrior]

Today it is fine-I think I figured out the problem. I was using the chorus pedal last night-with the battery it came with. Today it wont turn on, the battery has died, so I think it was acting funky maybe due to that.

But today, nothing in my signal chain I cranked it more than last night, had a jam for an hour or so, and no popping sounds . I'm looking forward to christmas, as my mum is getting me a nice interface, so I can get back to recording vocals and making music-I mainly make grime, and I did MC when I was younger. I plan to do the same now-but instead of rapping like a 15 year old about drugs and silly things I am going to go for some conscious stuff, with guitar and metal influences.

Hopefully it will turn out well, it's only for fun-but I did miss a few opportunities in my teens, I wouldn't of been a a list celeb but I would of had a fair few white labels as a few producers approached me-I was too drunk to get back to them, and one of them has become quite well known in the dubstep scene I hear nowadays. Oh well, I had the opportunity once-I am sure I can get it again, even a small underground following would make me happy.

One of my Friends produces under the name Axiom theory-he has got pretty far. When I am set up he wants to colab, I will vocal one of his tracks and he will release it, he gets played on BBC radio 1Xtra quite often-so you never know .

 

[conanthewarrior]

www.myspace.com/conanwarrior2006 - listen to the tracks Warrior ft pheonix, that is real old grime, I wish I vocaled it alone, I am the first and last MC, plus listen to memorial Riddim-I made that when I was 15, plus you know how was a funky grime track instrumental I made.

Suprised its still on there-I don't have any copies of my music-how do I download my own music from myspace?

 

[conanthewarrior]

The MC known as pheonix wanted in on the vocal, due to the instrumental being a remix of one of my tracks that he made in about 10 mins and just looped-this is just to show my flow. He is only in the middle though-he tried but his flow is off.

And yes, those are my air force 1's. I had them customized with my stage name lol. Where white and black culture is a lot closer in the UK-whites and blacks don't dress THAT different. At least where I am from anyway, plus most of those tracks were recorded in BOW E3, London, where grime was born.

 

[conanthewarrior]

Hmmm, the tubes should actually perform best when they've been running for a while. They're supposed to heat up before they can do what they're supposed to, electrically. Do you give them a warm-up before you use them? I'm talking about flipping on the power, but leaving the standby engaged for a minute or two.

What this does is feed less voltage into them initially. When you kick off the standby, full voltage flows into them and that's when they should really get going. Some tubes really don't like having full power pumped into them from the jump. You don't want to be cranking them right away. It's like jumping from first to third gear in your car.

Sometimes new tubes simply require a break-in period before they work like they're supposed to, as well. They need to wear in before they even-out and settle into a balance with one another. This is especially true if your amp happens to have been sitting unused for a while before you bought it.

What kinds of tubes do you have in that amp, anyway?

If its not a connection issue or a bad knob somewhere, then it could be a problem with one of your tubes or maybe just improper biasing, though I somehow doubt that, as that usually presents itself in the form of undesirable distortion, crackle, and murk.

Now that I think about it, sounds more like a capacitor problem. The only thing that makes me think its tube-related is the fact that the problem seems reliant on the strength of your input signal.

Any fluctuations in volume when this happens or is it just popping?

I would just take it into the music shop and have a pro look at it. Can't hurt to have it inspected and re-biased. The popping could be due to a lot of things. But if you don't know what you're doing, tinkering with a tube amp yourself can be a little... ...electrifying, if you know what I mean.

Thanks for your help man-its only a 5 watter blackstar HT5 metal, but I love it.

I have been giving the tubes time to warm up, on standby before power.

I am 99.9% sure the problem is solved though-it was my chorus pedals battery dying.

I have been playing for a few hours today-no pops at all. Just a nice sound-the sound I was after.

It only runs a single 12BH7 for the preamp and a I believe ECC83 for the power section.

I am certain it was just me, and being my first valve amp worrying, It sounds great today, no issues, and had a lot of fun on it. .

As I said above, get ready for some new music after christmas-I have everything but an interface-that will arrive christmas.

It will be a bastard breed though of metal meets grime. Due to the area I live, I have a slight 'multicultural british English' accent, not as bad as a street kid though. I hope people like it-if not at least I will lol

 

[Huckleberried]

even a small underground following would make me happy.

You have a VAPING Underground

 

[conanthewarrior]

You have a VAPING Underground

Haha very true, this is a nice place so thats good enough