m-m-m
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So, my friend has a Fender blues deluxe that he got a few months back. He gigs on it a ton. Anyways, the other day we were playing in his bedroom and I started noticing a ringing/buzzing sound on certain notes. We stopped jamming and after some trials I found the it to be centered around the F# on the A at the 9th fret. I was actually able to bend the note and get the noise to stop, and then start again when releasing the bend. Didn't seem to be dependant on the volume of the amp. I started fooling around with the amp a bit while he played. I don't have any practical experience with tube amps, but I've read a few repair books that talked a bit on the subject. At first I thought that it was maybe some kind of loose screw on the reverb tank, but I found that it seemed to be the preamp tubes. Didn't have a pencil around, but when I touched the tubes with my hands, you could hear a pop, and then the noise was gone. Came back when I released. Also, the noise seemed to dissipate when tilting the amp forward 20 degrees or so. Weird.
After some research I found this thread over at the fender forum that details some similar problems with the same amp. Basically, it talks about taking the amp out of the chassis and cleaning up some poor work (moving tie-wrap heads and poorly placed wiring harnesses). All that makes me a bit nervous - probably isn't as hard as it all sounds, but I don't have the amp in front of me. I was thinking that maybe we can just try swapping out a few tubes, as the issue may be microphonics but I know nothing about buying tubes. The manual to the amp says to only use fender tubes, but that sounds like BS. Cheap tubes run about $15 from guitar center, but is it worth it to spend more? Seems like some of the more expensive GT ones are just re-labeled sovteks that you can get for a lot less.
What do you guys think
After some research I found this thread over at the fender forum that details some similar problems with the same amp. Basically, it talks about taking the amp out of the chassis and cleaning up some poor work (moving tie-wrap heads and poorly placed wiring harnesses). All that makes me a bit nervous - probably isn't as hard as it all sounds, but I don't have the amp in front of me. I was thinking that maybe we can just try swapping out a few tubes, as the issue may be microphonics but I know nothing about buying tubes. The manual to the amp says to only use fender tubes, but that sounds like BS. Cheap tubes run about $15 from guitar center, but is it worth it to spend more? Seems like some of the more expensive GT ones are just re-labeled sovteks that you can get for a lot less.
What do you guys think