sosomething
Seymour Duncan Customer Support
UPDATE:
I think I've got it working now. I followed the advice in this thread which was echoed by Bogner and my amp tech Kevin Silva when I called them.
I pulled the chassis and poked around the board with the amp on and running through a cab, trying to see if I could make any weird noises by prodding the solder joints, and I found one. It was a joint from a small wire that connected a piece of board under the pots to the main preamp board. It appeared that all the connections to the small board were made from the underside - likely before it was bolted to the chassis. From my angle I could see the edge of the wire all the way around so I added a nice smooth little blob of solder to it.
I then flipped the chassis back over and set it directly on top of the cab - just naked, laying there on the speaker cabinet with no head cab to protect it, and proceeded to vibrate my neighborhood.
No bad sounds.
Band practice tonight will be the true test. I'm tempted to remain skeptical just because of how easily I found the problem and how simple it was to fix - almost too good to be true - but I can't imagine generating more pure vibration in that chassis than I did yesterday with no problems.
Two interesting things:
First, this is the 95th Uberschall ever made by Bogner.
Second, Bogner scrapes and/or melts all the values off of nearly every cap in their amps. It's all top-secret, I must assume.
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Original Post Below
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AAAARRRRGH!!! :wrf:
I finally picked up my Uberschall from my old band's guitar player. I had it at band practice yesterday and was really excited to crank it up and get it dialed in. Let me tell you guys, through my Splawn cab, the Uber sounded amazing....
for about 5 minutes.
At any practical gigging / band practice volume, the OD channel started to kind of queef out on me under duress. Especially with palm mutes and heavier chords. Sort of an intermittent, farty / crackly sound coupled with a brief loss of output and gain. It actually sounds a lot like a bad output jack from a guitar or something, but that's not it. I used several guitars and cables, and had no pedals in the way. All jacks seem solid.
I don't know what's wrong with this thing. I need some help diagnosing the problem, if possible.
What it's not:
Facts about the issue:
What's going on with my amp? I can take it to a tech but it'll have to wait for two weeks, and then it'll be gone for at least another two weeks - that's a whole month without my Uber and I don't know if I can bear it.
If it's something simple like a bias adjustment that I can do myself, I'd much rather go that route but I don't want to go mucking around inside the amp without some reliable consultation on the issue first.
thanks
I think I've got it working now. I followed the advice in this thread which was echoed by Bogner and my amp tech Kevin Silva when I called them.
I pulled the chassis and poked around the board with the amp on and running through a cab, trying to see if I could make any weird noises by prodding the solder joints, and I found one. It was a joint from a small wire that connected a piece of board under the pots to the main preamp board. It appeared that all the connections to the small board were made from the underside - likely before it was bolted to the chassis. From my angle I could see the edge of the wire all the way around so I added a nice smooth little blob of solder to it.
I then flipped the chassis back over and set it directly on top of the cab - just naked, laying there on the speaker cabinet with no head cab to protect it, and proceeded to vibrate my neighborhood.
No bad sounds.
Band practice tonight will be the true test. I'm tempted to remain skeptical just because of how easily I found the problem and how simple it was to fix - almost too good to be true - but I can't imagine generating more pure vibration in that chassis than I did yesterday with no problems.
Two interesting things:
First, this is the 95th Uberschall ever made by Bogner.
Second, Bogner scrapes and/or melts all the values off of nearly every cap in their amps. It's all top-secret, I must assume.
---------------------------------------------------------
Original Post Below
---------------------------------------------------------
AAAARRRRGH!!! :wrf:
I finally picked up my Uberschall from my old band's guitar player. I had it at band practice yesterday and was really excited to crank it up and get it dialed in. Let me tell you guys, through my Splawn cab, the Uber sounded amazing....
for about 5 minutes.
At any practical gigging / band practice volume, the OD channel started to kind of queef out on me under duress. Especially with palm mutes and heavier chords. Sort of an intermittent, farty / crackly sound coupled with a brief loss of output and gain. It actually sounds a lot like a bad output jack from a guitar or something, but that's not it. I used several guitars and cables, and had no pedals in the way. All jacks seem solid.
I don't know what's wrong with this thing. I need some help diagnosing the problem, if possible.
What it's not:
- Preamp tubes - I replaced all the preamp tubes already in the amp with some spare EHs that I know to work. No improvement.
- Power tubes - I replaced all the JJs EL34s with some Groove Tubes that I know to work. The problem was WORSE with the GTs. I switched back to the JJs.
- Impedance. I used a good speaker cable that I know works and made sure my impedance was set to the proper 16 ohms and the amp was plugged into the 16 ohm input of my Splawn cab before ever powering up.
- Guitar / Cables. I used both my Edwards LP and my Carvin CT and Planet Waves and George L's cables... The problem was there with all of them.
- Pedals - The only pedal involved the whole time was my trust Korg DT-10 tuner, and after the first "WTF is that??" I removed it from the chain and it did not return. It wasn't the problem.
Facts about the issue:
- Problem on OD channel only. Clean is fine.
- Problem not present at low volumes, but once you get up to moderate practice volume it's real bad.
What's going on with my amp? I can take it to a tech but it'll have to wait for two weeks, and then it'll be gone for at least another two weeks - that's a whole month without my Uber and I don't know if I can bear it.
If it's something simple like a bias adjustment that I can do myself, I'd much rather go that route but I don't want to go mucking around inside the amp without some reliable consultation on the issue first.thanks
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