Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

[Charvel1975]

Hello! Last night at our band's rehearsal place, my 95 Mesa T-Verb was getting loud buzzing noises, I don't know if it was 60 cycle hum but kinda sounded like it and noticed for the past couple months it's been getting worse with the buzzing noises on either channel whether or not the Reverb is turned on or off. My Tremoverb was converted from a combo to a head some years ago. It's currently got the stock 1995 Mesa labeled 5U4G's and the Mesa labeled 6L6's &12AX7's in it which are over 4-5 years old and a quad of JJ 6L6GC's I've had for some years but took the Mesa 6L6GC's out of the amp and put in the JJ's.

Also, there was some talk radio station coming through the amp only on the Red channel and my Marshall 1960 4x12 cab I have it plugged into?! It did this some years ago too but this is the first time in years it's done that! On my pedal board, what I have going through the effects loop is a ModTone clean boost and MXR Classic Chorus powered by a Visual Sound One Spot power supply. Currently has JJ 6L6GC's and Mesa preamp tubes. Any Tremoverb owners have this happen before and any suggestions??

 

[dystrust]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

First thing I'd do is disconnect all of your pedals and see if the noise goes away. Maybe also try a different guitar cable and see if that makes a difference with the radio station. From there be sure that you're using the silicon diode rectifier if you're not already. After that, try replacing the preamp tubes starting with V1 which should be closest to the input jack.

Filter caps that are nearing failure can make an amp hum, but I doubt that's the issue since your amp is still somewhat recent. Since you state that your preamp and rectifier tubes are old I'd start there first.

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

Cables. A 99% spiral shield guitar cable for between guitar, pedals and amp. High quality 2-conductor cable between amp and cab.

My Mesa combos have a metal foil lining on the inside top that provides shielding. Did you forget this when you moved it to the new head cabinet?

Using a power strip with RFI filtering can help.

If that doesn't fix it, call Mesa Customer Service.

Bill

 

[Charvel1975]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

Cables. A 99% spiral shield guitar cable for between guitar, pedals and amp. High quality 2-conductor cable between amp and cab.

My Mesa combos have a metal foil lining on the inside top that provides shielding. Did you forget this when you moved it to the new head cabinet?

Using a power strip with RFI filtering can help.

If that doesn't fix it, call Mesa Customer Service.

Bill

Hi Bill, thank you very much for the information!! I just Google searched and came across this Furman SS-6B Surge Block, do you think this would help?

http://www.musiciansfriend.com/accessories/furman-ss-6b-surge-block/181297000000000?cntry=us&source=3WWRWXGP&gclid=EAIaIQobChMI5duFz_XT2QIVxUGGCh0GYgBDEAQYASABEgIrb_D_BwE&kwid=productads-adid^221925979422-device^c-plaid^335491603153-sku^181297000000000@ADL4MF-adType^PLA#productDetail

Also, I'm pretty sure the speaker cable I'm using to go from my Mesa to my Marshall 1060 4x12 cab is a Monster speaker cable with the Gold ends. On my pedal board, the instrument cables that go from the pedal board are Planet Waves Classic Series Instrument Cable, 15 feet

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0002GMGYA/ref=twister_B007SU9Z9M?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1


The patch cable on my pedal board to go between the ModTone clean boost pedal and MXR Classic Chorus pedal is either a Mogami or a Monster Cable

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

I have a few of those Furmans, with no complaints.

Bill

 

[Charvel1975]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

Well last night went over to the rehearsal place with a Furman SS6B 6 Plug Surge Protector I bought off Amazon. I tried just what I had the Mesa and the 1 spot power supply for the 2 pedals on my pedalboard plugged into the same store brand power strip, was getting that LOUD, what seems like 60 cycle hum, and then on the Red channel - that short wave radio station that came through the last time. I then unplugged the Mesa and 1 spot and then just plugged both straight into the wall outlet, same thing. Plugged the new Furman SS6B Surge Protector in and plugged the Mesa and 1 spot in it, same buzzing, LOUD 60 cycle hum and that same short wave radio station coming through on the Red channel only. Also, anytime you turn up the reverb on either channel the amp starts getting a lot of buzzing noise? Now if you turn the reverb knob off on both channels, the amount of buzzing somewhat gets quieter but the noise and radio station does NOT stop?
At this point, what should I do?

 

[Darg1911]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

What happens if you plug directly into the amp, no pedals? Guitar-cable-amp.

What happens if you DONT plug into the amp? Just the amp on with no guitar.

Have you tried a different/better guitar cable? What cable/cables are you using.

Does this only happen at your rehearsal space?

 

[Boogie Bill]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

At this point I would call Mesa for technical support.

Bill

 

[Nightburst]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

Take it to a tech, could be anything from bad tubes, ground loop or even transformer issues. Better safe than sorry.

 

[Thundermtn]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

Some words from a builder on RF bleed.


Deep Tech:
A.M. radio (and some C.B. radio) is converted to audio when the radio frequency (RF) signal is rectified and de-modulated back into the audio carried by the RF. Your preamp tubes' input element can rectify an audio signal that's massively too-big for it to handle, which results in some severely gross distortion. You've probably heard this if you heard someone blast the input of a guitar amp with a tremendous amount of boosting and/or used the speaker output of one amp to drive the input jack of another amp. When a guitar amp picks up a (almost always A.M. or C.B.) radio station, the soup of RF we live in is so strong where that amp is that it's developing a voltage across components attached to a preamp tube's input, and driving that tube so hard it rectifies and demodulates the audio back out of the RF.

What Can Be Done:
There are ways to arrange components at the input of a preamp tube to reduce its gain at RF, which tends to prevent the issue described above. Mesa already does this with a ferrite bead at the input of the first tube stage (most amps use a resistor). If this was always a problem, beads or resistors could be added at later gain stages, but it may be difficult/impossible to position them for best effect (they really should be right at the tube socket; hard on p.c. boards with board-mounted sockets).

But the reality is you may have simply had the amp close to an RF transmitter (and didn't know), which made the RF fields very much stronger than they'd normally be. In other words, if you moved the amp somewhere else, the voices would have stopped (which they probably did by the time you got around to swapping tubes). Being near high voltage power transmission lines (the kind on big towers 50-180ft tall) will also cause noise issues (in amps and in your A.M. radio).

So that wasn't a tube fault at all, and the old tubes probably were no worse about picking up radio than the new tubes were...

On another forum, an amp builder sold an amp to a guy, then was trying to sort out all kinds of noise/radio issues that cropped up after the sale. The customer mostly played at home, and was having noise, harshness, radio stations picked up, etc. When the builder got the amp back to his shop, none of these problems occurred. Turns out the customer lived near a radio transmitter. The builder tried extensively to reduce the interference issues (and got a little improvement), but ultimately had to give up & tell the customer the problem was where he was playing the amp.

 

[Charvel1975]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

Hello! Last night at our band's rehearsal place, my 95 Mesa T-Verb was getting loud buzzing noises, I don't know if it was 60 cycle hum but kinda sounded like it and noticed for the past couple months it's been getting worse with the buzzing noises on either channel whether or not the Reverb is turned on or off. My Tremoverb was converted from a combo to a head some years ago. It's currently got the stock 1995 Mesa labeled 5U4G's and the Mesa labeled 6L6's &12AX7's in it which are over 4-5 years old and a quad of JJ 6L6GC's I've had for some years but took the Mesa 6L6GC's out of the amp and put in the JJ's.

Also, there was some talk radio station coming through the amp only on the Red channel and my Marshall 1960 4x12 cab I have it plugged into?! It did this some years ago too but this is the first time in years it's done that! On my pedal board, what I have going through the effects loop is a ModTone clean boost and MXR Classic Chorus powered by a Visual Sound One Spot power supply. Currently has JJ 6L6GC's and Mesa preamp tubes. Any Tremoverb owners have this happen before and any suggestions??

UPDATE: So last night I took the new Tung Sol (Made In Russia) 12ax7 preamp tube I bought new along with some other 12ax7's I had lying around and also the Mesa labeled 6L6GC's I had in the Mesa Tremoverb before down to our practice spot to do some tube rolling to see if that would cure the loud buzzing and humming noise. Well did all the tube rolling in the preamp including taking out the JJ 6L6GC's that had been in there and putting the Mesa power tubes in and now not only does it still make the loud buzzing and humming sounds, there is no sound at all when plugging in my guitar or other guitars in it so now it's off to an amp repair place :argh:

 

[devastone]

Re: Mesa Tremoverb Head Buzzing And Radio Noises

Soiunds like there is a good chance it needs new filter caps.