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Help me Diagnose a problem

Biggbass

Biggbass

Dec 14, 2011
5,629
7,961
Planet Earth
#1
Played a festival gig Sunday afternoon. All was going great when suddenly my amp sounded like
I'd blown a speaker. Sound guy out front looks at me with a *** look his face, sends one of his crew up to check the amp...we continue playing of course...he checks it out and says it's not the amp.
The amp vol and mstr are both at 12 oclock so I'm not overdriving the amp.

I click my Sadowsky P from passive to active and back a couple of times, roll the tone and vol knob,
roll the knobs on the amp, shake off the dust, so to speak, and it then sounds ok. A few min later, same thing occurs...sounds like a fried speaker...rattlling like it's cooked and the cone is hanging by the wires. I roll back on the vol knob on the bass and it sounds ok. Then I'm suspecting a tube may have gone bad. But we continued the set and all was ok.

My rig Sunday was: Sadowsky P (battery replaced in Jan), Ampeg V4B-2x12, a powered pedal board with a Pitch Black tuner thru a FatBoost 2, then Chorus, then out to the amp.

I played a gig just a couple of days earlier with no issues, but at that gig didn't have the pedal board and was on a Lakland passive P.

I am wondering if it's:
A- the battery in the Sadowsky - but that shouldn't affect anything in passive mode, should it?
B- connection cable gunk on the pedal board
C- a tube going bad

I am also going to check the cable I was using to make sure the jack pole on the right angle connector at the bass isn't getting funky. Don't think the vol pot has anything to do with it but who knows. ?
 
#2
Eliminate variables, one by one. Start with the exact rig that went bad, but just bass -- cable --- amp --- spkr cab, with no extra stuff, no pedal board. Then, one by one, replace each component. I start with the obvious ones and work my way to the more complex ones. First, switch cables, then a different bass, then a different cabinet, then a different head. If this yields no results, then it is likely to be something in the pedal board, and then go through the same process within the pedal board itself. Simplify, isolate, identify.

If you find no problems, but it rears its ugly head again randomly, then you have a dreaded intermittent problem. In this case, choose your poison. If you have a reasonable backup rig, then use it, swapping everything out except your bass...then cabinet...then amp head. It's the same process, but just with a longer time frame attached to the swap to give the intermittent piece a chance to do its weirdness.

If you don't make a habit of having your basses serviced at regular intervals, now might be a good excuse to do it, letting a service tech know to look for possible intermittent issues.
 
#3
well...went thru the entire process of elimination and cannot get the problem to repeat,
even with driving it hard and loud. The Ampeg is solid as a rock and the bass, as well as a couple of others I tried, sound great. No issues with any of my cabling or connections...
which now leads me to wonder about stage power or the DI connection at the event... hmmm...
 
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#4
Hmmm...could have been an isolated problem as you described, to do with the outdoor venue and not your rig. I'd gig with it carrying a quick change backup solution in case this happens again, if possible. Othewise, you could hedge your bets by carrying a voltage regulator and your own "known working" high quality direct box. Otherwise, you'll just have to see what happens, but if it happens again, you'll be armed with better clues as to where to look for the problem. Good luck and keep us posted.
 
#5
It's been a few months since I first posted this and thought I'd update before we get to
zombie status.

I haven't been able to get the issue to repeat...numerous gigs and rehearsals have all
been without issue. The V4B/212AV is solid as a rock and sounds fantastic. Still using the same 9v battery that I put in the bass just prior to the festival gig back in Oct and as of last night all is good.
 
#6
Well, sounds like a freak isolated incident. Just think about all of the physical connections and electronic/electrical interfaces that happen during a typical performance, and with respect to your bass rig. Sometimes I think it's a miracle to be able to get through ANY gig unscathed. LOL.
 
#7
jimfist said:
Well, sounds like a freak isolated incident. Just think about all of the physical connections and electronic/electrical interfaces that happen during a typical performance, and with respect to your bass rig. Sometimes I think it's a miracle to be able to get through ANY gig unscathed. LOL.
Click to expand...
A friend of my sister's described to her a good fishing trip as one where no one gets hurt and he gets home with most of his equipment. I think the same could be said for gigs. :D
 
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#8
My guess is that you experienced some sort of strange power issue; perhaps the voltage dropped and your amp was starved for a few minutes or the opposite happened and you experienced a peak (both which would translate into a terrible sound coming through your speakers). The gig was at a festival, which sometimes means really strange power scenarios (i.e., generator power, poorly wired power systems not meant to run bands and large FOH, etc.).

In my experience, tube amps are much more susceptible to decreases in performance in less than ideal power situations as compared to solid-state amps. As much as I love playing through my tube amps, there are certain venues and situations where I always take a solid-state amp, because I know the power situation sucks.
 
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#9
Biggbass said:
Played a festival gig Sunday afternoon. All was going great when suddenly my amp sounded like
I'd blown a speaker. Sound guy out front looks at me with a *** look his face, sends one of his crew up to check the amp...we continue playing of course...he checks it out and says it's not the amp.
The amp vol and mstr are both at 12 oclock so I'm not overdriving the amp.

I click my Sadowsky P from passive to active and back a couple of times, roll the tone and vol knob,
roll the knobs on the amp, shake off the dust, so to speak, and it then sounds ok. A few min later, same thing occurs...sounds like a fried speaker...rattlling like it's cooked and the cone is hanging by the wires. I roll back on the vol knob on the bass and it sounds ok. Then I'm suspecting a tube may have gone bad. But we continued the set and all was ok.

My rig Sunday was: Sadowsky P (battery replaced in Jan), Ampeg V4B-2x12, a powered pedal board with a Pitch Black tuner thru a FatBoost 2, then Chorus, then out to the amp.

I played a gig just a couple of days earlier with no issues, but at that gig didn't have the pedal board and was on a Lakland passive P.

I am wondering if it's:
A- the battery in the Sadowsky - but that shouldn't affect anything in passive mode, should it?
B- connection cable gunk on the pedal board
C- a tube going bad

I am also going to check the cable I was using to make sure the jack pole on the right angle connector at the bass isn't getting funky. Don't think the vol pot has anything to do with it but who knows. ?
Click to expand...


were you in through the PA? Was it any of the PA system/wiring/scratchy pots/Speakers/

were you in the Drum monitor? could it have been making the snare rattle, and mic was picking that up ?
(I have encountered that, and was told I had a blown speaker, or my vocal mic for the drummer was bad, and it was EXACTLY this)

Just curious
 
#10
Frankjohnson said:
were you in through the PA? Was it any of the PA system/wiring/scratchy pots/Speakers/

were you in the Drum monitor? could it have been making the snare rattle, and mic was picking that up ?
(I have encountered that, and was told I had a blown speaker, or my vocal mic for the drummer was bad, and it was EXACTLY this)

Just curious
Click to expand...


we had pro sound and staging and the sound guys used the DI on the back of my V4B for the bass signal. I'm sure the drummer had some bass in his mix but the scenario you mention may or may not have played out, not sure. The odd thing was that it sounded just like I'd blown both 12's in the cab. And it lasted about 3-4 min and stopped. After much diagnosing and trying to get it to repeat without success, I suspect it may have been the DI connection. I had just changed the battery in the bass that morning too so it wasn't a battery failing. I suspect a bad DI XLR connector, cable, or DI box. But the upside is that it's been smooth sailing since then.
 
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#12
In general I suspect cables until they are proven good in this scenario... Batteries seem to last near to forever for me so they an be tricky. I tend to forget there is one in the bass. I carry a spare. Mostly to be sure we have at least one though...

If the whole backline went ratty, or the monitors or the FOH I might think power but 1 amp on a festival stage ? That would seem kinda odd.
 
#13
Biggbass said:
we had pro sound and staging and the sound guys used the DI on the back of my V4B for the bass signal. I'm sure the drummer had some bass in his mix but the scenario you mention may or may not have played out, not sure. The odd thing was that it sounded just like I'd blown both 12's in the cab. And it lasted about 3-4 min and stopped. After much diagnosing and trying to get it to repeat without success, I suspect it may have been the DI connection. I had just changed the battery in the bass that morning too so it wasn't a battery failing. I suspect a bad DI XLR connector, cable, or DI box. But the upside is that it's been smooth sailing since then.
Click to expand...

Since you include DI, etc. amongst your list of possible problems, it sounds like the problem wasn't with your bass; if it had come from your amp sounding that way it could have been your bass but it could not have been anything related to your connection to the PA. My guess is that it was a sound man "oops" (trim pot attenuation set too low, maybe), which he fixed when he found the source of the problem.
 

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