possibly broken amp

[Holk]

hey, first post here on TB and regretfully its about something possibly broken.

I'm a new player who just recently picked up a sort of starter kit.

After a while of practicing to my newbie-DVD I notice that my bass sounds nothing like the guy in the DVD does, so I check to see if I tuned it properly, which I did.

I forget about it for awhile because it doesn't really interfere with my practicing.

But after some time it really gets to me and I play with the settings on the amp and bass but nothing really changes.

So the problem is this, from the amp comes nothing but a sound like the wind going through the treetops, like a buzzing sound, when I turn everything up really loud I can hear something that I can only describe as an electrical current which goes silent when i merely touch any string.

I also did an experiment, I checked the sound of the bass with it plugged into the amp and also without it plugged in and there is no difference in sound what so ever.

(Yeah I know I'm ******** for this taking me two days to figure out)

So, do you guys have any ideas on whats broken or maybe I'm just doing some serious error I have yet to realise.

Thanks for your time.

 

[RWP]

First welcome to talk bass! If you are getting unusual noises out of the amp without an input I would suspect the amp. The fact that something changes when you touch a string makes me think of a grounding problem. I am confused with your description of the problem.

 

[Jim Carr]

...
So the problem is this, from the amp comes nothing but a sound like the wind going through the treetops, like a buzzing sound, when I turn everything up really loud I can hear something that I can only describe as an electrical current which goes silent when i merely touch any string.
...
I checked the sound of the bass with it plugged into the amp and also without it plugged in and there is no difference in sound what so ever.
...

Welcome to Talkbass! We need more info. The first statement and the second statement (above in the quote) are contradictory. Can you describe the "experiment" in the second statement in much more detail?

I am suspecting a bad guitar chord.

 

[Holk]

Well I guess I worded it poorly, I'll try again.

When its plugged in, the sound the strings make is not amplified or anything by the amp or distorted, it sounds just as it does when i haven't plugged the bass into the amp. However, the amp does react to me touching the string, as in the "electrical current noise" being cut off.

So you could say it makes less noise when I actually touch the strings

I'm sorry if I'm unclear, I'm doing my best in describing the problem with extremely limited knowledge of the equipment in question.

 

[Stevem627]

What type of bass do you have? Is it possible that you have an active bass and need a battery? You probably have a bad amp, or cable...have you tried another cable?

 

[Holk]

I have a J&D bass and no I haven't tried another cable as it's the only one I have.

 

[Psycho Bass Guy]

Your bass is the problem, not the amp. Either your pickup has shorted dead (VERY unlikely) or you have bad solder connections in your bass's internal wiring. Any decent music store tech should be able to fix it or let you know if you need a new pickup(s) for you in five minutes or less.