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What happened to my amp (again) ?

Atshen

Atshen

Mar 13, 2003
5,089
4,491
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Grim Cold Québec
#1
Was on an outdoor gig last Saturday and my used-to-be-trusty combo (a 15-year-old Yorkville BassMaster 200) went to fartsville midway through that night's third song (of a four-hour gig). No volume and a sound so distorted it made Tom Waits sound like Pavarotti. Went straight to the board (as in really straight, no DI) for the rest of the gig. Tried it again one or two days later and it sounded perfect. So, lemme ask, Double-U Tee Eff? What happened to that ol' buddy? :help:

PS: Of course first thing I did was make sure it wasn't the cable or the bass. As I mentionned, it sounded fine through the PA.
 
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#5
hmmm interesting would think it overheated and amp doesnt have shut off. manual says it has safety features to protect against unsafe loads so dont know if it has thermal protection shutoff. butttt if your cranking the krap out of it and use alot of grit or distortion its probably overheating. its a 2ohm stable amp so it would seem to take alot of heat but yah never know, unless of course the power supply is taking a dump or just upgrade your power cord to a nice new beefy power cord. it could want more juice but the cord is to small gauge of wire, or its correct cord and its getting little old
 
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#6
I'm not a tech but there's so many things it could be.

You did mention the word again in your title. If you really dig the amp take it to a tech and have it looked over.


If you've had it long enough and think you've got your money's worth out of it, I'm with Stumbo. Get another amp.
 
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#7
BogeyBass said:
hmmm interesting would think it overheated and amp doesnt have shut off. manual says it has safety features to protect against unsafe loads so dont know if it has thermal protection shutoff. butttt if your cranking the krap out of it and use alot of grit or distortion its probably overheating. its a 2ohm stable amp so it would seem to take alot of heat but yah never know, unless of course the power supply is taking a dump or just upgrade your power cord to a nice new beefy power cord. it could want more juice but the cord is to small gauge of wire, or its correct cord and its getting little old
Click to expand...
That thing doesn't have a gain control and the volume was maybe at 10 o'clock max. And I don't use any effects. Of course we were outside so maybe the power wasn't so good... And there was rain... but we were covered of course. The power cord is the one that came with the amp and I never had problems with it.

lowplaces said:
I'm not a tech but there's so many things it could be.

You did mention the word again in your title. If you really dig the amp take it to a tech and have it looked over.


If you've had it long enough and think you've got your money's worth out of it, I'm with Stumbo. Get another amp.
Click to expand...
Yes I did say "again" but the first time it was just a fuse. But now I got to the point where I just fear it might crap out on me again. And yeah I know it's time for a new amp but I just don't have the dough. :roflmao:
 
#8
if its blowing fuses then something is about to take a krap. its pulling more current than usual. most likely the power supply. its a 2 ohm stable amp so its a pretty cool combo. maybe get it fixed. some days things work next day they dont kinda sucks :/ i know
 
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#9
Atshen said:
Bonus question: What's the purpose of a DI? I've been plugging straight into the console (1/4 jack) and it worked just fine for the whole gig.
Click to expand...
A DI takes your very high impedance, unbalanced, very low level bass signal and converts it to balanced, lower impedance, at either mic or line level audio. This is the standard to interface to most normal consoles or PA systems It provides the least chance of having hum and or noise in your signal.

Most audio consoles don't come with an input that will interface directly, and properly with an instrument.
Either your console does, or you are extreamly lucky that it worked.

Long, unbalance, high impedance, instrument level cable runs are just asking for trouble, even if you have an instrument capable input on the console/PA input. This why you should have a DI to interface to audio consoles or PA systems.
 
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#14
Don't know what happened to your amp, just got old I guess. Maybe you could keep it but just as a speaker cab. You don't have to take the amp out of the combo if you don't want to. Wire the speaker (it's a 15" I think) to a 1/4 jack and plug it into a new amp like a GK MB200.
 
#18
Thumpin6string said:
First thing I would suspect is dirty jacks. Spray ALL with Deoxit and run a plug in and out a few times. Seems to be a common problem on the newer amps with the plastic jacks. Had a GK, a Carvin and my EBS all with the same problem: low volume and distorted output.
Click to expand...
This could resolve the issue. Often amps have send jacks for effect loops or even headphones. Very typically those jacks don't get used so corrosion can form between the contacts. Because these jacks reroute the signal (like an effects loop) or turn off the speaker (like a headphones jack) They have switches in them to tell the amp when a cord is plugged in. The distance between the contacts in those switches is tiny so corrosion can short them out or partially short them out. If that happened partially you could get the symptoms you're describing.

Have you run the amp since it malfunctioned? I did some looking online and people say the Yorkville bassmaster has a speaker that has a hard time handling the full power of the amp. If you were cranking it you may have burned up the voice coil or ripped the cone which could also give you the same sound.
 
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#19
BadExample said:
Just be careful not to spray in on the circuit boards or other stuff that's not the target. I usually spray into the cap and apply with an tool appropriate to what it's applied to (small brush, toothpick, clean rag, etc.). Less is more.
Click to expand...
Using caution is a good thing. In the 40 years of doing electronics, I have not seen any contact cleaner damage a circuit board. The exception would be if it is powered up at the time. Not a good idea.:thumbsdown:
 
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