Strange noise with notes on G string

[Flintwinch]

I bought a Mark V head last week along with a MB 112 cab. When I tried out the Edge mode on Channel 2 I noticed something really odd. Notes on the G string (from open up to 10th fret) were accompanied by a strange noise, not overly loud but annoying enough. I would describe it as a distorted harmonic or a rattle-like kind of sound. This would only occur on the G string. All other strings would sound distorted (as would be expected) but distinct. Playing the same G on the 5th fret of the D string would not cause any noise. This phenomenon could be observed as soon as the gain was over 10:00, 11:00. No setting on the tone controls changed it substantially. Turning on the GEQ and moving the 2200Hz slider all the way down brings it out more clearly. The noise would also happen with the Tweed mode and gain up on Channel 1 as well as with the other modes on Channel 2.

I tried three different guitars, hooked the head up to the speaker of my DRRI, same thing. Took it back to the store and they gave me their showroom model withouth investigating the issue. Took it home and guess what: same thing. Went through the testing routine again, and concluded it had to be the amp. Back to the store, insisted that they try it out themselves: Different cab and guitars, same problem, verified by three store staff. Then I saw the Mark V combo on the shelf and suggested we try that as well. Again, the same problem.

So there are three new Mark V's with the same issue. My original one was purchased online, the other two were from the local branch of the same retailer.

The store manager called Mesa and they asked him to make a video and they would investigate. That was last week and I haven't heard anything since.

Did anybody here on the forums experience something similar with a recently purchased Mark V (the serial # of the two heads are in the low and high 12000s, respectively)?

 

[OryCheyne]

Yes but with much older combo. I've been lazy and haven't gotten around to swapping the remaining preamp tubes from v4 through. The issue had actually developed rather than being there from day dot.
I found dialing back the vol on the guitar helps but then there's a lot of missed tone opportunity right there. Will be interested in seeing the outcome here.
I'll be taking mine along to an Authorized Mesa tech if swapping the remaining tubes doesn't work. Have swapped v1 to v3 without success. Has new pwr tubes, but could still be those. Very interesting but I'm sure we'll get on top of it eventually.

 

[sheehanje]

I actually posted something similar a few months back - I compared it to a scraping metal or crushing glass kind of sound - and it happened with different guitars and different cabinets. It was predominately on the G and B string (although around the 5th position for me).

Over time, it just went away - almost like the amp needed to break in or something - but I do have some other sound issues (low volume output on channel 1 and a squeal on mark IV mode with the gain and volume up). Planning on swapping out preamp tubes at some point, for now I am working around it (dialing back the gain a little on mark IV mode and leveling other channel masters to match channel 1 then cranking output when needed.

I love the amp - but man oh man is it finicky.

 

[Flintwinch]

Thank you for your reponses.
sheehanje, I will try the things that screamingdaisy suggested in your thread.

It's hard to imagine that a faulty tube is the problem - what are the odds that I end up with three amps where the same tube has the same problem? Seems to be more like a "feature" than a bug?!

You clearly have more patience than I have. After paying $$$ for a new amp I don't want to do any workarounds. I understand that it can take a while to dial in a great sound and that's OK but if it takes a couple of weeks to dial in a sound that doesn't sound like crap, then this amp isn't for me. :-(

I'll probably return it and look at other brands but if I hear back from Mesa I'll post it here.

 

[sheehanje]

Yeah - I understand the frustration. I had a decent amp before the Mark V and was wondering if I had made a mistake. But glad I hung onto it because I finally hit the sweet spots with it and it sings. Used it in the studio a few weeks ago, and being versatile as it is I got two distinct guitar tracks recorded for my bands newest release. The engineer was really impressed with it (I was the first in his studio with a Mark V, he had an older Triple Rec, a few Marshalls and Fenders in house).

I hope you resolve your issues with it!

 

[Flintwinch]

I returned the Mark V last night and tried a couple more amps at the dealer, including a Roadster and a 5:35. That noise is indeed a "feature" cos all Mesas had it... I'm surprised that nobody else is annoyed by that sound.

Played a Marshall JVM210 and was blown away, ordered the JVM410 and now I'm a happy camper

 

[patrickbrose]

Mine does it with strats loaded with single coils, but not on any of my humbucker equipped guitars. I've tried the following:
Tele with vintage style pups: fine
4 solid bodies with a variety of humbuckers from vintage to active: fine
2 strats each with different sets of SSS pickups: exactly the noise you describe
1 strat with humbuckers: fine
Hollow body with humbuckers: fine
Solid body with P90s: fine

Not sure why the strats are an issue, but I find that the amp really exemplifies the particular sounds of each guitar. It makes any guitar sound "more" like that particular guitar, if that makes sense.

 

[Flintwinch]

Yes, I also found it to be most prominent with my SSS strat but it was still present with my semi hollowbody.

 

[Chris19]

That sounds a lot like sympathetic vibrations within your guitar. Axes with floating bridge systems are notorious for it. Every Floyd equipped guitar I've owned had this problem. It could also be the pickups. I've seen this problem originate from a guitar's headstock hardware too. What types of guitars were you using through it?

 

[Flintwinch]

I used a SSS and HSS strat, a semi-hollowbody with a fixed bridge, and a solidbody with floating bridge. As I said, most prominent with the SSS strat but still present on all the others. I don't get this problem with the JVM210 head that I currently have for rental.

 

[OryCheyne]

Thanks for the OP Flintwinch, you described this issue perfectly, pity you had to change entire brands to resolve the issue.
As I responded in this thread, and attempted to explain in a previous in a separate post, I found this same issue with my MkV combo. After earlier guitar and tube swapping without success I thought I was resigned to taking it in for a check-up. Tonight I played each of my guitars through it again paying particular attention and now I think Patrickbrose and Chris19 are right on the money.
When I played my '72 Fender Tele Deluxe (HH) through it tonight I didn't have any problems, then swapped between guitars and confirmed the SSS strats are my problem.

Looks like my '80's Tokai SSS Stratocaster is the main culprit creating the additional tone on G and B strings with the Ibanez lawsuit SSS Stratocaster similar but not as bad, and only in channel 2. Surprisingly I hadn't considered the timeline of when the issue developed. When I first bought the V home my friend gave me his SRV Stratocaster to use for a while, which I did rather exclusively for a few months. When he took it back I used my Ibanez Strat. In addition a different friend had been borrowing my Tokai (had it for over a year) and I remember he returned it one night at rehearsals so I first used the Tokai with the V with the band on songs we already had down. It wasn't til later I suspected and found the tone was weird.

Chris19, in your opinion if a guitar has that vibration thing would you think it could be fixed? I'm going to try packing the bridge, and/or swapping pups? Very strange that it is only in channel two.

Cheers,

 

[patrickbrose]

So I have a little experiment that I will be tending to this next week. I ordered an HH pickguard and pickups for one of my strats. I'll swap pickups out and see if the problems with the SSS strats vanish by using an HH arrangement. If it does resolve it, then the pickups are the issue. If it does not, then it is more instrument related ( I bet it is the former rather than the latter).

 

[Chris19]

Tat is strange that it only happens in a certain channel, or in the case of the OP, disappears completely with another amp. Maybe the Mark is more sensitive to those frequencies? For me the problem has mostly been with the tension springs of Floyd Rose systems. I solve it with small strips of foam inserted inside the springs. I had a guitar that had a rattling truss rod, which was much easier to hear through my Mark than through my other amps. There was an article I read on the Internet a while ago about these types of issues; apparently the weight and material of your headstock's tuners can cause standing waves which can cause "ghost" notes or cancel out the fretted note a.k.a. "dead spots". I've never owned a guitar with single coils but I imagine their inherently more noisy nature can be a contributing factor. I had another guitar with obscenely noisy pickups that would get those same kinds of overtones and ghost notes. Shielding the electronics cavity, replacing the pots, caps, switch and wire with high quality parts, and properly grounding everything made it quiet as can be. A low tech approach I would use would be to set up your guitar and amp where it will make the noise, and have some type of dampening material handy. Start at one end of the guitar, and stick small pieces of it around or in between anything that may vibrate or resonate. If it's not hardware then maybe it could be pickups or noisy pots.

 

[patrickbrose]

Well, swapped out the SSS set on one of my strats ( one that displays the exact same symptoms as the op has), with an HH set. Problem is gone. No more funky noise/rattle/sound. I guess channel 2 with certain settings (mine is Mark I with lower gain) doesn't play well with single coil strat pups. The only thing I changed was the pickups, and that solved the problem.

 

[Nicklotsaguitars]

Obvious guitar set up problem if it's only certain guitars doing it.
Strat singlecoils leads me to believe you have the pickups too near the strings. The tension of a .016" G coupled with it's mass and the way a Strat's polepieces are set. All makes perfect sense that it's wolfnotes. Not the amp. Probably from having too flat an action, causing the G and D strings to be closer than optimum when setting the string/polepiece clearance to the two E strings.

 

[bandit2013]

Rattle like sounds on all Mesa's, I doubt it. However, if the amps you compared in the store all had 6L6 tubes I will believe you. The Ruby tube 6L6GC-MSTR or Mesa 6L6GC STR440 is notorious for tube rattle. I have only one set that does not make any noise and they are in my Roadster. However I have not had an issue as you described with the G string on the full length of the fretboard.

Edge mode on CH2 just sounds awful to me so I do not use it. An SSS strat with standard pickups sounds like an ice pick on that voice. I do have an SSS type strat but not a Fender, it is a Carvin and the pups I am using are not exactly single coil either (Seymour Duncan Hot rails, Cool rails and vintage rails), even had the "everything Axe" set and lace sensors and never had issues with any of my Mesa amps. Edge mode should have been eliminated and something like a gain preset.

I have had my battles with odd buzzes. Sometimes I believe it is the speaker frame, the speaker itself, grill, baffle board, all of which can be narrowed down to one of the power tubes. All depends on where I am (if in the family room that is full of decorative glass bottles, those things rattle like hell but often sounds like the noise is coming from the amp but it is not). Sometimes it is the metal air ducts that run under the floor. It is odd what resonating mechanical noises that can occur with change in sound pressure at certain frequencies. One way to rule out the issues, go outside with your amp and crank it up, if you still hear it then it may be the amp, or guitar as you have basically eliminated most objects or structures that would resonate or vibrate.

 

[bandit2013]

Perhaps I will believe the claim after all. I get a similar excitation on a G note on the low E. Sometimes it is related to a B note on the A string. My Mark V is notorious for making buzzing noises even with different power tubes. I have been able to rule out the combo speaker as I have been experimenting with a few and the same noise is present. Well it was until last night after removing all of the preamp tube shields. I never expected a compressed spring in an aluminum tube would be so noisy. Considering that most other brands of tube amps may or may not use a spring loaded shield for the preamp tubes may be one reason that explains the noise being present on some amps and not others. Other contributors to this issue could also be the stamped metal frame of the speaker.

 

[patrickbrose]

So you took the tube shields off and the noise went away? Well done sir! I would have never thought to try that. For me the noise goes away with HUmbuckers (see earlier post), but that would indicate to me that one of the springs is either a bit weak in the shield or just happens to vibrate at the wrong frequency. Either would be an odd occurance in multiple amps, unless the shields are all the same from the manufacturer, and vibrate at that particular frequency. Hmm.

 

[bandit2013]

I decided to try it as I remember someone in the forums mention it a while ago. It did not cure all of the vibration noises but those associated with certain frequencies (primarily G on the Low E) were satisfied. Sometimes the metal tube shield can vibrate if it is touching the bottles. I would suspect the long tube used on V1 with some amps vs the short shields on the rest. Needless to say I am using the shields (all short this time).

One can deduce the issue if you remove things: generally pull the chassis out of the shell if it is a combo amp and drive the speaker from the same amp chassis with a long speaker cable with a mating jack on one end for the speaker plug. if the cabinet still vibrates when the amp chassis is isolated, it is the cab, baffle board, grille or speaker. If you hear the noise following the amp chassis (may be electromechanical noise of the tubes as some tend to sing and vibrate depending on the amplitude of the signal).

 

[bandit2013]

Another source for odd vibrations caused by notes played on your guitar may be coming from the cabinet itself. The back board that completes the lower portion of my Mark V combo cabinet can vibrate with certain frequencies. I never noticed this before but once I found it, it almost sounded like tube rattle as it did not sound like wood vibrating. Once I put my hand on the board with a little pressure, the sound triggered vibration stopped. This is one thing I will try to fix.