Amp Crackling

  • Thread starter Thread starter ido1957
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ido1957

ido1957

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Damn - new tubes needed? Recorded a whole wack of tracks and never heard the crackles until after I was mixing down.

I did two projects in Sonar. Every track on the second project has crackles. First project appears to be fine. Same settings on Guitar/ Amp. Maybe it happens when it warms up.

I haven't changed tubes for two years but you'd think they'd last longer than that. This is a new problem - usually I get a volume loss when the tubes start dying. New shop replaced the tubes last time and did their particular tweaks to make it a better amp lol....

Marshall 4100 100W Head and 4X12 cabinet.

Tubes?
 
Could be a lot of things, but often it's a bad cable between the guitar and amp.

If it's really the tubes going, you might think about lowering the bias, cause, yeah, 2 years is not long.
 
If you're not hearing it from the amp...but you ARE hearing it in the mixdown...maybe the problem is not at the amp...?

I would think if the amp was "crackling"...you would/should have heard it while tracking.
 
miroslav said:
If you're not hearing it from the amp...but you ARE hearing it in the mixdown...maybe the problem is not at the amp...?

I would think if the amp was "crackling"...you would/should have heard it while tracking.
Click to expand...

My thoughts exactly, bad mic cable perhaps, summink like day.
 
careful not to adjust the bias too cold or your tone will suffer. your normal bias should be somewhere around 38ma-40ma. I agree with the guys, check the cable and record a test track if it comes back then it could be the tubes, tube sockets (deoxit can help with this), cap or maybe the plate resistors. how old is this amp?
 
Don't be surprised if it is in the recording 'equipment'. There are a plethora of threads on other forums discussing this, and people are using Audacity, Cubase, M-Audio, or Pro Tools. It's even been discussed here; https://homerecording.com/bbs/general-discussions/digital-recording-computers/mysterious-crackling-306828/. If you only hear it on mixdown, I'd look at your soundcard first.
If it is the amp, it won't be power tube or bias related. That's kinda sorta like saying 'My engine is misfiring, but if I ease up on the gas pedal it's not as bad'. A fouled up spark plug is still fouled up, if you get my meaning. At the most extreme cash-output end of this I'd try new preamp tubes.
 
Is it something like pork crackling?

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Hey Gerry, you might check out the audio options in Sonar. I was having problems recently and found my buffer size was too small, after adjusting the size everything was okay.
Look under Options/Audio /Advanced and I set it up to about 512 or more-the default was at 128....

Another possibility may be a bad ground in the guitar itself....
 
Thanks guys - this is pretty frustrating after laying down tracks for a couple hours and nothing is a keeper. I've got a couple of hours today so I'm going to go over the whole system and do some tracks - one at a time - and check them. Fiddle with cables etc. Tubes I would need to change/fix after the new year as everybody's closed.
 
Again...are you hearing any cracking from the amp when playing it (not later on somewhere in the mix? ).

If not...it's NOT the amp or the tubes.
You maybe simply overloading the interface input....and the crackling is actually clipping.
 
Okay - recorded everything over and heard no crackles - I checked every track after recording. Took laptop upstairs with interface.
The crackles are caused by the interface - when exported to .wav with the interface plugged in I got crackles (lots). I umplugged the interface and exported the tracks there were no crackles. So I increased the playback buffer i/o size from 256 to 768 to 1024 and got some improvement then it sort of crackled again at the end of the track then got worse and the whole track crackled. I tried 768 and 1024 and read caching option. To be honest it's better (leaving it now at 768) but it sort of comes and goes now with the higher settings. Weird.... Well - I know it's a buffer thing so I'm going to have to fiddle with it. Glad it's not my amp,
 
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