My amp is broken!!!!!! WHAAAAT?

[ibanezrocks]

Sad news everyone, my beloved crate amp (and no one say it doesnt matter its only a crate, because I only have this one amp) appears to be severely broken. Here's what happened, I took it to a friends house, and he was playing around with it, now I have it back, I plugged into it, and nothing. By nothing I mean I turned it up to full volume full gain full everything and only the slightest sound came out. It is a solid state amp, and I'm wondering if something could have blown in the amp. Any suggestions at all?

 

[Thatupstateguy]

Look for a fuse,... with it working, then not ,.... go for the simple stuff first,..

Then speaker connection, etc,... power cord,... and so on till there is nothing left but your local tech,....


Steve

 

[lesterpaul]

friends.....

i let a friend borrow my guitar and amp once and he pawned it so i never do it anymore ....i got it back but still ....

 

[geet73]

i let a friend borrow my guitar and amp once and he pawned it so i never do it anymore ....i got it back but still ....

Why on earth would he be considered a friend?

 

[TimOBrien]

"Never let other boys play with your toys that you don't want broken."
-My Mom

 

[lesterpaul]

well....

Why on earth would he be considered a friend?

as they say it's a long story but up until that time he was a good friend he did the same thing to another mutual friend but he hit him up for a rifle and did the same thing ....

 

[-=¤willhaven¤=-]

check the fuse as stated above, or try another speaker cabinet.

if neither work, you probably have blown output transistors. sometimes they just go (like tubes but not nearly as often), and sometimes its caused by shorting the speaker cable (bad jack or cable)

 

[Techmonkey]

Did they use headphones? What happens a fair amount of the time is people use mono headphones instead of stereo headphones. This happened with one of my old amps, luckily it was just a practise amp - Lent it to a friend, he used headphones and it never worked again. It shorts the limiting resistor, which can sometimes parts to overheat.

 

[ibanezrocks]

ok I will check the fuse and get back to you on that one.

another problem that I'm suspecting it might be, since I only have the one guitar to test the amp with, is there anyway that something on the guitar could cause it to lose volume at such an alarming amount? because I can get some volume out of it if I turn the gain and volume all the way up, but it still doesnt sound distorted at all, so I'm think it must be some sort of transistor, or could be something on the guitar, let me know if theres any possibility its the guitar.

 

[alecmcmahon]

uhmmm, may sound stupid, but you should try another guitar

it happens to my bass bass sometimes but thats because my cable is a little wobbelly..


did you check your instrument cable ?

 

[Fire Dome]

here are the things i checked when my peavey envoy broke maybe they are some starting points.

No power-----fuse, faulty power cable
Power but no sound----speaker cable faulty.

to check if it is the speaker then plug in some headphones to the socket and see if you get sound. If you do then it is a problem in the speaker. If no then it is a problem with the amp (or it could be just bad luck that both the speaker and phones input are fucked).

I know these are common sense answers but it helped me and my friend when his line 6 spider broke and my peavey gave up life.


Dave

 

[ibanezrocks]

ive eliminated the possibilities of the fuse, the speaker and the cable.

is there any way something could be grounding out in the guitar itself causing a huge loss in volume?

 

[ibanezrocks]

not the amp

I just tested it with another guitar and reached the conclusion that it is not a problem with the amp.

This means it could only be one thing, the guitar
which means its almost certainly something with the wiring. any ideas as to where to start looking at the wiring?

 

[OverlookFran]

take out the input jack on the guitar and check the connection. you say there is a huge loss in volume, but still volume? then i would say that your pots on your guitar may have gone. if you can take the pickguard off and inspect all the wire connections and soldering are in tact, then you may want to consider having the pots replaced. if its a loss in volume, this sounds like the culprit. you should defintely borrow another guitar and try the amp...take it to your local music store to do this.
sounds like you have a pot problem. haha...

 

[producerkid]

It may still be the amp. If it's an all-to-common GX series crate combo (either 2x10, or 2x12) then input jack's solder joints have most likely become faulty. I have fixed 4 of these amps with the same problem. The input jack is not mounted very well to the faceplate therefore any kind of jerking or consistant movement at the input jack will cause the solder joints to loosen up. Try either guitar and try wiggling the cord at the input. I mean really give it a good jar dont just tap on it. If the signal cuts in and out it's almost a guarantee this is the problem. If this is the case any electronics shop should be able to fix it for next to nothing, or you can go to RadioShack and get a cheap soldering iron and rosin-core solder and hit the joints with some extra solder. Hope this helps. PM me for more help with soldering if this turns out to be the deal.

the kid

 

[ibanezrocks]

It Works

Well whoever said it was the pot was right. However I decided to give it one more shot(looking for lose connections, anything like that) before i rewired and replaced the pots. And to my incredible dumb luck, what had happened was last time I decided to tighten the bolts on the pots because they would turn inside the body a bit, I turned the pots to an angle where the soldering joints were being squished up against the side and two parts of the pot (cant remember the technical terms) were touching.
I guess its true, its better to be lucky than smart.
Thanks to everyone who made suggestions.