How noisy are your Mark III's?

[edgecrusher]

So the couple band practices I've noticed that my Mark III has gotten a bit noisier than usual. It's not feedback related, but a "white noise" kind of sound whenever the lead channel is engaged. It's always had some hash, but it seems louder than normal. You can't really hear it when I'm playing, only when I'm not, even with the guitar's volume all the way down. At normal band volume (2-3) it's quite loud and annoying and just sounds....not right. My preamp tubes aren't that old (8 months), but I'm assuming that is the most plausible reason for it, so I'm going to swap a few of them and see if it clears up, but is this normal? How noisy are your guys Mark's when the lead channel is engaged?

 

[danyeo1]

The one's i owned were pretty noisy. You could always get an ISP Decimator pedal which works great for killing noise without killing your tones.

 

[EleventhHour2139]

When I'm on R1 or R2, even at loud volumes it usually stays pretty quiet. But I've noticed that on the Lead channel the noise goes up exponentially when my V1 is over 6 or so, which is a PITA cause I usually run my V1 at 9 :twisted: :lol:

 

[edgecrusher]

Would you guys recommend a noise suppressor in front of the amp, or in the loop for this kind of noise? I'm also going to try out this Mesa SPAX7 tube I have lying around in place of one of the JJ's in V1 or V2 to try and tame this beast today at practice. According to Mesa they are less noisy, the only thing is, I think it could be one of the original tubes that came in the amp back in '87 :lol:

 

[CoG]

mine depends on, in order, what I have plugged in, what I have it plugged into (power), and then finally V1. Have you changed the height of your pickups? high-gain pickups sticking way out of guitar body = more opportunities to pick up wacky stuff.

 

[edgecrusher]

Turned out to be a bad V1 tube. I replaced it with the SPAX7 and it sounds normal again. I may go for a whole new set of preamps tubes before the next show though.