I've been having some big issues with the tone quality of my lonestar and I noticed after trying to swap some pre-amp tubes out that they were cool to the touch. This shouldn't be the case, right?
The issue I'm having is that the distortion or overdriven sound is very nasty, even with the clean channel is slightly overdriven. The clean sound is good but it's just when the tubes start to distort when the sound takes a nose dive. I also seem to have limited headroom on the clean.
The amp itself sounds very dull and I have to use an outboard EQ to dial in a decent tone. I've brought some preamp tubes to replace the ones that were in it + some old jj's I had from a peavy.
When I EQ to brighten up the sound the bad distortion is really noticeable. Sometimes when I don't push it too much I think I hear some extra non-harmonic note being created but it might be my imagination. If I pick really hard and and the note distorts(from a clean setting) I get this harsh distortion that almost sounds like TV static. This only happens when EQ'ing(on amp or off) with a lot of highs(which is required to remove the muddy sound).
I was thinking that possibly the tubes were not being heated causing the problem. I've swapped a lot of the tubes around to see if I could determine where the problem was but they all produce the same result. I also bypassed the preamp plugging the guitar directly into the return of the FX loop with no issues(obviously no distortion though). Hence this leaves me to believe it's something to do with the circuitry.
1. Cold pre-amp tubes(they should be at least slightly warm)?
2. Only when the pre-amp is overdriven. (this seems to happen rather quickly on the clean channel say when the gain is at 50% and I pick hard I start to hear the distortion)
3. The pre-amp is very muddy sounding as if it can't respond fast enough for the higher frequencies(so maybe a cap or resistor is messed up somewhere?)
Anyone have any ideas what could be wrong?
The issue I'm having is that the distortion or overdriven sound is very nasty, even with the clean channel is slightly overdriven. The clean sound is good but it's just when the tubes start to distort when the sound takes a nose dive. I also seem to have limited headroom on the clean.
The amp itself sounds very dull and I have to use an outboard EQ to dial in a decent tone. I've brought some preamp tubes to replace the ones that were in it + some old jj's I had from a peavy.
When I EQ to brighten up the sound the bad distortion is really noticeable. Sometimes when I don't push it too much I think I hear some extra non-harmonic note being created but it might be my imagination. If I pick really hard and and the note distorts(from a clean setting) I get this harsh distortion that almost sounds like TV static. This only happens when EQ'ing(on amp or off) with a lot of highs(which is required to remove the muddy sound).
I was thinking that possibly the tubes were not being heated causing the problem. I've swapped a lot of the tubes around to see if I could determine where the problem was but they all produce the same result. I also bypassed the preamp plugging the guitar directly into the return of the FX loop with no issues(obviously no distortion though). Hence this leaves me to believe it's something to do with the circuitry.
1. Cold pre-amp tubes(they should be at least slightly warm)?
2. Only when the pre-amp is overdriven. (this seems to happen rather quickly on the clean channel say when the gain is at 50% and I pick hard I start to hear the distortion)
3. The pre-amp is very muddy sounding as if it can't respond fast enough for the higher frequencies(so maybe a cap or resistor is messed up somewhere?)
Anyone have any ideas what could be wrong?
