Triple Rec Help needed for a semi newbie!

[thinkdontpray]

Hey guys, I'll make this as short as possible. About a year ago I purchased a Triple Rec and Mesa 4x12 cab, it was love as first strum. I know that it may have been a bit excessive but I fell in love with the balls and crunch of the Triple. Anyways, I bought the head used and about 3 months ago I started to experience loss of bass response and basically the thing just sounded gutless. So I swapped out of my power tubes and it was back in business. But heres where my stupidity comes in to play. I play an Epiphone Gothic which I swapped in KFK EMG's into it, which has a 20db gain booster switch. In the past week my sound is starting to lack again, and now I have questions out the *** here. You guys are my only hope as the place I bought it from (a name brand chain in Canda) are absolute morons and know nothing about Mesa products (for example, not one, but two guys there told me that the colour coding on the power tubes indicated quality. I told them it was for matching purposes only but of course, I was wrong to them)

1. I love the extra bit of crunch I get from having the gain booster switch engaged all the time. I've adjusted by channel gain to bring the hot signal back a bit and it sounded great. I could squeal perfectly and it just kicked you in the nuts. But, is this switch killing my power tubes? Should I just use the switch for soloing (which I know its designated for) and adjust the Triple to find the sound I am looking for?

2. How can you tell by looking at a power tube if its failed? I know that if it was completely blown it would trip the fuse and your sound gets quite muddy and has no balls. But I am looking at my power tubes (while the amp is on, signal is hot) and a few of them have purple tinges to them. One of them is a matched pair while the other is just a single one and its match looks fine. Is this normal?

3. Something is wrong with my FX loop and I know it was working fine when I first bought the thing. I run a noise suppressor pedal as well as a reflecter reverb, which should be ran through the back but I just cant them to work. Heres what happens. With the noise supressor, the indicator light which shows that its reducing the signal, is not lit up. In fact when I click the pedal down, I hear more hum than when its off. With the reverb, theres nothing there and when I click over to channel 3 it just screams feedback. Ive tried EVERYTHING, and I am left wondering if my input jacks in the FX loop are dirty or dead? I swapped out the pre amp that drives the loop and still no go. Changed cables, read the book hundreds of times and I just cant figure this one out boys. And this is key to know because running those pedals through my front arent doing their job, especially the supressor. Its just supressing the singal from my guitar.

Thats about it for now, I am sure I have more questions but they will come in due time. I appreciate anyones help who takes the time to help a fairly newbie Mesa user become an advanced Mesa user. Pardon my stupidity but you guys are my only hope!

Thanks again!

thinkdontpray

 

[thinkdontpray]

Also, I was running a Turbo Tube Screamer for awhile, and while I adjusted the gain on the amp, did that have something to do with wearing out my tubes the first time? Your putting a pre amp into a hi gain preamp which is pretty much overkill, isnt it? After I retubed the power amps I took the pedal out of the chain. But now Ive started using the gain booster switch on the guitar, is it basically the same thing?

 

[siggy14]

OK,

The booster does not effect your output tubes, only effects your preamp tubes. Basically all a booster does is makes the signal hotter which causes the preamp tubes to distort more. Might shorten the life a little, but not by much and preamp tubes are cheap as hell to buy anyway and that is the price you pay for great tone.

By the way, that 20DB boost you get from the switch is basically the same effect you get from having a tube screamer in front if you are just using it for a clean boost.

As to the loop, did you rotate the knobs like the book said to get an even sound? Did you turn the switch on the back to make sure it is engauged via the footswitch and you have it turned on via the footswitch? Do you have the output on the front set higher then your channel volumes and make sure you have the solo knob even with, or higher then the output knob if you have the solo engauged.

If none of these helps, then might be something wrong with the loop and i would bring it to a mesa tech.

 

[siggy14]

Also do you have the connections right? the send of the loops should goto the input of your pedels, the output of your pedels should goto the return of your loops.

Make sure your send is not clipping your pedels (sending to strong of a signal) Also make sure the mix is at 100%

 

[thinkdontpray]

First off, THANK YOU so much siggy!

Yes I do have the pedal going from in to send, out to return.

I have the knob switched to "loop on", is that my problem? It should be switched to footswitch setting?? If so, I am a moron.

I will take your suggestions and experiment when I head to the jam room later today.

In regards to the power tubes looking purple, does this indicate failures or is it just normal? Why do some look purple and some dont and just have the orange normal tinge to them.

Thanks again bud! This board is going to be a valuable resource.

 

[siggy14]

No problem,

Actually if you have it set to Loop on with the knob, it just means the loops is enguaged always and the footswitch has no effect on it. When set to the footswitch posistion then it is controlled by the footswitch, so you can turn it off if you do not want your reverb on the distortion channel, but want it on the clean channel.

Like i said, also make sure the solo knob is even with, or above the output knob. If it is above the output knob, when you hit that solo switch your volume will crank even more.

First off, THANK YOU so much siggy!

Yes I do have the pedal going from in to send, out to return.

I have the knob switched to "loop on", is that my problem? It should be switched to footswitch setting?? If so, I am a moron.

I will take your suggestions and experiment when I head to the jam room later today.

In regards to the power tubes looking purple, does this indicate failures or is it just normal? Why do some look purple and some dont and just have the orange normal tinge to them.

Thanks again bud! This board is going to be a valuable resource.

 

[thinkdontpray]

Thanks again dude, I will do what you say in regards to the solo knob. I really only use the solo button during breakdowns when I want that extra umph.

 

[siggy14]

power tubes looking purple, I think it means either air or something got into it and it is just glowing, does not mean it is bad. Do a search on the forum, i remember reading about it, but most every tube i have had has glown purple at one point.

 

[thinkdontpray]

Just found that, thanks again siggy.

I am heading to our jam room and am going to have a few brews, smoke a few and just experiment with everything.

I'll report back on what Ive found.

 

[thinkdontpray]

Well thanks you to siggy I've solved my one problem but now Ive created a few more now!

I am going to try and keep this as concise as possible without getting too convoluted.

So I switch over the fx selector knob to footswitch, click on my FX loop on the footswitch and hook up my reverb first. It works perfectly on both channel 1 and 3. On channel 3 there was a tad bit of hum so I thought ok, introduce the noise suppressor into the loop now. Ok, so reverb and supressor are engaged in the loop. Reverb still works but the suppressor doesn't, it shows a light that its reducing the signal when the head is in standby and when its on, with my volume down. On channel 1, it works fine, but when I click over to 3 the light disappears (as if theres no signal at all) and I get a ridiculous hum. If I adjust the send knob in the back (turning it down to 30-40%), it lowers this hum but it takes away alot of the punch

Ok, so my FX loop works. So I take the noise suppressor and run it through the front. Same problem, lots of hum. So I start experimenting. I unplug the loop and turn the dial back to "loop on" , and just run my guitar straight into the head. Sounds great. I run my suppressor through the front, no FX loop, works fine again. I hook up the tube screamer through the front. Sounds bloody amazing.

So, my FX loop works, my pedals work, but somehow they arent working together????

I went through and swapped out V2, V3 preamps to see if I could find a faulty tube, no go.

I am thinking I may need some better, shorter cables to patch in the FX's as the cables I have now are kind of crap. Also, I may replace all the preamps as I havent done that yet, aside from putting an SPA12ax7 into V1, and swapping in a 12ax7 into V4, the one that drives the FX loop.

Please please please please please , can anyone help here? Do I make any sense? Sorry if these are stupid questions but I am stuck!

Thanks to anyone who helps and thanks again siggy.

 

[jbird]

I can't be of much help, because I really don't like noise supressors. And in the loop? It does'nt make sense that a noise supressor could be blended in (parallel loop) with the original signal, and do it's job? Where is this unwanted noise coming from anyways? Guitar, or signal to the amp, then it should be up front. If your using sensible settings on your amp, I don't see where the noise is within the amp? If your using it as a gate, then it should be up front! Idunno, like I said, I don't care for the things... :?

 

[siggy14]

Technically he is right, with a parallel loops the noise surpressor will not work 100%.

The fact that your reverb works find in the loops shows your loops i fine, maybe there is something wrong with the noise or the cables you are using to connect it too or the transformer you are using for the noise surperssor.

I can't be of much help, because I really don't like noise supressors. And in the loop? It does'nt make sense that a noise supressor could be blended in (parallel loop) with the original signal, and do it's job? Where is this unwanted noise coming from anyways? Guitar, or signal to the amp, then it should be up front. If your using sensible settings on your amp, I don't see where the noise is within the amp? If your using it as a gate, then it should be up front! Idunno, like I said, I don't care for the things... :?

 

[thinkdontpray]

Well see the thing is, the pedal works perfectly when I have it on "LOOP ON" and my fx loop unplugged. The pedal does its job. So like I said, something isnt right still, the pedals out front are not working right with the fx loop. I dont know, I am at a loss. I am going to try new pre amps and new cables and see. Then try a different supressor, but I dont think it will do much.

 

[jbird]

OK, well I'm at more of a loss after reading that? "Loop On and my F/X Loop unplugged"? "The pedals out front are not working right with the F/X Loop"? Again, why and where is it that you feel you need noise supression?

 

[thinkdontpray]

Ok, sorry lets see here.

I have my noise suppressor up front, works fine. Perfectly in fact. So thats not an issue anymore.

I am trying to run my reverb through the FX loop and all is well on my clean channel. I click over to channel 3 and I get pure HUM, just disgusting hum. If I turn my send knob down in the back, it lowers the hum but it also takes away from the balls to the wall sound.

I dont know, its fine without the reverb I guess, I just like that tasty little bit of reverb in the mix.

 

[NoGlassNoClass]

Cant't believe nobody has caught this yet, but...are your noise gate (front end) and reverb (loop) pedals plugged into the same power supply? If so, try running the reverb pedal on a battery and see if that fixes the problem. No hum now? Get a separate power supply for front-end pedals and fx loop pedals, or one with isolated outputs like the Voodoo Labs PedalPower.