Tiny Terror white noise when gain and volume up?

[dave111]

Hi how's it going everyone? My name is David, I am new here =)

I recently got a used tiny terror from eBay, so far I'm loving the sound. But when the volume and gain are up high there is alot of white noise/feedback from the amp. Is this normal?

Also I'm going to up a small song/recording up soon if anyones interested.

Thanks In Advanced, David.

[Ohara]

Hey Dave, welcome to the forum there are a lot of very knowledgeable people that hang out here.

Couple of questions for you
-How high do you have the gain and volume? when the gain is cranked, it will make a guitar go into feed back, especially if you are facing the amp while holding the guitar, this effect happens on both single coil and humbucker equipped guitars.
-Are you using a single coil guitar? you could just be hearing the noise from the coils (I don't know how long you have been playing or anything like that so please don't take offence, but it is a legitimate question that gets asked here a lot, and it is a simple answer, yes you will experience noise with single coil guitars)
-How old are the tubes? being that you bought it used it could have a bad tube in it. Is it a crackling noise you hear? this could be a bad power tube, but definately does not sound like white noise.
-Are your cables good, does this happen when plugged into another amp (similar in voicing, and similar in gain and volume settings) as if you have a bad cable it could cause a ground hum, also make sure you change guitars and see if the same noise happens, as sometimes you could have a bad ground inside of the guitar that causes a hum.

These steps may or may not fix your problem, as without the setting we are uncertain if you are just experiencing normal hum from having an amp turned to 10 on the gain and 10 on the volume, if this is the case then yes the amp will feedback like crazy.

best of luck

[Ohara]

oh yeah, forgot to mention, it is always nice to hear recordings, so please post a link so that people can check it out.

[dave111]

oh yeah, forgot to mention, it is always nice to hear recordings, so please post a link so that people can check it out.

Thanks for the warm welcome. I'm mainly a drummer, but I'm into recording and whatnot so I also play guitar and bass. I got two yamaha guitars handed down to me from my older brother about 5 years ago. An EG303 and a RGX A2 as well as a roland micro cube and 30 watt cube (Just so you know where I'm coming from sorta thing, as well as which pickups they have, all stock) I've been recording using virtual amps so far, so the noise gate on them solved the problem of feedback/amp noise. So I guess I just forgot all about that after reading what you wrote haha. I was wondering what pedals there are which work well with the TT to help solve this? Apart from a noise gate. So far I've just noise gated the tracks in logic after recording. Though I feel like this thread is kinda pointless now.

Btw I've finished recording a sample, just gonna mix and master then I'll throw it up =)

Thanks again!
Regards, David.

[Randy Bass]

Noise gates suck tone big time. I would turn the Gain down on the Tiny Terror. It really just starts to add noise once you get around 3:00 and above. You don't have to use the full range of the Gain control just because it's there. Try experimenting with it.

Is the RGX A2 the one with the soapbar humbuckers? I never played an RGX A2 through an amp but I am curious how they sound.

[Wolfe]

any amp is going to make white noise if you turn the gain and volume up.... especially if you turn the gain up.
you amp is perfectly normal
you could always get a noise gate/suppressor, but if you get a cheap one as randy said it will suck your tone big time. you don't need that much gain anyway, especially in a band situation. When I had my th30 I usually put the gain at 12'oclock/1'oclock for playing metal (slipknot, lamb of god and stuff like that). you could put a hi/lo pass filter in logic to get rid of the unwanted frequencies that cause whitenoise and feedback.

[jason41224]

two things: cords, and pickups. make sure your instrument cables are decent: doesn't have to be Mogami or Monster snobbery, but something at least of decent quality. bad ones can introduce a fair bit of white noise. now for pickups: a friend of mine was recording with my Rocker 30, and he had a terrible feedback problem-wasn't white noise, just feeding back while playing. he was playing an Ibanez LP-DC copy with some really hot Dimarzios, and they ended up being the culprit. we tried his Heritage LP w/57s and my amp was quiet as can be. so maybe i'd try bringing a different guitar with some cooler pickups to see if your RGX's pickups need swapping.

if that doesn't work, then i say welcome to the world of tube amps. when they get loud and dirty, they get a little noisy. however, you shouldn't hear any noise when you're playing. so, if you're recording, all you have to do is cut out all the parts where there's dead space, where you could actually hear that white noise.

pedals won't really help it, noise gates will but at the sacrifice of tone.

[a.hun]

any amp is going to make white noise if you turn the gain and volume up.... especially if you turn the gain up.
you amp is PROBABLY perfectly normal

Fixed!

Could of course be some extra noise from one or more particularly noisy valves, but if a little valve swapping doesn't change things you probably have nothing to worry about.

Gating is perfectly valid with recording to cut noise when not actually playing. Otherwise though the signal to noise ratio should mean that any background noise really isn't heard when actually playing.

Noise gates do need careful setting up otherwise they can wreck your sound. Settings depend largely on your style of playing, and can vary a lot for different sounds / songs. Playing live a bit of noise is hardly ever a real problem unless you are going for technical perfection instead of rock and roll. Me, I prefer rock and roll!


Andy.

[baytamusic]

You shouldn't have to gate a loud rock guitar track. Something is wrong.

[mr_william]

if it sounds similar to the white noise on the start of oasis's cigarettes and alcohol, then it's just the white noise you get with tube amps when the gain and volume get up high!

[David Verb]

Noise gates suck tone big time. I would turn the Gain down on the Tiny Terror. It really just starts to add noise once you get around 3:00 and above. You don't have to use the full range of the Gain control just because it's there. Try experimenting with it.

Is the RGX A2 the one with the soapbar humbuckers? I never played an RGX A2 through an amp but I am curious how they sound.

Yeah. How is the RGX A2? I remember when it came out, I was quite intrigued.

[dave111]

I may try with another speaker cable just out of curiosity. And yes the A2 has soupbar pickups I believe.

The A2 is definitely a light guitar. The neck is probably heavier than the body. It seems to handle most types of music pretty well, though for a better metal sound I think it would need new pickups. One thing that isn't that great about it is the pickup selector, it doesn't even turn anymore without a great deal of force, and I read this is a common isuse.


Thanks to everybody for their input, greatly appreciated.

[Bluebeard]

After checking all peripherals;

the ISP Decimator is widely known as being among the best for your issue.

Having personally tested one with a cranked TT, let me tell you...

[dave111]

After checking all peripherals;

the ISP Decimator is widely known as being among the best for your issue.

Having personally tested one with a cranked TT, let me tell you...

I shall definately look into this pedal.

[Bluebeard]

After checking all peripherals;

the ISP Decimator is widely known as being among the best for your issue.

Having personally tested one with a cranked TT, let me tell you...

I shall definately look into this pedal.

Can't wait to hear how satisfied you are with it, Good luck.