[Tom Jr]

I'm new at this, so I don't know if this is normal or something to worry about.

I have a Fender Standard Stratocaster hooked directly to a Fender Blues Junior amp. Both are brand new (4 days old). On the 4th day of playing, I started getting static through the amp. It's not buzzing strings. I know what that sounds like . I took a look at the back of the amp and all the tubes are orange-hot. This doesn't seem right to me. I'm an electrical engineer by trade, but I'm not old enough to have experience with vaccuum tubes.

I don't think I'm pushing the amp very hard. The settings are as follows:
Guitar
- Volume: 4-5
- Tones: 10 (but I'm using the bridge pickup, with no tone control)
Amp
- Volume: 5 (Fat switch on)
- Treble: 5
- Middle: 5
- Bass: 5
- Master: 3-4
- Tremelo: 3-4

A few more (possibly relevant) pieces of information:

I'm using a cheap radioshack guitar cable until a mess with UPS gets sorted out. I would think a bad cable would cause a more consistent static. Mine is intermittant.

When the amp first arrived, the tubes were not installed. It appeared that they had fallen out of their sockets during shipping. They seemed OK so I installed them per the instruction manual.

I'm not even sure if the static and heat are related. Any insight would be helpful.

Thanks,
Tom

[chuckswood2001]

dont sound to good, the tubes will be orange, this is caused by the heater filiments in the tubes, and they do get hot, but if the tubes fell out during shipment then one of them could be damaged, there are a bunch of little filiment wires inside tubes that can get damaged if dropped or mishandled, i would have that checked out, that can cause static, or the cord can cause it also, or the jack, bunch of if's , if u can get ahold of a good cord i would try that, but the orange and heat are normal for tube amps

Chuck

[allthumbs]

It could be your guitar. Take it to a shop and plug it in to an amp.

[Tom Jr]

Thanks for the info on the hot tubes.

As it turns out, the static was in the cheap cable I have. When the static started, I unplugged the guiter, and no change. Then I unplugged the cable from the amp and the static went away immediately.

[737blues]

Several reasons why you might get plenty of noise with no guitar plugged in anyway. Probably is the cable as you have deduced, but I don't think you can isolate your guitar purely on that basis. Maybe you could borrow a decent cable to try before spending too much.

[Tom Jr]

Well, I was wrong.

When the static happened again (it's intermittant), I performed the same experiment. This time, the static remained even with no cable plugged into the amp.

Time to put some of my EE experience to work. It sounds alot like a bad connection. I'm sure I'll find it.

[allthumbs]

Originally Posted by Tom Jr

Well, I was wrong.

When the static happened again (it's intermittant), I performed the same experiment. This time, the static remained even with no cable plugged into the amp.

Time to put some of my EE experience to work. It sounds alot like a bad connection. I'm sure I'll find it.

Careful to wait at least 24 hours for it to discharge after unplugging it unless you make something to bleed off the stored charge. You probably know this but, better safe than fried.

[OldG]

I reckon the valves are the culprit.. you found them rattling around loose when it was delivered? that would'nt have done them any good - return to sender!

[fly135]

I'm curious about the orange hot tubes. My Valve Jr is only 5 wats and I play it fairly quietly. The only glow I see is the heater elements. Do the plates glow orange when playing it hard? Or should the plates stay cool even when cranking the amp?

[krissovo]

My Blues junior tubes glows bright orrange, I did read that fender make the amp's to run very hot and one of the main mods is for them to run not so hot.

As for static I used to have a comstant buzz from a "dirty" power supply, I now use a filtered supply for all my guitars and PC's