Fixing Pots on Amps- (crackles n vol jumps )-Simple, cheap, quick fix.
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- čas přidán 22. 02. 2016
- Have you got or ever had a dodgy pot(knob) on an Amp...its a pain in butt..This video explains how to fix the problem.Quickly ,and cheaply...you don't have to have any experience ,just a little common sense...which don't cost nothing !
Also a wee section on replacing valves....One of the Mesa Boogie's reverb was broken...........again a 5 min fix.....Check it out .
I Love Music ! This channel features Slide Guitar and 6 string Guitars and musical antic's. I Live it and breath it...for real.
Tutorials.reviews ,hints and tips.
There how to use guides..amps ,reverbs echos,chorus, flangers, compressors, Guitar rig software, and a wide range of subjects...all music related,of course
ABOUT NELLY SLIDE GUITAR
I live in Brighton, UK Born in London. Been in bands for 20 years, ran a recording studio for +10 years. I'm Music maaaaaaad !!
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Nelly - Hudba
Came here to get advice to fix my pot, feel like I've left with a friend.
Hahahahaha
This video is gold and as someone who was scared of “breaking” my amp, I have to thank you for making the whole thing easy and it cost me nothing to fix a 10 year old Fender amp that was driving me nuts with the volume jumps and crackling!
Worked on my solid state Princeton Chorus!!!
Million thanks!!!
Over three years of frustration gone in one day!!
Great video. Just applied it to a spare Fender 150 Bullet amp and all knobs are now SOOOOO good. Many thanks. Rock on!
Thank you! I'll do this fix today. My MID is crackling madly. Great video!
Thank you so much ! I just ran into this problem today as a matter of fact ,when i tried out my Carvin valve master,for first time in a year ,sitting in the corner collecting dust ,and turned it on ,and most off the pots were way scratchy ,just you described ,so I'm gonna pick up some contact cleaner tomorrow! Thank you for the easy fix ,now to find out why the preamp on my Randall is not working !
I love how this guy grabs the guitar to test if the cleaner's done the job, and then ends up jamming a minute straight :D
Not all heroes wear capes. Thank you good sir for sharing your infinite wisdom.
Just done this to my Marshall mini stack, clean channel volume was stuck on full for the last 6 months and the rest of the knobs were crackling a bit, £6 and 15minutes later and it works like new! . . .I was actually going to give it away at Xmas as I couldn't justify taking it to be repaired, soo glad I came across this video last night. I owe you a few beers for the tip mate, give me a shout when your back online ✌️
Nelly ..thanks for saving me a load of cash , followed your tips and fixed an old amp of mine that was gathering dust , my master volume was crackling and not responding at all ...cheers mate :)
Exactly what I wanted to say. Worked perfectly on my Mesa DC-5. Thanks so much.
Deoxit D5 is the best of the bunch in the states for this work. I've used it on older amps in the past and it returns the pots to like new condition. Great tutorial for how to resolve this issue mate!
I love that worn fretboard! Such a great look and the mark of a for-real player.
Interesting video mate. Im from India and use a line 6 spider iv. It's ten years old and none of the knobs are working as they should. Lots of jumps and unresponsiveness. I haven't opened it up out of fear of having something explode in my face or doing more damage lol but think I might try this sometime. Thank you 🤘🏼
Great video! Gotta Fender Ultra Chorus that needs attention down here in Texas. 🤠Thanks Partner!
Happy to be your 1000th like, salutations from the US.
Excellent video Nelly, thanks.
Nice noodling there brother you have some nice chops thanks for the tips I have a Marshall JCM 600 hissing and popping at me .
Great tips and advice my 1981 Mark IIB is there now!!!!
Great. Good attitude and good guitar playing too. Cheers.
fantastic playing!
Great playing!!! (good info & style too!)
Helpful as always!
Anyone who tries this, TEST FOR ELECTRICITY FIRST! These amps can easily carry enough voltage to kill you, and many amps do not self drain!
Yup. Always make sure to short out any capacitors you find in ANY electrical device you choose to disassemble. You do this with just about any piece of metal.
ideally the shorting should be done with a wire with a resistor attached to it. There's a lot of voltage going through when you drain the capacitors and it wears them down more quickly if you just make them drain all in one instant.
Ideally, there will be a bleeder resistor. Failing that a bare piece of metal is fine.
Voltage isn't what's "going through", BTW. It's current.
Falcrist so how do you find the bleeder resistor? Or do you just mean, buy a hefty resistor and drain the capacitors by shorting across each one?
@@A10DoubleHelix All you need is a 5 watt, 100 ohm resistor, short the terminals out with that holding the resistor there for at least 5 seconds.
Hey there ,Nelly, Jolly good,!!! i have a Marshall Valvestate S80 and a Peavy with the same issues and will repeat your procedure Thanks much!!
nice man! forgot to mention to twist the pot/ knob back an forth but the dude at the and was doing it so rock on!
You know the score.....Yep I did miss this out but I can also be seen doing it....so thought all bases were covered !! Cheers bud
Tip : Use a hair drier on a low but warm setting to ensure that any of that ISO spray is dry before you turn it back on (they can be up to 35% water) - so better safe than sorry
+Good idea.....I did leave it for half hour in end...depends how dirty pots are,,,,how much spray you use.....
But hairdryer would make 100% certain its dry,and ready to go.
One comment above said 24 hours to discharge caps....you can touch earth prong of plug on metal to discharge it.............I've never had shock off a valve amp....well one that wasn't plugged in anyway !!! LOL !
Caution...yeah Common sense required to
@@NellySlideGuitar Good video mate, but all you need to do is give a quick spray of contact cleaner into the pot and turn the pot from left to right about 5 times, no need to drain anything out, the contact cleaner isn't conductive so you won't short anything out, as for discharging caps, use a 5 watt, 100 ohm resistor and short out the cap terminals for 5 seconds, it'll be all safe then.
@6:36 "so as you can see, I'm a bad ass at the guitar!!" Lol!! Nice! Thanks for the video did help!!
Really great info. Thanks Nelly.
Always a pleasure dude....simple and effective.
+Nelly Slide Guitar Bloody love your channel mate
Big help, thanks for posting!
Fantastic tip. going to give it a go when the time comes
My mate was quoted silly money £300 for changing 1 valve and fixing crackly pot (reverb was down ).
Useful video. Thank you for going to the trouble of making it.
Hey man I had to do job,so filmed as I went,bit of an edit job with footage....but always a pleasure... never a chore
Ahoy.
I bought an old Honer amp with worse crackling than this on pretty much every pot. I'm going to give this a go. Cheers!
Make sure you wiggle the pots, 0 to 10, 0 to 10 ,as you spray in the switch cleaner,it helps clean "the track" inside the pot.It will fix them, 90% sure. Only £4-5 for the tin of switch cleaner .Cheap as Chips !
Great video..thanks for uploading ! ...but tried this twice.but still have crackling sound on my fender frontman amp ?
nice playing
You legend, took me till maplins bit to realise your the dude who plays slide in Brighton! big up!!
Sweet picking my dude. Wow!
Hi great video sir! I’m searching for answer to my practice amp problem and this may do the trick except mine appears difficult to take apart.. but I thought I’d throw the question your way and maybe you or a viewer could help me.
Ok so I have a Roland micro cube I bought second hand. Nice little amp for practice at home. Anyway everything works except for the one effects knob but here’s what it’s doing. So one knob controls 4fx. Trem/chorus/phaser/flanger anyway when you rotate it it’s suppose to stop at 0 and 10 I believe like the other knobs but it completely spins around with just little more resistance instead of stopping. So not only do you not know exactly where you are eventually but I can not get it to turn one effect off and go to another because I don’t know where it’s at or if it’s working seems to be only going between chorus and phaser. Would spraying cleaner fix this type of problem or is it shot because it completely turns? The but on it seems tight.
Hey great video - I just took my mark III apart after watching this. I have no reverb - the reverb tray works. I switched all the leads for new ones and you get the verb jangle when you tap the springs but nothing when you turn up reverb. A clue might be that I've been getting less and less reverb as years gone on - changed all new tubes twice - still no reverb. Any ideas? Thanks:)
Great tips.
Yep ,I thought so....but everyone's entitled to there own opinion !! Its All Good.
Hello Sir, I'm looking for an information and I hope you can help me. I'm building a guitar amp and I would like to put a spring reverb tank into it and I don't have a clue about the value of the potentiometer I need to use. Any info for me please?
Best regards
Cliff
Great bit of advice, nice bit of Sabbath too!
Nice one mate, Sabbath are the gods of rock......ever since I first own a record.....#
I was 5 years old........A 7inch single..".Paranoid"...with "The Wizard" on B side.
The wizard was tghe song that opened my eyes to possibilities of music...Aged 5 I loved it.....,
Still do. Early Sabbath is Fantastic...They said themselves,Tommi Iommi " The last few albums were shit,we were all doing way to much Coke"
good job sir!
Nice video man! Thanks
Thanx dude......did it 4 weeks back when I borrowed the boogie....but didn't wanna bore everyone with Techy,video after techy vid ! Lol
Variety is the spice of life !
Right on mate !!!!
Nellie thank you so much for the great video!!! Also what Black Sabbath song was playing in the background in the beginning and the end? I haven’t heard that in years!,,
Hi, my DCM 40 transistor amp makes a pop noise when i push the power button on or off, any ideas? Thanks!!!
Hey man, I want to try this on my Mesa studio 22, but how do I discharge the capacitors? I really don't want to be the one to die from my amp lol
I have the Marshall mg15, the treble pot is very noisy, so i've bought a can of contact cleaner, but the treble again, the only one with the noise, should i take it to the guitar shop or buy new one?
you said the mid didnt work at all, and changing the pot fixed it. my eq and lead channel stopped working so i bought new tubes and still dont work, you think i just need to fix the pot for the lead channel to work? any thoughts??
Got Marshall mg102 cfx and I can hear a crackling feedback when my guitar isn't plugged in, tried swapping cables around to see if that's the issue but it still makes the noise
Nice informative video! I have a second hand Marshall MB15 with this issue, and am considering fixing it myself, as very few guitar techs here deal with amps (I only know of one and it is hard to get there from my office), and the fix is probably worth more than the amp itself. Might try fixing it tonight when I get home or tomorrow, but I wonder, does this fix apply to transistor amps as well as tube amps?
Nelly.... please come back you're missed!
Ha, You can certainly tell That at least 2/3rds of the Dominos ( including back up singers were from right here in Memphis , as is that amount of Derek’s guitar style till this day ,know it and love to hear it ,right on .
My amp accents the low E for some reason.....its a solid state amp. Any suggestions?
I have a fender FM65r and for some reason the volume knob is not functioning correctly. It always seems to be very loud even with being at 1, and lots of crackling when I turn the knob. Idk what to do! It’s extremely dusty in the back Idk if that helps..
My amp pots are broken but I like this video for starting with Black Sabbath music on it
Hopefully I'll fix my Marshall Valvestate 8100 ! Thanks anyway, even if it doesn't work for me, great vid
Funny, I'm watching this before cleaning the pots on my Marshall Valvestate 8100
Where d'ya live mate?
I'm just popping over with this old Laney...
;-)
Nice vid, cheers. I'll give it a go.
best intro music
i have a solid state peavey vyper that has volume jumps and dips without even touching the volume pot. What is it?
I have an amp with two channels the bass knob on both stopped working, nothing changes when I move then, could this help?
straight to maplins I think! most of my cheap crappy gear has the crackle problem! my favourite cheap guitar is the same encore strat you have and only one of the tone pot's work. it's got that weird all or nothing thing going on but a bit of the old contact cleaner might do the job it's probably not worth getting the thing serviced because its cheaper to buy a new one.
For a £5 you can sort the lot....Guitars and Amps a bargain .Glad to be of " Service" .... Excuse the pun!
I noticed they sell it in halfords all though its for cars it must be the same thing called electrical contact cleaner its a little bit cheaper.
Servicol contact cleaner is the electronics industry standard....Its what I would recommend using....
for sake of a quid ( A Pound- in 'Queens English'..for all our international viewers)
yeah you're probably right it could do more harm than good!
update I got a can from Maplins and sprayed it into the tone and volume pots on my cheap Squire Strat and it worked a treat no more crackles and the knobs are much smoother is was amazing the amount of crap under the knobs that saved about £40!
Good job, nice video. How about a detailed series on guitar maintenance - action, setup and wiring, do's and don't from your experience.
Keep up the good work
Peace and love to all in Nellyland
There are already vid's on action and intonation ,these are 2 most important points....electrics is to advanced and specialized...though there is a video I've made on fitting piezo pick-up on Acoustic guitar..
There will be more maintenance vids ....as the problems arrive on my Equipment..and I need to repair Them! Lol
+Nelly Slide Guitar, top man ;-)
Made a start New playlist Categories earlier...will make it much easier to navigate around my video's now....will finish off later
+Nelly Slide Guitar cheer mate, your a star.
Thanks for the tip :) I have got a question ,I have got a MB DC3 and I don't have reverb at all . The v5 preamp tube is alive , I have checked the tank , fixed the speaker (sender ) ,was a bit loose and i gave a bit of pattex 100% in one side , cleaned the inputs and outputs , males and females with a smooth sand paper . Still not working at all . Do you have any clue about it ? Thanks
Could be number of things or components.....How did you test tank ?( spring unit)#
It contains a piezo pick-up inside, that could be the problem...unless you've tested audio thru the tank unit, and had it connected up to an identical amp !! Like I did will Boogie Service Video's.I Swapped valves to repair it......anymore than this, it looks like a repair man is required!! Hope you sort it out.....dead kit..not good.
I tested with mutimeter impedance , imput has the right value 10 ohms the output reads around 200 now and then , which should be around 2500 something ohms ... checked the wires they are all ok apparently ... the wires on the "speaker" and "receiver" seem ok too .. ..
Useful stuff! Thanks!
Cheers Martin.....top tips! Ahoy
+Nelly Slide Guitar My stereo is very old, and the pots make my speakers sound like banshees! I'll try this before binning them ;-)
Last ditch...I reckon its gonna work ....That was weied as Im typing this I.just saw your subscribe pop up thanx dude
+Nelly Slide Guitar Subscribed since the beginning, when you gor you channel ;-) Loving it!
It worked!
actually I nearly forgot what I was supposed to ask you when you mentioned alcoholic. I have a roland practise amp I know nothing whatsoever about. when I plug the guitar in it crackles but only when I move the lead if the lead is static its no problemo. will this likely be the leads or could it be more sinister and be the amp? Thanks steve.
could be dirt inside the socket, it could be dry solder joints where the socket is soldered onto the board, just re heat them and flow some new solder.
thanks
Nelly sir you are fucking awesome incredibly easy to learn from I hope you get a much bigger audience whit time and make a good living of this
I just doing my ususal life ,only difference is ,I film some of it mow. Thanx for your good wishes.
All best bud
The music's brewing like fine wine......written so many amazing songs...no one heard yet,,,Best is yet to come...got 5 new songs 3/4 done....Going in Studio to lay some drum ideas down...I'm gonna play bass...as still not found right bassist yet !!
Hello, I have a Marshall Vavestate 40V, and I noticed that the bass pot isn't working at all. I changed the potentiometer already but still the same. Does anyone have any idea what it could be? Thanks!
I have a 20 watts amp and my treble knob always produces a very loud crackling sound.
Will this method work? Or it just work for huge amp that is likely shown on the video?
Thanks!
It’s the same for all pots in general
What is the song at 5.41? Great vid mate
Great into and exit music. Hey you'd saved your buddy on the repair, so the LP seems like fare compensation. Peace.
I wish...Lol or he could give me one of his Boogie's !!
I bought a Squire Champ amp in the 1990s. Only paid $200 for it. The pots are cracking and sometimes shut off. Can't find a 15 watt solid state combo with master volume, gain, and middle knobs.
Would that stuff work on my creaky, crackly knees?....
wd40 will do ;)
Top tip. also help keep the damp out !! what a bonus.
By the time I got round to doing it.
Maplin has shut. 😂
Screwfix. Toolstation. Halfrauds.
Is it possible to clean the Pops from the Outside of the pops by removing the nut holding them and spraying a tiny bit of WD-40?
I saw in another video that WD-40 should not be used for this job because it was said that it will leave a residual varnish on the contacts.
Never use WD40. You need to use a true electrical cleaner and spray them out from every angle two or three times wile moving the knob.
Um, I wouldn’t, because you would spray all that dust all over the rest of your electronics, and might cause continuity issues back there. But to answer your question you can, I would just pull it out since you have the nut off anyway and hold it away from the board.
Same here
Can scratchy pots make the amp really quite, i have to have the volume on full to get any volume from the amp but its still dead quite
Quite what..?
Basically yes. There’s a little bit of dirt that works it’s way in there and blocks the contacts.
Cool... Can you use WD40 for the contact cleaner?
No. Some people do, but you really shouldnt. WD40 leaves residues behind.
I didn't know that maplins sold switch contact cleaner, I tend to buy automotive contact cleaner online
My problem is one of my knobs is stripped I suppose.. ? It spins hole wat around instead of stopping at off causing me major problems trying to find off because it’s the knob for flange/phase/tremelo/chorus on Roland micro cube. Therefore it’s nearly impossible to get it back to clean with no effects because one of those 4 effects is always on I can’t find a sweet spot at all and it should just be at the off position.. can anyone help me??
Bruce Kelly there’s a little tab (piece of metal or plastic) that stops the knob. So, you 3 options, replace the pot either yourself if you know how or have someone do it for you. Try to fix it by adding something in that will block the knob at zero or 10, I wouldn’t recommend this because a new pot is $5 for a cheap one and $10 for a quality one. Plus you can add mods to beef things up like what analogman does. Option 3 is to just live with it and use paint or fingernail polish to mark your favorite spots. Either way it’ll be fine, just if you fix it yourself make sure you do it right. You name it someone has done it before, so research around and ask questions.
But how about a digitally adjustable button. How to fix it?
God I love how Ozzies pronounce "Boogie" 🤣
BE AWARE: Amps like this (and their capacitors - which will hold lethal voltage even when not plugged in) contain enough voltage to kill you. Be fucking careful messing around with amps, especially valves.
Shorting out any capacitors you find will mitigate that issue. If someone reading this doesn't know what that last sentence means, they probably shouldn't be taking electronics to bits anyway.
See above comments on subject
Roger that...
Bringing my amp to specialist.
yes, this is good advise. One question- what needs to be done; meaning what steps need to be done in order to begin working? Is it simply a matter of unplugging it and waiting a certain amount of time or do amp repairers drain the power somehow? Just wondering if you happen to know.
@Jim Catanzaro 'valve' and 'tube' are the same thing. One is English the other is Yank English. That's all.
After you unplug amp you should wait about 10 minutes because some parts like capacitors might have some voltage in them by the way good tip m8 :)
Only if the capacitors have a bleeder resistor. Otherwise, capacitors can hold their charge for a long time.
Find all the capacitors in the unit and short them with a piece of metal. If you don't know what that last sentence meant, you probably shouldn't tear electronics apart.
+Falcrist after you unplug it from the wall then turn the amp back on. the circuit will discharge itself.... but still give it 10 minutes.. caps bite bad if not discharged.
The circuit will not always discharge under those conditions.
If it was designed well, there should be a bleeder resistor for each cap. If not, some caps could hold their charge for hours.
Fair do's.....I've built amps, repaired amps....never had a shock off any amp....Well OK..
only off the ones that were plugged in still !!! But you guys know more bout all this then me ,for sure.
It was just such a crucial bit of info....I had the worst amp in world when was 13 it was proper shite...with a bad crackle...I owned it for what seemed a lifetime....what I would of done to have known this...then ! Glad I covered it....but wont be going near electronics again...You Get it !! Lol
Nelly Slide Guitar Oh. I don't think anybody could possibly dispute that your video is helpful!
As far as the capacitors, you'll only get a shock off of them if they're high voltage AND poorly designed. All an engineer needs to do to make them way more safe is install a bleeder resistor across the terminals so the charge can drain away when they're off. That's usually how it works.
Very Cool, bud.. lose that reverb, though! at least most of it.. IMO only. if you dig it, keep it... pleasant,well-meaning video.. good luck.
But does it go to 11?
Is it normal for my amp to give off a sound even though nothing is plugged in bute power is on?
Hope he answers, mine one does a strange noise only when a cable is plug, doesn't matter if it's new or old. :/
@@davidcastellanos881 ill prob get a full range speaker with guitar port, guitar amp sucks cause you cant change the amp
Anyone knows what happened to Nelly?
Crackles and pots? Hmmm, sounds inspiring! reminds me of bum notes, Before I started playing some tunes on my guitar, I still hit some bum notes, I won't explain too much this far, but to give you a clue , it was gas form number two,you'd open the windows in a car! Chorous; Bum notes come from my fret board, and sometimes from my strings.. But the most common source of bum notes.. Comes from peoples rings! I often hit a bum note when I play a blistering solo, it gets me down, I look around! an I start to feeling so low! But the times I love ❤ a bum note, and sound that you know, is the time it jumps right out of me.. From a hole but ..not in a polo! chorous;::.one day I hit a bum note and a liquid number two, I think it might be a kebab I had .. Or that nasty vindaloo, I was playing my guitar that day, an it ran right down my legs,I got some on my scratch plate.. But not my tuning pegs!! . Chorous... hitch it up man, lifes getting too serious! Take it easy Nelly!
I just enjoying my playing and music generally.....Huge Loss Today...
..............George Martin Died.....what a f**king legend ......
Recorded some Paul McCartney style bass earlier....fortuitously ...on a new tune.
In the past, I've fixed crackly sound and randomly varying volume issues by unplugging and replugging a jack a few times. Cleaning the male jack is easy, I wish someone made something to clean the female jack
q tip
This is about.... when you turn a pot ,and you can clearly hear crackle coming from the pot .
Yep ! dodgy sockets is another poss problem,but there many possible cause of crackles ...from leads to valves ...unfortunatey couldn't cover every issue in one vid.
It's Super Hans Senior!
300 quid!!!! why is everything in the UK so crazy expensive?
Eh phookin’ bloody ‘ell! 😃
Got some frosty beer and a pulled beef sandwich with your name on it if you come over and to this for me ;)
can I drink the spray if I run out of beer?
Yes go ahead
so it looked like the mid pot was still not working. Needs to be replaced i guess
will wd40 do the trick ?
If the knobs are particularly dirty just put them in your pocket and throw your jeans in the washing machine.
There isn't any real mechanical difference in the way tube and transistor amps are put together, except that transistor amps can be much MUCH cheaper. Sometimes there aren't any rails for the main box to fall onto, so just BE CAREFUL not to let it fall onto the speakers when you're un-screwing it.
Also, twin-speaker amps have more screws (obviously).
I not owed many Tranny amps ....I never wanna give out wrong info...so left it
I'll defer to your knowledge on the subject. Thanx bud
To be fair, I've only torn a few amps down. Evidently they weren't nice enough to have the rails.
Imagine not playing guitar and watching the first 20 seconds of this video and not knowing a single word he's saying