Hissing sound

[John Eppstein]

Originally Posted by boringjeremy

Hey Guys, I am having a hissing/white noise sound coming from my amp. It is present when the pedals are plugged in or when I ham not using a pedal board.

Any Ideas on how to get rid of this sound?

I am using a Fender Supersonic 22

I'm assuming it happens with the gain cranked?

It's probably tube noise. Notr a hell of a lot you can do except replace the front end tube in the offending channel with a quieter tube.

Mesa/Boogie sells tubes that are tested for noise and microphonics for use in the front end of their high gain amps. You might try those. They charge a premium for them, as each one must be hand tested and less than one tube out of ten passes the test.

If that doesn't work you could try having the amp modded with metal film resistors in the front end of the noisy channel. Metal film resistors are less prone to thermal noise than carbon types. It might alter your tone slightly, however, as metal film types are closer tolerance and reputedly slightly cleaner sounding.

If neither of those work you're SOL. If you're recording with the amp use the "strip silence" function in your DAW.

[Whitecat]

Ground loops & other electrical weirdness can result in strange constant noises in amps as well. Try a power outlet that's on a different circuit or use a mains filter plug (the latter solved a similar issue I was having on my Fender Pro Jr).

[NickyLee]

Patch Cables, or the cables in general, I had a similar problem from a Fender, wasn't the Supersonic, but after replacing everything including buying a different amp, I found that my only problem was my cables.

[John Eppstein]

Neither patch cables nor ground loops will cause a hiss, assuming that you're employing the correct terminology. You said it sounds like white noise - that's hiss.

Patch cables, ground loops, and badly shielded guitars will cause hums and buzzes but not a hiss. Hiss is nearly always caused by thermal noise, often exacerbated by excessive gain. It's either a bad tube, a defective resistor which is unlikely in a relatively new amp (or bad solder joint causing a resistance where there shouldn't be one), or simply the result of having the gain cranked too high which is amplifying the natural hiss of the amp (in which case all you can do is turn the gain down.)

Or you can check in the bottom of the amp's case and make sure you don't have a big snake hanging out in there.....

The Fender site says it's a high gain amp. High gain amps hiss when you turn them up. The only way to minimize (not eliminate) that hiss is to use a premium low noise tube in the front end of the high gain channel.

[NickyLee]

Originally Posted by John Eppstein

Neither patch cables nor ground loops will cause a hiss, assuming that you're employing the correct terminology. You said it sounds like white noise - trhat's hiss.

Patch cables, ground loops, and badly shielded guitars will cause hums and buzzes but not a hiss. Hiss is nearly always caused by thermal noise, often exacerbated by excessive gain. It's either a bad tube, a defective resistor which is unlikely in a relatively new amp (or bad solder joint causing a resistance where there shouldn't be one), or simply the result of having the gain cranked too high which is amplifying the natural hiss of the amp (in which case all you can do is turn the gain down.)

Or you can check in the bottom of the amp's case and make sure you don't have a big snake hanging out in there.....

You're right, my bad. I got my sounds mixed up. Lol.