Weird overtone I can't sort out

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VonBonfire

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Ever had a speaker not fully blown and doing the scratching/farting out but was just giving you weird overtones?

I have a celestion loaded Twin that was giving me serious grief in the studio. It's especially present on the 2nd string from fret 15-17 but it's everywhere when you listen closely. My other Twin is also giving me this problem but not nearly as severe. I think maybe the K-120 in it has finally hit the end of it's life. I hope it really won't show through on the recording with a full band since I have a bunch of tracking to do today and am under the gun so to speak. I'm thinking maybe it's time to bite the bullet on a brand new set of speakers.

I replaced every tube in the celestion loaded twin and still had the problem. It's been about five or six years since I had either amp on a tech bench and I have pummeled, I mean pummeled, the speakers with many hours long amp on 10 gigs. The celestions are 100 watt handling each. AVT's.

Any suggestions on stuff to check before I go way deep into an EVM12 debt-hole? I really can't afford this right now but I might not have a choice. My project has to be complete 100 percent by the end of July. Sounds like a long time but we are talking about open saturdays when I'm not gigging and I still have mixing, mastering, and printing to handle.
 
Celestion AVT’s? The ones from the Marshall AVT series? I would have thought those would suck big time in a Twin.
 
Both amps are doing it. Did you try a different guitar?
 
midnightlaundry said:
Both amps are doing it. Did you try a different guitar?
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Yes, no change. The celestion loaded Twin is definitely worse.

I don't know if this is some kind of "edge yowl" or something but I've def put a lot of hard use on every speaker I have.
 
Don't know what sound you're going for, but maybe the Speakers are just being over extended with Bass.
I had a Marshall TSL 60 Combo that I modded with a Choke and KT77s and the speaker was taking a beating and couldn't do what I wanted for the lack of a sealed Cab..

A lower volume might get you by..
 
midnightlaundry said:
Don't know what sound you're going for, but maybe the Speakers are just being over extended with Bass.
I had a Marshall TSL 60 Combo that I modded with a Choke and KT77s and the speaker was taking a beating and couldn't do what I wanted for the lack of a sealed Cab..

A lower volume might get you by..
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I basically resorted to that but the overtones are still present and it's most obvious in the higher registers. I run the treble all the way up and everything else all the way down, so there is as little bass as possible.
 
Bardagh said:
Yep those are the ones they put in the “Advanced Valvestate Technology” solid state amps from the early 2000’s.
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Lol!

They are a little bright but have been a pretty good speaker. I was gonna throw them in the garbage but another player said "man that amp sounds great" so I left them alone since it saved a few bucks. Maybe it's time to go get raped by my Sweetwater rep on a set of EVM's.
 
VonBonfire said:
Lol!

They are a little bright but have been a pretty good speaker. I was gonna throw them in the garbage but another player said "man that amp sounds great" so I left them alone since it saved a few bucks. Maybe it's time to go get raped by my Sweetwater rep on a set of EVM's.
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Just goes to show sometimes you can’t tell without trying. A friend of mine I used to be in a band with had one of the AVT heads and the matching cab, and it was honestly not that bad for a solid state amp. It was less harsh than the Valvestate I had because I was a Chuck Schuldiner fanboy.

Every time I think about getting an EV I get the analysis paralysis from what everyone says about the different versions of them both current/recent and over the decades.
 
Bardagh said:
Just goes to show sometimes you can’t tell without trying. A friend of mine I used to be in a band with had one of the AVT heads and the matching cab, and it was honestly not that bad for a solid state amp. It was less harsh than the Valvestate I had because I was a Chuck Schuldiner fanboy.

Every time I think about getting an EV I get the analysis paralysis from what everyone says about the different versions of them both current/recent and over the decades.
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I try not to overthink it. I try to blow my stuff up at every gig possible because I hate sorting intermittent problems like this. I'd rather just deal with an obvious issue than chase ghosts. I did that already with some bad cathode bias resistors. Caused me no end of grief until it got sorted.
 
VonBonfire said:
I try not to overthink it. I try to blow my stuff up at every gig possible because I hate sorting intermittent problems like this. I'd rather just deal with an obvious issue than chase ghosts. I did that already with some bad cathode bias resistors. Caused me no end of grief until it got sorted.
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Well you’ll blow up the Twin before you blow up any EVM12L so that would solve that problem for sure.
 
Bardagh said:
Well you’ll blow up the Twin before you blow up any EVM12L so that would solve that problem for sure.
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That's kind of my thought, the lifetime set of speakers. It's the thought of six hundred bucks that hurts, bad.
 
VonBonfire said:
That's kind of my thought, the lifetime set of speakers. It's the thought of six hundred bucks that hurts, bad.
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If you can live with EVM12S speakers instead, you can probably gear up for 1/3 to 1/2 that price. Just gotta check local classifieds for certain EV PA systems being sold cheap. My best scores were $50 and $45 per speaker. EBay also has the raw drivers for around $150 asking price fairly often, currently there is also a PA cab sitting at $110 plus shipping. Nice thing about the PA cabs is they have the 300W pro-line model driver.
 
Make sure everything is tighten up, like the speakers, front and back baffles. Check if the speaker wires are vibrating. Check also the wires that go to the reverb tank. Check if there is dirt in the speaker. I once was removing a pre-rola greenback for recon, when I noticed that was a little solder blob loose in between the paper and the frame. That little solder blob was making the speaker sound weird when it vibrated at loud volume. Got it out and the speaker sounded perfect.
 
7704a spis da truf…
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My ultra 60 combo sounded like dog shit with the shitfields….when I turned it into a head both speakers were loose….those old twins…hell who knows….
 
The K-120 is going to sound waayyy different than the EVM12 though. If you are good with that not being an integral part of your sound (I see the other amp has Celestions) then you have a few options. The only thing that sounds really strange is that 2 different amps with two different speakers are doing the same thing. That K120 should be able to handle a cranked twin with a good amount of bass. If your going in the studio today do they any speaker cabs there? You could at least run the EXT speaker out to a totally different set of speakers and try that first. I have an early 70's Twin with the 120's that was the house amp at a studio up in NY and these speakers are still going strong. Definitely get an extension cab on the amp before you dive into the speaker swap thing. One amp doing it ok, but two different amps with different speakers in them sounds like it might be a different issue all together. Its not much but hope that might narrow it down. With the Alnicos you can actually re-magnetize them if they are weak sounding or lacking punch, but that doesnt sound like your issue at all unfortunately.
 
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