Amp cuts in and out. Help please?

[the rossness]

I have a Laney Ironheart 60 watt head and channel 3 is cutting in and out under high gain. It sounds like someone is turning a noise gate on and off. Is this a clipping issue? Is there any way to fix it? When I lower the gain, the issue stops.

The clean and crunch channels are unaffected. It only happens on the lead channel and only at high gain. What’s going on?

 

[Geo]

Try swapping preamp tubes first

 

[glpg80]

Sounds like the pots need cleaned and there’s a potential (pun intended) dead spot in the gain pot.

Could also be due to loose preamp tube sockets

 

[Geo]

Could be solder joint on power tube socket.

 

[the rossness]

I think I solved it. It happens when the onboard boost is turned up past 2 O’clock, when the preamp gain is also very high. I think its a clipping issue. When I lower the boost, it stops. When I dial the gain back but leave the boost up, it stops. It only happens at high gain, high boost, and only on channel 3. If I boost the amp with a pedal instead of the onboard boost, it also acts completely normal.

Oh, and I reseated all the preamp tubes. Thanks for the tip.

 

[glpg80]

Could be the amp going into oscillation due to pushing too much gain. Sounds like you found a feature.

 

[JackBootedThug]

You might email Laney and be like wtf yo?

 

[skoora]

I think I solved it. It happens when the onboard boost is turned up past 2 O’clock, when the preamp gain is also very high. I think its a clipping issue. When I lower the boost, it stops. When I dial the gain back but leave the boost up, it stops. It only happens at high gain, high boost, and only on channel 3. If I boost the amp with a pedal instead of the onboard boost, it also acts completely normal.

Oh, and I reseated all the preamp tubes. Thanks for the tip.

The big question is do you need that gain setting any time? Or is it pure overkill and you would never go there with normal playing?