High pitched whine coming from my Herbert

  • Thread starter Thread starter BrianVaughn
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BrianVaughn

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I was playing my Herbert earlier and noticed that when I stopped playing, there was a faint high-pitched whine coming from the amp. (It wasn't coming through my cabinet but the head itself.)

I propped an SM58 up against it to capture the sound:


Sorry that it's not the best sound quality. I'm not very handy when it comes to the insides of my amp unfortunately so I am hoping someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks in advance!
Brian

Update: In case it helps in any way, it seems like the whine happens when a channel warms up. If I switch from 3 to 2, it's gone for a little bit but then starts to fade in. I'll go ahead and leave the amp off for now until I hear more about what could be the cause. :)
 
Hey Peter, thanks for chiming in.

I was originally thinking it might be a preamp tube issue as well, but I would have expected that to come out through the cab a bit and this isn't. If I mic the cab I don't get any of this noise- I only get it if I mic the head directly.

If your guess is still preamp tubes I'll try replacing them. :)
 
Maybe it´s a mechanical noise. Please tighten the
screws on the transformers. Sometimes one of the
transformer steelcaps starts singing. Give it a hit
with the hammer :D
 
Hey Peter. Thank you for the input. It's taken me a while to get around to this because I've been pretty sick (mono). Today I took the amp apart though and tightened the transistor screws as you suggested. I also went ahead and replaced the first preamp since I had some spare tubes sitting around and it seemed best to just do it all in one go.

What I'm noticing now is that the squeal isn't as pronounced as before, but it's still there. I can't tighten the screws anymore without risking stripping them so I'm assuming that's not it.

Does this tell you anything? Would you recommend I not play the amp so long as it's making this noise? (I don't want to damage it.)
Again, it's not coming through the output of the amp so it wouldn't interfere with my recording (and it's really only noticeable when I'm not playing) but it concerns me.

As always, thanks in advance for any help you're able to offer! This has been a great amp and you've been a great support.
 
No concerns about damage. Hit the steelcaps
on the transformers with small hammer.
I´m honest.
 
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