S
Skirmish
Active member
Hi people,
I've bought a used Rocktron VooduValve (European version, older model pre On-Line, with original power supply) on Ebay and after playing with it for about 10 minutes it suddenly shut down and is not turning on since. Luckily the seller is a cool dude who offered me to send the unit back for a refund of what I've paid since he had not played it for a long time and only tested it for five minutes before putting it on Ebay. I want a working unit though, and most likely I'm the one responsible for breaking it due to stupidity (full story of what happened and what my guesses are below), so in addition to contacting the German distributor of Rocktron tonight after work, maybe some of you have some advice. The goal here is to get a feeling on what could be wrong and if the unit was most likely faulty from the start (seller's responsibilty) or if it was most likely my doing. Thanks in advance!
Full Story:
Background: I needed a cheap unit to practice with headphones at home and as a backup for gigs. Owned the Voodu before and it fits the bill. Found one on Ebay and bought it.
Arrival: Unit arrived at my office the day before I was leaving the country for ten days. Had to work late and took the unit home afterwards, eager to play some tasty licks. Arrived at home dead tired around 11:30pm, opened the package, everything was in order.
I then opened the unit to see if everything was allright and was pleased with the results:
Here is what I did then:
1) I removed the wrapper from the tube (circled in red in the pics above) as I thought this was just for protecting the tube during shipping (potentially stupid)
2) I replaced the stock tube (that according to the seller had never been changed, he had never opened the unit) with a brand new JJ 12AT7
3) Closed everything up
4) Plugged my AKG Headphones in the "headphones out" (without checking if they have the required impedance of 600ohm - potentially stupid)
5) Plugged a Behringer FCB 1010 Midi Controller into the midi in
6) Turned the unit on
The incident: Went through the presets, starting at #1, revelling in everything that makes playing guitar so damn sexy. From supercosmic funk licks, hearbreaking blues lines, dreamy 80s pop voicings to ultra aggressive Pantera riffs - I was really happy. Arriving at preset #21 (took about ten minutes) I noticed the sound fading in my left ear and adjusted the headphone jack. Didn't help really and I thought oh well, I'll get some new headphones, and carried on. Then bam: Black screen and no sound.Tried turning it on and off, no avail. Then had to leave and came back yesterday, so here I am.
My guesses and next steps:
I'm a technical idiot, but that doesn't stop me from guessing what could be wrong (in order of likelihood). Sorry if this offends some of you with actual technical knowledge:
1) Using headphones with too low impedance broke someting
2) The tube wrapper had some sort of function and removing it broke something
3) The unit was faulty and something other than 1) or 2) was the cause
Next steps:
1) Ask the mighty Rig-Talk for advice
2) Replace the fuse with a new one after I get home from work tonight and see if this will fix the problem
3) Call Warwick (German distributor for Rocktron)
4) Once I have an idea about what is wrong I'll either send the unit back to the seller for a refund or get it fixed by a tech
Thanks for reading this far and I'm looking forward to your replies!
I've bought a used Rocktron VooduValve (European version, older model pre On-Line, with original power supply) on Ebay and after playing with it for about 10 minutes it suddenly shut down and is not turning on since. Luckily the seller is a cool dude who offered me to send the unit back for a refund of what I've paid since he had not played it for a long time and only tested it for five minutes before putting it on Ebay. I want a working unit though, and most likely I'm the one responsible for breaking it due to stupidity (full story of what happened and what my guesses are below), so in addition to contacting the German distributor of Rocktron tonight after work, maybe some of you have some advice. The goal here is to get a feeling on what could be wrong and if the unit was most likely faulty from the start (seller's responsibilty) or if it was most likely my doing. Thanks in advance!
Full Story:
Background: I needed a cheap unit to practice with headphones at home and as a backup for gigs. Owned the Voodu before and it fits the bill. Found one on Ebay and bought it.
Arrival: Unit arrived at my office the day before I was leaving the country for ten days. Had to work late and took the unit home afterwards, eager to play some tasty licks. Arrived at home dead tired around 11:30pm, opened the package, everything was in order.
I then opened the unit to see if everything was allright and was pleased with the results:
Here is what I did then:
1) I removed the wrapper from the tube (circled in red in the pics above) as I thought this was just for protecting the tube during shipping (potentially stupid)
2) I replaced the stock tube (that according to the seller had never been changed, he had never opened the unit) with a brand new JJ 12AT7
3) Closed everything up
4) Plugged my AKG Headphones in the "headphones out" (without checking if they have the required impedance of 600ohm - potentially stupid)
5) Plugged a Behringer FCB 1010 Midi Controller into the midi in
6) Turned the unit on
The incident: Went through the presets, starting at #1, revelling in everything that makes playing guitar so damn sexy. From supercosmic funk licks, hearbreaking blues lines, dreamy 80s pop voicings to ultra aggressive Pantera riffs - I was really happy. Arriving at preset #21 (took about ten minutes) I noticed the sound fading in my left ear and adjusted the headphone jack. Didn't help really and I thought oh well, I'll get some new headphones, and carried on. Then bam: Black screen and no sound.Tried turning it on and off, no avail. Then had to leave and came back yesterday, so here I am.
My guesses and next steps:
I'm a technical idiot, but that doesn't stop me from guessing what could be wrong (in order of likelihood). Sorry if this offends some of you with actual technical knowledge:
1) Using headphones with too low impedance broke someting
2) The tube wrapper had some sort of function and removing it broke something
3) The unit was faulty and something other than 1) or 2) was the cause
Next steps:
1) Ask the mighty Rig-Talk for advice
2) Replace the fuse with a new one after I get home from work tonight and see if this will fix the problem
3) Call Warwick (German distributor for Rocktron)
4) Once I have an idea about what is wrong I'll either send the unit back to the seller for a refund or get it fixed by a tech
Thanks for reading this far and I'm looking forward to your replies!
