Weird overtone I can't sort out

[S̷͖͑m̵͎͂á̵̺s̸͚̈́h̴̬̑]

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.

Nothing to get hung about

 

[JackBootedThug]

Get a pod and run into the pa….

 

[JackBootedThug]

I have actually done that. Hd500. What it lacked in tonez it made up for when we finished playing. Unplug it, pick it up and leave.

 

[JackBootedThug]

Completely understand. You’re actually preaching to the choir here. I did have an original pod pro, mesa 20/20 and bbe sonic maximizer running to two mesa halfbacks with mc90’s and ev’s….rig sounded pretty cool for what it was. Actually badass. That was late 90’s I think.

 

[Dan Gleesak]

When was the last time you played these at volume? I’m thinking time to put in new electrolytics

 

[VonBonfire]

Completely understand. You’re actually preaching to the choir here. I did have an original pod pro, mesa 20/20 and bbe sonic maximizer running to two mesa halfbacks with mc90’s and ev’s….rig sounded pretty cool for what it was. Actually badass. That was late 90’s I think.

Sounds like a sweet rig. I downsized from a 100 watt Plexi half stack to the Twins. They are like toys by comparison but try doing four or five hundred gigs downtown Austin and get back to me on how much fun you had loading in and loading out head/cab arrangements. It's too much hassle to get ina and out of the club with. I can get two Twins on a dolly, plus my cable/mic bag, personal bag, camera, camera stand, and mic stand all in one trip. Guitar in hand have gig will travel. That wasn't happening with the half stack.

 

[VonBonfire]

When was the last time you played these at volume? I’m thinking time to put in new electrolytics

Every time I play they are on 10 unless it's a low volume gig, which isn't very often. I'm gonna get them checked out today.

 

[creep66]

I have been having a very similar issue in my home for 2 years now, cant record shit because of it. Tried everything. I have multiple amps, cables, guitars and cabinets and it's still there. I have researched and tried everything. I am convinced it's the old wiring in my house.

It is unlikely you have blown all your speakers. It might be your power.

 

[Bad Brain]

What does an overtone sound like anyways?

 

[Dan Gleesak]

Every time I play they are on 10 unless it's a low volume gig, which isn't very often. I'm gonna get them checked out today.

Are you familiar with ghosting and all that? It’s possible your amps have been making these sounds for a while now, they just get lost in the mix while gigging compared the the microscope of recording

 

[7704A]

The Force 12 in the other amp is also blown

That's a 150W speaker if I recall... What's the wattage on your twins? You mentioned you give it all the beans all the time. If that means full clipping of the power amp, the number I've heard is a power margin factor of 5 to 10 to reduce the chance of the speaker getting trashed by the square waves. So basically two 300W EVM's. Apparently speakers really don't like square waves, as @Scumback Speakers can confirm I believe.

 

[VonBonfire]

That's a 150W speaker if I recall... What's the wattage on your twins? You mentioned you give it all the beans all the time. If that means full clipping of the power amp, the number I've heard is a power margin factor of 5 to 10 to reduce the chance of the speaker getting trashed by the square waves. So basically two 300W EVM's. Apparently speakers really don't like square waves, as @Scumback Speakers can confirm I believe.

It is 150w but the condition I got it in was unknown. It held up for about 30 minutes yesterday before it started farting out. Seems like maybe it was mostly blown when I got it.

So you're suggesting the Black Label EV's 300 watt or perhaps the massive Eminence PF-350 350 watt speakers instead of the 200w classics?

 

[7704A]

So you're suggesting the Black Label EV's 300 watt or perhaps the massive Eminence PF-350 350 watt speakers instead of the 200w classics?

Yes, though I'm no authority on the matter. My vote would be on the EV's, since I'm more familiar with their build quality and my speaker repair guy has a lot of positive stuff to say about them. I have to double check, but they may be conservatively rated too. At least, my pro-lines touted that I think, and they described the rating process used. Mechanically, the EVM magnets are also bolted to the frames, at least with mine. I can't tell on the new ones or the Emi because of the stickers. Also, the PF has a fairly aggressive low pass, it's only spec'd as useful up to 3.5kHz, so that may be a dealbreaker there.

For what it's worth Carvin says 4 times an amp's RMS rating is the threshold for safe usage when clipping, so you might be able to get away with two classic EVM's depending on your amp's wattage. https://carvinaudio.com/blogs/audio-education/demystifying-power-ratings-rms-vs-program-vs-peak. The 5-10 number I heard is from Kevin O'Connor.

 

[VonBonfire]

Also, the PF has a fairly aggressive low pass, it's only spec'd as useful up to 3.5kHz, so that may be a dealbreaker there.

Thanks for your info, it is helpful. Can you explain this to me in layman's terms? What is the net result of "fairly aggressive low pass"?

 

[7704A]

Thanks for your info, it is helpful. Can you explain this to me in layman's terms? What is the net result of "fairly aggressive low pass"?

It applies an overall EQ curve that looks a bit like this to your signal:

By "fairly aggressive" I just meant that it starts significantly below the average 5kHz cut-off for most guitar speakers. Those EV's are spec'd to end at 7kHz I think.

Here's what things sound like.

This is a demo track off my favorite youtube EV speaker comparision video, and is what sold me on the 12S. It's the high-gain 12S demo:


And here it is again with the low-pass filter in the screenshot applied:


The low-pass I applied isn't quite identical to what the PF350 speaker is doing since there is technically some stuff happening after 3.5kHz, but it is close-ish to chopping off everything after the "usable" range that Eminence gives, with a roughly equal rate of fall-off in the response according to my eyeball math.

Here is the original video (not mine) I pulled the demo tracks from:

 

[VonBonfire]

It applies an overall EQ curve that looks a bit like this to your signal:
View attachment 285524
By "fairly aggressive" I just meant that it starts significantly below the average 5kHz cut-off for most guitar speakers. Those EV's are spec'd to end at 7kHz I think.

Here's what things sound like.

This is a demo track off my favorite youtube EV speaker comparision video, and is what sold me on the 12S. It's the high-gain 12S demo:


And here it is again with the low-pass filter in the screenshot applied:


The low-pass I applied isn't quite identical to what the PF350 speaker is doing since there is technically some stuff happening after 3.5kHz, but it is close-ish to chopping off everything after the "usable" range that Eminence gives, with a roughly equal rate of fall-off in the response according to my eyeball math.

Here is the original video (not mine) I pulled the demo tracks from:

Thank you again for a thorough post. The low pass version of your clip sounded muffled by comparison, however, most of my playing is edge of breakup or just clean so I'm not sure how that would play out on my rig. I am diming volume and treble, mid and bass at minimum. Here's the Paul Franklin demo of the speaker, which is the only demo of it I can find.

 

[JackBootedThug]

Running two twins on 10 and shit sounding funny is kinda like Japanese soldiers in ww2 waiting to hear the ping from a garand going dry….you just fired 8 rounds of 30.06…you are deaf…nobody’s hearing a fucking ping….???

 

[VonBonfire]

Running two twins on 10 and shit sounding funny is kinda like Japanese soldiers in ww2 waiting to hear the ping from a garand going dry….you just fired 8 rounds of 30.06…you are deaf…nobody’s hearing a fucking ping….???

I only run one at a time, the other is just the spare so I don't have to own a modeler for backup, lol.

 

[DanTravis62]

I like celestions with fender style amps too

*Shrug*


I have 2 scumback h75 lds in a cab I use with my Cali tweed

I don't care for the avt speakers at all, from what I recall one went bad in a friends valvestate combo and was making weird overtone noises a few years back

 

[7704A]

Thank you again for a thorough post. The low pass version of your clip sounded muffled by comparison, however, most of my playing is edge of breakup or just clean so I'm not sure how that would play out on my rig. I am diming volume and treble, mid and bass at minimum. Here's the Paul Franklin demo of the speaker, which is the only demo of it I can find.

It's less egregious, but still there. I can here it in the video you linked, though the video doesn't bad. Here are the cleans from the demo I linked before and after the low pass is applied. Also, quick note, I realized I tweaked the dB level of the filter by about a third of a db by mistake in the original post above, so I did the same thing here. Shouldn't be significant I think.