Noisy top boost module...

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johnmfer

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Aug 10, 2006
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I'm 99% convinced this thing is defective but thought I'd check here just to be sure because I have no point of reference for Top Boost modules. I ordered it new from Music 123 and it arrived yesterday.

- The gain knob is pretty noisy, makes a muffled scratchy sound when adjusting it.

- The module itself is incredibly noisy, at a cleaner gain setting without a guitar plugged in, it's more noisy than my Brown module dialed with a fair amount of gain.

- I'm really suprised at the amount of gain this thing puts out, for being advertised as being a cleaner module I have to keep the gain around 8:00-9:00 (almost all the way down) just to get a "dirty clean" sound if that makes sense. Every AC30 I've played you have to really crank to get a crunchy tone out of.

- Finally I have to keep the treble almost all the way down to keep it from being icepick bright with my Tele. My tele is a bright guitar but is much warmer than other teles I've played. I was expecting a lot of chime/airy high end but this is really over the top.

With the exception of the first symptom, I would say it's got a bad tube, but the scratchy gain pot has me thinking something else is wrong.
 
Scott, you're not only a fair and honest person to do business with, you're also a genius. Swapped out for a different 12AX7EH, and I'm in business - three of four taken care of. No gain pot noise, noise overall noise, no shrilly highs. The module still has a suprising amount of gain available, but I've got some 12ATs and 12AUs I might try out to cut that a bit, or I may just leave it at a low gain setting. Thanks!
 
Try the mod described on the grailtones site:
http://www.grailtone.com/guitar-tone-articles/randall-modules-modifications.html
It made a significant difference in the gain of my top-boost; it's now pretty clean with gain settings up to about 10 or 11 o'clock.
 
Cool! Thanks for the link. I'll definitely give that a shot if the 12AU7s or 12AT7s don't do it for me.
 
johnmfer said:
Scott, you're not only a fair and honest person to do business with, you're also a genius. Swapped out for a different 12AX7EH, and I'm in business - three of four taken care of. No gain pot noise, noise overall noise, no shrilly highs. The module still has a suprising amount of gain available, but I've got some 12ATs and 12AUs I might try out to cut that a bit, or I may just leave it at a low gain setting. Thanks!

Glad it worked out for you :)
 
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