Odd behavior with Gain and Master knobs
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Hello all..
My first post here. I received my Spark about a week or so ago and enjoying the sound and function. Wondering if someone would try something and/or explain if the behavior is correct. I'm trying this in the Acoustic position, but happens elsewhere.Setup: All knobs fully counterclockwise on power up except "Output" which is between the 9 and 12 o'clock position.
With the amp powered on now, you should be hearing output out of the amp.. Next, turn Gain up to 12 o'clock or more.. You should hear the Gain kicking in.. Now turn Gain back fully counterclockwise back to its start position. In my case, the Amp goes silent.. Any impact that Output had is gone and it's like the Amp is shut off. The same thing happens with the Master knob. I'm basically returning the amp to the Power On position for knobs, but there is no longer any amplification and I have to power off and on or switch to a different setting to regain amplification
IF I power up with the Gain or Master at 12 o'clock and Output at 12 o'clock, I can raise or lower Gain / Master with no loss of the amp.
Thoughts? and Thanks..
Jay S.
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@jaysott said in Odd behavior with Gain and Master knobs:
Setup: All knobs fully counterclockwise on power up except "Output" which is between the 9 and 12 o'clock position.
if the amp is already off, turning all the dial knobs to 0,wont make any difference, as, when you power on, it defaults to the settings of preset 1.
When it's on, the moment you touch a knob, it jumps to the actual knob position instantly, so for instance if all your knobs are at 0,the moment you touch the gain knob, it will jump to zero instantly. -
@crystalpit said in Odd behavior with Gain and Master knobs:
@jaysott said in Odd behavior with Gain and Master knobs:
Setup: All knobs fully counterclockwise on power up except "Output" which is between the 9 and 12 o'clock position.
if the amp is already off, turning all the dial knobs to 0,wont make any difference, as, when you power on, it defaults to the settings of preset 1.
When it's on, the moment you touch a knob, it jumps to the actual knob position instantly, so for instance if all your knobs are at 0,the moment you touch the gain knob, it will jump to zero instantly.Thanks for the reply, but I'm not sure mine's working correctly. I don't remember exactly where all the knobs were out of the box but shouldn't matter. First, no sound comes out of the amp, with any setting on the left knob or any of the four presets unless I turn up output (expect that or is that not right?). Now I'm powered on with whatever setting is on the left, acoustic, bass, clean, etc.. and some level of Output..
Here's where I'm struggling. Let's say I want to try a new setting before locking it in to one of the four preset buttons. So I turn up gain (it's starting at 0 or fully counterclockwise), position one starts to blink, but I decide that's not the sound I'm looking for so I turn Gain back down to zero. Effectively I'm now back to where I started except I'm not.. once Gain is turned back down to zero, I lose any and all amplification even though Output is still turned up.
How can I decide if I like a "new tone" or not if adjusting Gain and Master effectively shuts down any amplification in the process. This doesn't happen with Bass, Mid, Treble, Mod, Delay, Reverb or Output. The Amp only goes quiet after turning Gain and Master up then back down and doesn't come back even if I turn them back up, and it only happens if Gain and Master are in the fully left position at power on. If I Power On with them both pointing straight up, I can play with them without issue.
Not sure I'm being clear here. I've factory reset and updated firmware per Felix at Positive Grid. Does you amp do the same thing?
Jay S.
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See those knobs on top of the amp? Set them all to 12 o'clock, then never touch them again. Ever. Except the Output knob, to control the volume. The rest? Leave them, never go near them again,
Do all your tone setting changes via the app. All of them.
Save your tones to the hardware presets. On boot up, the amp will default to whichever preset you were using when you shut off.
Seriously, say goodbye to those physical knobs. These are not the contols you are looking for. Use the app, Luke.
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@k-mcg said in Odd behavior with Gain and Master knobs:
See those knobs on top of the amp? Set them all to 12 o'clock, then never touch them again. Ever. Except the Output knob, to control the volume. The rest? Leave them, never go near them again,
Do all your tone setting changes via the app. All of them.
Save your tones to the hardware presets. On boot up, the amp will default to whichever preset you were using when you shut off.
Seriously, say goodbye to those physical knobs. These are not the contols you are looking for. Use the app, Luke.
Luke,
Appreciate the reply.. and understand what you're saying. Still it would seem that you can (and should) be able to make some changes with the knobs and not have the amp go wonky. :-)
Thanks again.
Jay S.
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@k-mcg
I agree with you 100%! -
@jaysott I've noticed volume issues when changing between presets or certain youtube videos. With the presets, I could be using preset 1 and playing along to a song and switch to preset 2 and then when I switch back to preset 1 on same song, the volume drops. With Youtube videos my amp sounds drop while the video sound is louder and I need to adjust all volumes before I practice. This happens every time with same volume, settings and video. Like if I go to practice the next day, I need to mess with all volumes once again. Sorry, I know this isnt what you asked but volume related.
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@prosodymetal said in Odd behavior with Gain and Master knobs:
@jaysott I've noticed volume issues when changing between presets or certain youtube videos. With the presets, I could be using preset 1 and playing along to a song and switch to preset 2 and then when I switch back to preset 1 on same song, the volume drops. With Youtube videos my amp sounds drop while the video sound is louder and I need to adjust all volumes before I practice. This happens every time with same volume, settings and video. Like if I go to practice the next day, I need to mess with all volumes once again. Sorry, I know this isnt what you asked but volume related.
Well, the first thing that would come to mind in your case (switching between presets) is that perhaps the output or gain on preset 2 might have been stored as a higher number?? Don't have experience yet with the youtube video aspect.
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Hey @jaysott I'm totally experiencing the same thing! It turned me off from using the amp the first time, but today I went back to try to figure out why the amp would sometimes just explode with high volume, and noticed exactly what you described.
If I turn certain crucial knobs like "master", "gain", and "output" (side note, how the hell can all three of those be different?), sometimes they will randomly drop way low and I'll have to overcompensate somewhere else to be able to hear sound again. Then when I switch to a different mode, like Clean to Glassy, Glassy will suddenly regain ability to read the knob that had been dropped, making the amp blow out my eardrums.
Did you ever get clarity on this issue? It's really like walking on eggshells for me at this point because every time I change a setting I fear for my life. Not fun.
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The knobs are not physical controls, they are software controls. It’s kind of like the midi controllers you see for DAW software. All they do is tell the software in the Spark which parameter to change. The only knob that should be set to 0 when starting a new preset is the output knob. On a related note this is why if you adjust the ban while playing a note you can hear a slight delay between where the knob is and the output.