All amp presets super noisy, except acoustic
-
Hey all. I’ve been dealing with a noisy hissing sound from my Spark amp and I thought I had it taken care of. I contacted customer service and got a grounded power supply sent to my, but now the hissing issue has changed Now the Acoustic settings are DEAD quiet; no hiss at all, but as soon as I select any amp patches with any gain, it becomes hissy as hell. Kind of like a cranked overdrive pedal does.
Anyone else have this problem? -
When I first got my amp, the 1st setting (clean) had a tiny amount of hum, but as you stepped through the 4 settings, the hum got progressively worse. If I plugged the USB port from the amp into a PC, the AMP was grounded and the hum went away on all 4 pre-sets. If I had to guess, I would say they replaced the first bad power supply with another bad power supply. I have a relative that bought the Spark amp and his hum problem was different. It was a really bad hum that didn't go away when grounding through the USB port. Both were hum issues. Both were resolved with replacement power supplies from PG support. One was more of a hum, the other was more of a hiss.
-
The grounded power supply took care of the noise for me. Don't forget that each environment and guitar are different some will be noisy with any amp. Unshielded single coils being the most vulnerable to noisy environments. Make sure you have the noise gate turned on in the Spark app. Turn the noise gate settings as low as possible without noise. If you have the noise gate turned on and it's still noisy even when the settings are turned up, you may have a bad amp.
-
@cofer22 It might help if you tell us what guitar you're using when you get that hiss. Some electric guitars are just wired poorly and there isn't proper shielding around where the pickups and controls are placed, and in others the wiring isn't great and there's not proper internal grounding. And not just "tele" or "strat" or "les paul" -- mention the actual brand name too. That might help. Others here and in the Spark Amp User's Group at Facebook have found that replacing their guitar lead or going to a wirelss guitar connection have resolved any hiss issues that remained after getting a grounded power supply.
-
@dhbailey I’m using a Baker USA jr. with DiMarzio Virtual PAF Humbuckers and 1975 Fender Tele with Rio Grande Dirty Harry Bridge and Gibson Burstbucker Neck. The hiss is the same regardless of which guitar is used. Dead quiet with acoustic settings. I also use a EH Humdebugger and the hiss is still present.
So the work around I’ve discovered is to always put the Spark amp in to the Acoustic preset initially (Cozy Serenade is quiet). I can use it as either a Bluetooth speaker and play along while plugged into my tube amp, or plug into the Spark and THEN move to other presets or patches. This has helped reduce the hissing to a manageable level. Turning off the overdrive pedal has worked in reducing the hiss for some patches.
I have found 1 Marshall setting that is dead quiet, but it has no overdrive in the patch.
It’s definitely a PITA to have to do all this work for usable tones, but it’s a useable practice tool for me. It allows me to play at low volumes and not take over my home. Just have to deal with hissing. Definitely wouldn’t want to play out with the amount of hiss this thing produces not to mention the questionable speaker quality.
I tried a Boss Karana recently and really liked the tone quality. That might be an option if I can’t get this taken care of.