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Sansamp Crisis - Urgent help needed


dc2009
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Hi all,

Had practice yesterday, using my Sansamp through the practice room's Markbass somethingorother (which I loathe) and Hartke/tc mix, as per usual. Using my Epi Pro-V through it, which I have done before. I had the bass on full volume as per usual, though the amp was barely over 2 or 3 as it was just the guitarist and myself going over some arrangements for some acousticised numbers. Right at the end of that period, my Sansamp suddenly started screaming - a constant high pitched note, though you could still hear the bass sound too.

I turned off the channel and left it for about 15 minutes. When I came back I tried it again and it was screaming through all three channels, though not when on bypass mode (i.e. no channel selected). I took it out of the circuit and played straight into the amp (ugh) for the rest of the session.

So three questions:
a - What's wrong with it?
b - How do I fix it?
c - I have to play a couple of these acoustic numbers on a radio show tomorrow morning. Does anyone in London (ideally SW, Hammersmith area) have a spare Sansamp I can borrow for it? I will repay in sexual favours....

Thanks,
Dan

Edited by dc2009
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[quote name='dc2009' post='1322787' date='Aug 1 2011, 09:36 AM']Hi all,

Had practice yesterday, using my Sansamp through the practice room's Markbass somethingorother (which I loathe) and Hartke/tc mix, as per usual. Using my Epi Pro-V through it, which I have done before. I had the bass on full volume as per usual, though the amp was barely over 2 or 3 as it was just the guitarist and myself going over some arrangements for some acousticised numbers. Right at the end of that period, my Sansamp suddenly started screaming - a constant high pitched note, though you could still hear the bass sound too.

I turned off the channel and left it for about 15 minutes. When I came back I tried it again and it was screaming through all three channels, though not when on bypass mode (i.e. no channel selected). I took it out of the circuit and played straight into the amp (ugh) for the rest of the session.

So three questions:
a - What's wrong with it?
b - How do I fix it?
c - I have to play a couple of these acoustic numbers on a radio show tomorrow morning. Does anyone in London (ideally SW, Hammersmith area) have a spare Sansamp I can borrow for it? I will repay in sexual favours....

Thanks,
Dan[/quote]

I had similar weirdness with my Sansamp BDDI a couple of years ago. It only happened in that session, and I've been back to the same rehearsal room since and it's been fine. I posted to another well-known bass email list at the time, here's what I write - see how it compares to your experience:

"I've got three sounds stored: a normal, slightly gritty day-today bread and butter tone; an overdriven, snarly tone for covers of 1974 King Crimson; and a deep quiet dubbier tone. All three have been in use for some time, not recently adjusted. Batteries are not fresh but not run down either.

After one song last night, keyboard player said "hey where's that high-pitched beep coming from in that song? it's not me". we all looked at each other and shrugged, then ran through the song again. Keys stopped when he'd heard it again. "There - I just heard it again". Of course it'd stopped by now and we began to think he was going mad. Just as we were about to start again, the beep came back. Then went. Back again. Keys looked at me - it's coming from your amp (which was the other side of him from me).

This is what was happening. The beep (more of a high-pitched buzz when heard on its own, not mid-song) only happened when I was hands-off, not touching strings, bridge, metal etc - it's a '75 Ricky 4001 btw; only happened with preset 2 (the high gain overdrive setting) selected on the BDDI; went away (faded away, not cut suddenly) when I turned around to face away from the amp. We checked all other parts of the signal chain and found them to be ok, the only potentially suspect item was my Trace dual compressor pedal - medium high-end compression, low bottom-end compression, EQ dialled at about 25% in favour of the high end."

The amp was a rather unpleasant Behringer stack. I tend to avoid rehearsal room amp these days and just DI into the PA. Did you try going straight into the desk? Otherwise, are you running on batteries or PSU? Whichever it is, try the other.

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It sounds similar. Though the main differences I would mention are that with mine the noise was constant, rather than intermittent and happened whether I was playing or not.

My PBDDI has three presets, each one is set to IMO the best clean tone for each of my main basses, I was just using the preset for this bass (which is active, possible link?). Also, my Sansamp was the only thing in the chain, no compressor or anything.

I didn't DI into the PA, rather went straight into the bassamp without my sansamp in the chain. I always use a PSU, never seen the point in batteries in pedals, though I will try it with a battery when I get home from work to see if it makes a difference.

Anyone want to lend me theirs? Or any DI box for that matter. I only need it for one morning!

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[quote name='dc2009' post='1322874' date='Aug 1 2011, 11:06 AM']Anyone want to lend me theirs? Or any DI box for that matter. I only need it for one morning![/quote]

You can borrow my BDDI Deluxe if you want.

I'm in Chiswick.

PM me if you're interested.

Jack

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If that's the one with presets, any kind of broken ground connection could allow noise from the digital (preset) bits into the output signal.

I can recommend a decent pedal repair guy I've used before here in the UK if needsbe.

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So after all the fuss of taking my bass and now ok sansamp through rush hour, the producer said I couldn't input my bass to the desk, either via jack or balanced xlr and insisted I played acoustic....thankfully about 25s into the first song the building manager came and silenced us due to complaints from a neighbouring office. What a load of fun....

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[quote name='dc2009' post='1323904' date='Aug 2 2011, 09:59 AM']So after all the fuss of taking my bass and now ok sansamp through rush hour, the producer said I couldn't input my bass to the desk, either via jack or balanced xlr and insisted I played acoustic....thankfully about 25s into the first song the building manager came and silenced us due to complaints from a neighbouring office. What a load of fun....[/quote]

Ha that's a bit backwards!


Usually they tell you to DI when you don't want too!

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[quote name='dc2009' post='1323904' date='Aug 2 2011, 09:59 AM']So after all the fuss of taking my bass and now ok sansamp through rush hour, the producer said I couldn't input my bass to the desk, either via jack or balanced xlr and insisted I played acoustic....thankfully about 25s into the first song the building manager came and silenced us due to complaints from a neighbouring office. What a load of fun....[/quote]

How did you fix it?

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[quote name='toneknob' post='1323986' date='Aug 2 2011, 11:07 AM']How did you fix it?[/quote]

It just so happened to work when I got home, no idea why...
Hope it doesn't happen again though, will get myself one of those behringers as a backup when i bit more cash....

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[quote name='dc2009' post='1324039' date='Aug 2 2011, 11:43 AM']It just so happened to work when I got home, no idea why...
Hope it doesn't happen again though, will get myself one of those behringers as a backup when i bit more cash....[/quote]

Sounds like what happened to mine! I blamed the rehearsal room and a grumpy Behringer stack.

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