Help: Fender Precision and Fender Bassman 20 not talking to each other...........?

[Beedster]

Well, they're probably talking too much actually.

I jumped at the opportunity to buy an early 80's all tube Bassman 15 combo, firstly to have a studio bass amp to replace my recently gone Mesa, but also for guitar and mandolin. Anyway, it arrived yesterday and is lovely, almost perfect condition. Plugged in my Precision and all I could hear was string noise, buzzing and other unwanted and very un-bass sounds. Changed cable and it was the same. Plugged in the Strat and it was better but still noisy. I plugged in my Gibbo acoustic and it was lovely, quiet as, same story with my Ovation mandolin. So, I went back to playing the Precision through it thinking that perhaps the tubes needed some time to warm up, but it was the same problem, awful.

So, the problem's clearly the bass, but it's not been a problem before. So I tried the bass through my Acoustic Image rig and it was nothing but lovely sweet bass P-Bass tones all the way, I couldn't get a nasty buzz or noise out of it no matter how hard I tried.

To cut a long story short, the Bassman seems to be perfect with my electro-acoustic instruments, sightly noisy with my Strat (although to be honest the Strat's always been slightly noisy), but awful with the Precision. In fact with either treble or mids rolled up even a few numbers the amp produces some very nasty noises alongside what is clearly a very sweet core bass tone. I noticed that the unwanted sounds dropped if I touched the input on the front panel of the amp suggesting earthing problems. The noises are also very responsive to touch, i.e., fingers going on or coming off strings, also suggesting earthing problems. However, I've had no such problems with this bass through a number of amps previously or through the AI last night? I'm assuming this is the result of an interaction of two problems, one with the bass and one with the amp, that need each other to cause problems. Any thoughts?

C

[BassBod]

Have you got a mains tester thing (three lights on a plug). I'd be looking at the earthing in your room, then the amp...and I'd make sure there is an RCD on the amp's plug until I'd had it checked out.

[icastle]

There's no way that a Fender Bassman and a Fender PB aren't compatible with each other and you've removed all the other possibilities by substitution.

You've got a faulty amp mate.

[Beedster]

Thanks guys, yep, turned out to be a faulty amp as suggested
Chris