Crate VC50212

[Glacies]

I got this amp for my birthday 2 weeks ago and it's awesome. Awesome tone, clean headroom to spare in the band and some awesome crunch, particularly with my Les Paul. However, I noticed 2 things with it that are giving me some concern and I was hoping you guys could help out a tube amp newbie.

1. The volume kind of died out for no reason. It didn't go away, it just seemed to drop a level or 2 for a bit. It was such a surprise that I didn't know if I hit a knob on my guitar or what, but after some fiddling I got it back up to where I needed it. This may or may not be a problem, I just thought I'd mention it in case it sounded familiar to anyone.

2. This is the real issue, the sound seems to drop out. I noticed this particularly on my clean channel when I start digging in a bit.

3. On the crunch channel if I raise the gain it will start sounding out some scratchy static (not from my guitar)

Is this a tube problem, a speaker problem or what? This is my first venture into more serious gear and getting a nearly 20 year old amp, I figured i'd need to do some maintenance. Well, word is tube amps are maintenance period.

[Spudman]

I have one of those that I got around 92-94. I can't remember. They are hard on tubes for sure. That is the first thing I would check/swap. I've had similar occurrences and new tubes set it straight.

Congrats! It's really a great sounding amph.

[cebreez]

That also could be the symptoms of a dying output transformer. But before I went that route you might check the input jack. I've heard people on here relating the same problems to simply replacing the jack. I know some of the amps come with plastic input jacks that get cracked with age.

[Commodore 64]

I'd start by swapping tubes. Not the cheapest, but is the easiest.

I had similar issues with a bad solder joint on one of my filter caps. I found it by "chopsticking", which is carefully prodding things inside the amp while it's turned on with something non-conductive, like a wooden chopstick.

I had similar symptoms with a Peavey Bandit when one of the input jacks cracked where it mounted to the PCB.

[Glacies]

Okay, swapped out the tubes - they had the wrong power tubes in there. Either for a certain effect or whatever, but now I have the right ones in. The old tubes look fine so I'll keep them for my Fender Champ build, at least the Preamp tubes. I was just going to ask on here what my next step is because the problem hasn't gone away. It's still crackling on the clean channel. I don't think I'm getting anything weird on the gain channel. Gonna chopstick it. Thanks for the info again fellas.

[Commodore 64]

How'd the chopsticking go?

[Glacies]

The only way I could recreate the static was if I pushed any one of the 8 tube sockets. I thought I found some wires that did it but I think by moving those wires I jostled the board and it shook the tubes.

These are brand new Groove Tubes I put in. 4x 12AX7 and 4x EL84s

[Commodore 64]

It's unlikely that every tube socket has the same malfunction. But to be sure, I'd take 5 minutes, spray each socket with Deoxit, and work the tubes in and out a few times. Then I'd take a dental pick, and retension the socket springs (just use the pick to mush the metal closer together). Then put the tubes back in and fire it up.

If you still get dropouts, etc, I would look hard at the filter caps and resistors. The big stuff, related to power supply. Chopstick them hard, or wiggle them a bit. (be careful of course). You would be looking for a cold or busted solder joint.

[Glacies]

Thanks man. Will take a stab this weekend and see what I can do.