GrandMeister 36 Hissssssss

Hi all. I bought a GrandMeister 36 and hated the hiss on 3 of the channels. I found the noise gate squashed it pretty hard. I sent it back and bought a TubeMeister 18 thinking that it wouldn't have the same hiss. It does! So I'm thinking of going back with the GrandMeister 36 or going ahead and getting the GrandMeister Deluxe 40. How did you all quiet the hiss without killing your sustain on your dirty channels?

Thanks.

Seriously?  I don't have a noise problem on either of my TM36 or GM36 to the extent where I very rarely use the noise gate, or if I ever do it is always dialed back as far as it can go.  I would have said that the noise level was one of the better things about these amps.  Sure there is noise there if you get right up to the speakers but it is never intrusive when playing especially in a band situation.

Please don't take this as some sort of a dig at you, I promise it isn't, but are you a long time user of valve amps for guitar or is this your first experience?  If you've been used to solid state gear and then move to valves you can be surprised as the noise floor can lift a lot.  The other thing which we often find is that inexperienced users often just whack the Gain control right up and blast off with the Volume (used to balance patches) and Master Volume on pretty low settings.  With that approach the noise level goes up astronomically too.  These amps are more flexible in the range of interaction of their settings than most are.  Experiment with lower Gain and higher Master Volume, and also with the Power Soak setting.  If you want high gain sounds then set the Power Soak lower to drive the power amp harder, the Master Volume higher to help with that, the Volume pretty much midway, then adjust the Gain up from a low setting until the tone sounds right. You can then adjust the Volume/Master Volume/Power Soak upwards until the level is right for you. After a while this becomes second nature. You can get great overdriven tones with the Gain backed off which drops the noise off a lot.  Remember, noise that is generated at the front of the amp is amplified by every stage it passes through on its way to the speakers and the Gain is the first control in the signal chain.

If there is genuinely a problem it would have to affect both amps.  It could be down to ageing valves in secondhand amps or a rogue one (in each?) in new ones.  There is very little else which I have come across in these amps which would cause this, they are very reliable.  What speakers are you pairing it with, that makes a lot of difference to so many aspects of the sound you would get.

Any other advice from anyone else?

Hi there. Thanks for the response. I have 30+ years playing experience and have always played tube amps with a short (very short) use of a solid state modeler. I do not play at max gain or even high gain any more. I play a 2x12 cab at home and go direct to PA system at church. In the past when playing a large venues or clubs a hiss wasn't a problem or big deal; in a church worship service it's very distracting. I have talked with H&K and they admit that it is a signature of their gain structures. I am looking for user that have been able to tame it via other pedals, eq or the what not before I start dropping coin of stuff. Its not like it used to be...before I'd just buy a bunch of stuff and try different things....now I'm on a budget haha.

Haha! Got you CP, of course what you say makes perfect sense. I'm a pub/club player who wouldn't have the same needs as yourself regarding noise and I have very little experience of most pedals, (being a simple guy and a cynic , if I need one I generally make it up myself to my own design). Let's see if anyone else can jump in with any experience of this problem which can give you a more useful view according to your own needs.

There's a subtle hiss in my GM36. Nothing too bad at all, and I use the noise gate on the minimum setting to clean up all noise, including the hum from my Strat. On the lowest setting it doesn't squash my sustain at all. I'm not a church player. I play large clubs, casinos, and weddings mostly. During the weddings, silence is a must as we stop a lot in the beginning.

I have my Switchblade combo on right now, turned the volume half way up and got nothing more than a subtle hiss at worst. That's louder than I've ever played that amp at a club. I imagine if it was a problem, I'd kick over to clean when I wasn't playing. I don't think it's any worse than the hiss of any other high gain amp I've played. In fact, less than quite a few.

I use all Mogami and Monster cables. Before I went to those I used to get hiss all the time. That was why I switched to better cables. Not saying that's your problem. I would first check all my cables though. Cheaper ones are exactly that...cheap.

It's possible one of the stock cheap Chinese pre-amp tubes is noisy. I'd recommend buying a Russian 12ax7, paying the extra buck for low noise testing, and putting it in V1.

Also, if you are using 4 Cable Method (4CM), make sure your three cables that go back and forth to the amp are bundled in a snake, reducing whatever noise making a physical loop would be...

As mentioned above, I too always left the noise gate on for every patch, adjusted to minimum or soft I guess. Works GREAT.

namklak wrote:It's possible one of the stock cheap Chinese pre-amp tubes is noisy.  I'd recommend buying a Russian 12ax7, paying the extra buck for low noise testing, and putting it in V1.

Also, if you are using 4 Cable Method (4CM), make sure your three cables that go back and forth to the amp are bundled in a snake, reducing whatever noise making a physical loop would be...

As mentioned above, I too always left the noise gate on for every patch, adjusted to minimum or soft I guess.   Works GREAT.

I would say it might be a tube and trying new ones can't hurt, but he got a second amp with the same problem.

I have a TM18, 36, a GM 36, sold 3 of my friends on Grandmeisters, 1 on a TM18, and 3 on Switchblades. None of these have that problem. Low odds of getting 2 bunk tube compliments in a row.

If it's not bad cables, it could be bad power. I've played some places that make my amps hissy and buzzy due to poor power.

Come on Bishop, bad cables? Sorry but that is another piece of industry hype and just doesn't stack up in the real world. We're not talking about hum or buzz pickup which poorly screened cables can cause, or microphonics where flexing the cable causes slight crackling, we're talking about generated hiss here. This is internal to the amplifying stages not external in bits of copper wire nor is hiss caused by the power either, this is through some known noise generating mechanism due to valves, resistors or caps not a mythical one made up by some marketing guy to shift his unshiftably expensive products.

To each their own, but my experiences with this speaks differently. I was on a stint of gigs, and went to pick up some new cables. I'd never heard of any hype about better cables on the net, but decided to try some better ones. My rig stayed set up on the stage untouched for the whole stint, and I only changed my two guitar cables. I noticed a difference immediately. They were far quieter.

Granted, I was using cheap cables, of which I have no idea of the name. They were old. YMMV, but mine led me here.

I've been out of pocket for a few days. Thanks for all of the input...I doubt it is a tube as it was the same on both and I used quality cables. I reached out to H&K and they admit that the hiss is a signature of their gain structures. I just preordered a new GM40 that's supposed to be available tomorrow they said the the gain structures on this amp are different from the TM series and the GM36. So, hopefully we'll see a difference.

How loud is the hiss exactly? Really loud, or just enough to be annoying?

Through my 2x12 at home...not horrible. What I'd expect from a high gain amp. Going direct to PA very noisy. Unlike pickup fuzz or hum, it's always there even without guitar signal. The GM 36 wasn't bad on clean and crunch just the lead and ultra. I'm hoping the the GM40 will be better. As they described it...each channel picks up where the previous one left off as far as gain. So, in theory I can set the gain levels lower....I'm hoping haha. I'll keep y'all posted.

Hopefully it works out for you. I'm jealous, I won't be able to get a 40 for a few months yet. I like the differences I heard on a YouTube video, I think I'll like them in person even more.

I'm going to have to hook mine up to my interface tonight tonight and see if I get any hiss without the gate on.