Help! Quick Rod 2011 clean channel problems

[zanderman]

Hey everybody! Very excited new owner of a 100 watt QR from 2011 I believe. But I am having some troubling issues with my clean channel and was wondering if this problem is “normal” or there is something bigger wrong with my amp! Mine is the 4 preamp tube version, with the loop master and seperate gain+volume knobs on the clean side. I leave the loop bypassed as the few pedals I run are ok in front.

First, I KNOW the cleans on these amps aren’t what people particularly rave about, but what I’m experiencing doesn’t seem right at all. Here’s what’s going on:

I was finally able to get a little private space and crank this beast, and while the OD is fantastic the cleans are really struggling. They are sounding ratty and very poorly distorted at almost any setting. The Bass and Treble knobs seem to have NO EFFECT on the perceived tone of the channel. Like they don’t work. Messing with the gain knob, I can get a little eq back, but minimal, and it’s still harsh.
THEN while fiddling with the OD knobs (while still on clean) it seemed as if the gain and 3 band EQ were spilling over/ having an effect on the clean!!! Is that supposed to happen? I knew the old 3 preamp versions shared the gain knob, but was under the impression that changed with the update?

Before you jump about tubes, I have a brand new set of JJs all around installed. Could this still be a bad tube issue? Or are there some components that may be burning out/leaking into the clean channel that shouldn’t be??

Any help or direction would be hugely appreciated! The issue is kind of bumming me out about my new toy. I hope it’s nothin serious.

Thanks for reading.

[gtrjunior]

I have a 2016 QR with the same setup as you. My cleans are spectacular. Almost too powerful.
First things first.... disconnect everything and plug the guitar straight into the amp...
Did it help at all?

Second, yes...even though you have new tubes installed that is no guarantee that the tube is good.

The preamp tube all the way to the left (if looking at the amp from the back) is your clean channel.
The only knob that should be shared between the clean and OD is the presence control, otherwise they should be independent of one another.

If plugging straight in doesn’t help, replace the 1st preamp with a known good tube and see what happens.
Let us know how you make out.

[briman]

What he 👆 said! 👍

[zanderman]

Thank you guys so much! I’ll give all that a try this afternoon and report back as soon as I can. I knew something fishy might be up, because my cleans are FAR FROM anything I’d call powerful.

[cvogue]

Quick chime in... Street Rod owner (2016 model) here but basically the same amp circuit in a lower power combo. The cleans are very powerful, as gtrjunior said almost too powerful, they sound great.

Be aware that V1 *and* V2 impact the clean channel, if the OD channel sounds great then V1 is more suspect (V2 has the most impact on both channels).  The tube that most people think of as having "V1 impact" in an amp is actually in the V2 position on a Splawn.

This image breaks it down:



It sure sounds like a tube problem, hope you get it sorted out quickly! Good luck man.

[zanderman]

UPDATE:

After swapping some tubes around, the sound improved! Not a whole heck of a lot, but definitely made the clean channel less harsh and more pleasing. I had a hand full of 12ax7s lying about, and got good results changing V1 to a different JJ 12AX7. I had EVEN BETTER results when I swapped that out for a 12AT7 (JJ ECC81) So that guy is staying in!

cvogue Thanks for the tube layout man! Yea, I figured I would play around with slot 1 but should have known to try V2 as well!! Im going to give it a go right now and let you know what happens. Do you think the 12AT7 should live in V2 as opposed to V1? or Leave what I have (V1: 12AT7 V2: 12AX7 V3: 12AX7 V4: 12AX7)

No matter what though, the cleans STILL aren't "powerful" so to speak. The clarity has improved, but there isn't much volume or power as I turn the volume knob up.

Theres STILL EQ control bleeding into the clean channel, no matter what tubes I have in place. Have any of you noticed this?? Is that the natuer of this beast?
Presence: No effect on clean. Bass Middle Treble: effect on clean EQ. GAIN: effect on clean GAIN control. So weird....please let me know what you think

Thanks once again everybody

[gtrjunior]

No, ime that doesn’t sound normal. Although I only have experience with my 2016. There have been several changes implemented over the years but I’m not sure what years those changes occurred.

I think at this point I’d email Scott and explain what’s going on.
He is usually really quick to respond to emails.

[cvogue]

Yup, agree with gtrjunior, something really doesn't seem right. Almost like maybe something is shorting out inside which is causing the bleed over and possibly the loss of volume. Pure guesswork on my part though.

I'd email Scott, sometimes he's good at responding via email sometimes it takes a while or it falls through the cracks. I'd send an email and if you don't hear in a couple of days I'd give him a call. It may sound better tonally with different tubes but you should have *ripping* volume on that Quickrod, clean or dirty.

[zanderman]

Thank you SO MUCH everybody, Im going to shoot Scott an email. After noodling around once again, swapping tubes, making sure my speaker cables were not shorting, I'm convinced something is off, as there is no ripping volume, thats for sure. On the clean channel at least. Once I get a reply and assessment, I'll let you all know. hope its an easy fix

[zanderman]

Alright, here's another little update for y'all,

Thinking that maybe there was a problem with my actual speakers (moments after starting this thread) I impulsively bought a Celestion 65 watt Creamback, to replace what I had.
At the time, my Quick Rod was being played through my 2x12 cab, loaded with one 20 watt Celestion Heritage Greenback g12m, and the other an 80 watt JBL D120 clone. (Going for that old VH1 sizzle in a smaller package) LITTLE DID I REMEMBER, that you don't ADD the speakers together to get your wattage, you DOUBLE the rating of the lowest watt in your 2x12. I had a much lower watt amp before my Splawn, so I never thought twice. Running the QR at 100 watts?!?! no wonder the cleans were not being handled or represented well. Not to mention the lack of headroom and power I was obviously experiencing. My cleans sound worlds better now. with volume on tap to boot! And the overdrive?? I didn't think it could get any better, but it does. So chunky and mean. I just love this amp to bits! I feel a little stupid now

BUT!!! Aside from a lot of things being remedied with the speaker swap, it still doesn't explain the weird EQ and gain knob interaction with the overdrive channel effecting the clean. The Clean bass and treble are still not really doing anything to the tone. The gain on the clean seems to bring in or take out treble and bass as it turns. So strange.

Scott hasn't returned my email yet, so I think I will give him a call tomorrow afternoon to pick his brain about my issues. Thank you all for the support and time. You helped me talk this through haha

[gtrjunior]

Iirc, at one point in the past, the QR had some sore of interaction between the channels.
I believe fairly recently Scott had redesigned the circuit so hat they operated independently of one another...but I don’t know what model year that would have occurred.
I know for me, in my amp (2016) the only tone control that is shared is the presence knob. Everything else is independent.

[cvogue]

Jun 15, 2018 4:30:13 GMT -5 gtrjunior said:

Iirc, at one point in the past, the QR had some sore of interaction between the channels.
I believe fairly recently Scott had redesigned the circuit so hat they operated independently of one another...but I don’t know what model year that would have occurred.
I know for me, in my amp (2016) the only tone control that is shared is the presence knob. Everything else is independent.

I've read that too, that on older models the different channels EQ affected each other.  Apparently some Mesas do the same thing.  It's probably by design, give the user more tonal options but to me it just sounds like a big PITA!  You'd get your clean tone dialed in exactly the way you want it and then you adjust your overdrive tone and the clean tone has changed.  Some may like that, I wouldn't.

Yeah zanderman, give Scott a call if nothing else to see if your 2011 does indeed have that channel bleed characteristic. 

Glad to hear the speaker swap helped!  Yeah gotta be careful with lower wattage speakers with a 100 watt head.

[cvogue]

Also, just FYI here's how to find out from your serial number what year you actually have, might help when talking to Scott:

First and second digits are the model.
3rd is the wattage.
4th and 5th digits are the year made and the remaining are the number of amps produced at that time.

For instance if your serial number is QR109996 this would be a Quick Rod 100 watt built in 2009 and was the 996th amp built.

[gtrjunior]

A while back I had emailed Scott asking about whether the V2 tube would affect the clean channel tone. His response was something like (I’m paraphrasing here)...” your amp is a 2016 and the 2 channels are independent from one another”.
That doesn’t necessarily answer the tone control question, but at least we know that later model amps have a separate circuit pathway for clean and OD.

[cvogue]

Jun 15, 2018 11:52:10 GMT -5 gtrjunior said:

A while back I had emailed Scott asking about whether the V2 tube would affect the clean channel tone. His response was something like (I’m paraphrasing here)...” your amp is a 2016 and the 2 channels are independent from one another”.
That doesn’t necessarily answer the tone control question, but at least we know that later model amps have a separate circuit pathway for clean and OD.

Wow... I wonder if that makes that image indicating which tubes affect what is now no longer valid...

The "new" Quickrod manual has that same info:

www.splawnguitars.com/QR_PM_Manual_New.pdf

But I'm not sure how "new" it is!

Edit:  It's at least as new as 2013... there's a reference to QR's made since 2013.