Artisan 10AE - Extremely Harsh/Shrill Tone
Posted: Sun Mar 20, 2022 8:30 am
Hello all,
I have bought two Artisan 10AE low gain amps. I play classic/hard rock (70's, early 80's) mostly, and wanted a vintage sounding, low gain amp which I could use with an overdrive perdal.
The clean sound is fine, I like that a lot actually.
But when I try to get a crunchy, over-driven tone, the shrillness is incredible, unbearable. The sound is sooooooo harsh.... to a point where it is actually painful to stand in front of the amp, even 5-6 feet away from it. The treble is very, very harsh and extremely ice-picky to a point where the amp is almost unusable. I set the tone control on the amp all the way down to zero (0), turn the treble on my guitar to 3/10 and also turn down the treble on my overdrive pedal (timmy clone) to 2/10 .... to no avail. No matter how much I try to cut the high frequencies, I just can't tame the shrillness and the harsh tone when trying to get an overdriven tone. My band mates have commented on this and I don't know what to do to fix this.
This happens on both amps, so it is not a case of the amp being damaged (with the assumption that not both of them are).
I've had the amps for 6+ months now and I think I must have played 60+ hours on them (so I'm assuming that the speakers have been broken in by now).
The signal chain is guitar (telecaster with noise-cancelling pickups (Di Marzio Area T's) -> Timmy overdrive (clone) -> Amp. Nothing in FX loop.
Settings on the amp would be:
Volume: 6/10
Boost: on
Tone: 0/10
Reverb: 0/10
Master Volume: 7/10
The overdrive settings would be:
Volume: 4/10 (so not pushing the front of the amp too much)
Gain: 5/10
Treble: 2/10
Bass: 6/10
I do notice that if I keep the volume low on the amp (say volume 4/10 and master 4/10) the shrillness is reduced to some degree and the amp does become usable (albeit at too low a volume to play rehearsals).
I've also tried the combinations of (1) pushing the front of the amp with the overdrive pedal at high output volume (and low gain) and inversely (2) not pushing the front of the amp that much (i.e. low output volume on the pedal and higher gain setting on it), but neither combination worked. I've also tried other over-drive/boost pedals... to no avail. The shrillness is particularly evident with the amp's boost circuit engaged.
I've ordered some JJ preamp (ECC83S) and poweramp (E34L) tubes in the hope that these will darken and warm up the tone a bit; I read that these JJ tubes help warm-up and darken the tone. Hopefully that helps (still waiting for the tubes to arrive).
I'm also thinking of replacing the stock Celestion seventy 80 speaker with say Eminence Texas Heat speaker (which are presumed to be darker); maybe that helps as well.
I'm really getting desperate now, the amps are almost unusable, can't work with them really. But am really trying to avoid ditching the amps and getting something else. I was told that Blackstar makes great amps and that's why I went for these (bought them off Reverb), but so far this hasn't worked for me.
Any clues, hints, ideas (even up to modding the amps if need be) as to how I can sort this issue out please?
Thanks.
- Adrian.
I have bought two Artisan 10AE low gain amps. I play classic/hard rock (70's, early 80's) mostly, and wanted a vintage sounding, low gain amp which I could use with an overdrive perdal.
The clean sound is fine, I like that a lot actually.
But when I try to get a crunchy, over-driven tone, the shrillness is incredible, unbearable. The sound is sooooooo harsh.... to a point where it is actually painful to stand in front of the amp, even 5-6 feet away from it. The treble is very, very harsh and extremely ice-picky to a point where the amp is almost unusable. I set the tone control on the amp all the way down to zero (0), turn the treble on my guitar to 3/10 and also turn down the treble on my overdrive pedal (timmy clone) to 2/10 .... to no avail. No matter how much I try to cut the high frequencies, I just can't tame the shrillness and the harsh tone when trying to get an overdriven tone. My band mates have commented on this and I don't know what to do to fix this.
This happens on both amps, so it is not a case of the amp being damaged (with the assumption that not both of them are).
I've had the amps for 6+ months now and I think I must have played 60+ hours on them (so I'm assuming that the speakers have been broken in by now).
The signal chain is guitar (telecaster with noise-cancelling pickups (Di Marzio Area T's) -> Timmy overdrive (clone) -> Amp. Nothing in FX loop.
Settings on the amp would be:
Volume: 6/10
Boost: on
Tone: 0/10
Reverb: 0/10
Master Volume: 7/10
The overdrive settings would be:
Volume: 4/10 (so not pushing the front of the amp too much)
Gain: 5/10
Treble: 2/10
Bass: 6/10
I do notice that if I keep the volume low on the amp (say volume 4/10 and master 4/10) the shrillness is reduced to some degree and the amp does become usable (albeit at too low a volume to play rehearsals).
I've also tried the combinations of (1) pushing the front of the amp with the overdrive pedal at high output volume (and low gain) and inversely (2) not pushing the front of the amp that much (i.e. low output volume on the pedal and higher gain setting on it), but neither combination worked. I've also tried other over-drive/boost pedals... to no avail. The shrillness is particularly evident with the amp's boost circuit engaged.
I've ordered some JJ preamp (ECC83S) and poweramp (E34L) tubes in the hope that these will darken and warm up the tone a bit; I read that these JJ tubes help warm-up and darken the tone. Hopefully that helps (still waiting for the tubes to arrive).
I'm also thinking of replacing the stock Celestion seventy 80 speaker with say Eminence Texas Heat speaker (which are presumed to be darker); maybe that helps as well.
I'm really getting desperate now, the amps are almost unusable, can't work with them really. But am really trying to avoid ditching the amps and getting something else. I was told that Blackstar makes great amps and that's why I went for these (bought them off Reverb), but so far this hasn't worked for me.
Any clues, hints, ideas (even up to modding the amps if need be) as to how I can sort this issue out please?
Thanks.
- Adrian.