Amp ticking

[Diablo]

My amp started to tick faintly a while ago, but I was ignoring it by turning the volume up.The amp is a 5F6A that I built. I wasn't getting the ticking every time I used the amp, just every now and then. To confuse me even more, I always have a Tore-Vibe plugged into the amp, so maybe it was the Tore-Vibe ticking. Tonight, after playing my bassman for about an hour in ticking mode, I decide to switch to my Deluxe Reverb. Right away I notice it's ticking too! WTF? I turn the guitar volume down and the ticking goes away, turn it up and the ticking comes back. Now I'm convinced it's my Strat that's ticking. Then it dawns on me, it's ticking just like a metronone or clock.........or in reality my freaking watch. I'm wearing a watch on my left wrist and the single coil PUs are amplifying the ticking. As I bring the watch closer to the PUs, the ticking gets VERY loud....

Usually I don't wear a watch while playing, and I've never heard the ticking with my humbucker guitars. And here I was thinking my newly built amp had Tweed disease.

[Jazz P Bass]

Tick Tock

Kinda like that clock in the crocodiles belly.
Glad to hear you figured it out.

[Chuck H]

Magnetic pickups can be all kinds of fun. Almost anything that has vibrating metal parts will create some kind of tone, effect, noise, etc. At shows I use to use a toy "ray gun" that had some kind of metal gyro grindy thing inside as a noise maker. And cell phones that use a ferrous speaker cone will play tones right through your amp via the guitar pickups. Ever heard the "Nokia tune" at full tilt Marshall madness?!? I have

Chuck

[marku52]

Farfisa!

Back in the day, i played in a band with a guy that had a Farfisa organ. It produced it's tones from an entire fleet of L-C oscillators, one for each note, I believe.

If I stood next to him and opened up the volume on my strat, you'd get all 88 (or however many) notes all at once. It sounded like a Calliope thrown down a stair well...

[Enzo]

My first reaction was turn off your cell phone and keep it away from the guitar.

Your guitar is probably not ticking, it is probably picking up the ticking from its immediate environment.

[pbabadoo]

Used to get a tick from my neighbor's electric horse fence. Finally tracked down a place where the hot fence wire was arcing to a dead wire. Once the two were separated, the noise went away. It was about a hundred yards from the house and I think it travelled thru the rebar in the concrete basement floor. crazy.

[Dagan8]

Hey. I just found this thread because I am researching a similar problem. My amp is "ticking" as well. Not always there. Goes away with the volume down. This all makes sense now. I am not wearing a watch but I do have a cell phone in my pocket. I'm going to go investigate now. Thanks.


EDIT:
Yup. It was the phone!