Fast Ticking sound coming from my Marshall JCM 2000 Head

[Eerie_Geary]

There is a fast ticking noise coming from my Marshall JCM 2000 Head. I tried several different cords so I do not think that is the problem. Any suggestions on what could be causing it and how to fix it?

[Jazz P Bass]

What is the exact model #?
Start with this.
Do any controls affect the tick?
Must the guitar be plugged in?
Does the guitars controls affect it at all?
Remove all pedals from the signal chain. Guitar only.

[Enzo]

And don't set your cell phone on top of the amp.

[Leo_Gnardo]

Uh-oh. Boris Badenov left you a "present." Call the bomb squad. JUST KIDDING!

(edit) Yes indeed follow Enzo's advice FIRST. Also keep your cell or iPAD or whatever away from your guitar & cable too. Those sort of gadgets send out radio waves the will put ticks plus other odd noises into your audio. (end edit)

Could be a preamp tube going bad. Or maybe bad from the get-go. JJ 12AX7 are particularly prone to making ticking and Geiger counter noises, the bad ones. Good JJ's sound terrific (at least to me.) Let's hope that's all it is. Noise making is by far not limited to the JJ brand.

2000 series Marshalls made before 2006 can be problematic due to circuit board conduction in the output tube area. Look at your serial number. If the first digits are 2006 or more recent, you should be in the clear. If not, ticking noise COULD be caused by this problem which has been well covered on MEF and other sites. Hope that's NOT it. A bit of a PIA to fix but I've done about a dozen of them by now.

Try swapping out preamp tubes, one at a time. That's the first thing I'd do, and the easiest. It only requires one good 12AX7, and maybe 15-20 minutes at most. With luck, you'll get 'er fixed thataway.

[Eerie_Geary]

What is the exact model #?
Start with this.
Do any controls affect the tick?
Must the guitar be plugged in?
Does the guitars controls affect it at all?
Remove all pedals from the signal chain. Guitar only.

The model is a dsl 100. There were no pedals just the guitar was plugged in. As far as I could tell the guitar controls did not affect the ticking noise although it did create other kinds of noises which I am already aware of.

[Eerie_Geary]

Uh-oh. Boris Badenov left you a "present." Call the bomb squad. JUST KIDDING!

(edit) Yes indeed follow Enzo's advice FIRST. Also keep your cell or iPAD or whatever away from your guitar & cable too. Those sort of gadgets send out radio waves the will put ticks plus other odd noises into your audio. (end edit)

Could be a preamp tube going bad. Or maybe bad from the get-go. JJ 12AX7 are particularly prone to making ticking and Geiger counter noises, the bad ones. Good JJ's sound terrific (at least to me.) Let's hope that's all it is. Noise making is by far not limited to the JJ brand.

2000 series Marshalls made before 2006 can be problematic due to circuit board conduction in the output tube area. Look at your serial number. If the first digits are 2006 or more recent, you should be in the clear. If not, ticking noise COULD be caused by this problem which has been well covered on MEF and other sites. Hope that's NOT it. A bit of a PIA to fix but I've done about a dozen of them by now.

Try swapping out preamp tubes, one at a time. That's the first thing I'd do, and the easiest. It only requires one good 12AX7, and maybe 15-20 minutes at most. With luck, you'll get 'er fixed thataway.

It is probably the pre amps going bad. I have had them in for a while now. Time to get new ones. I had a handful of problems when I bought this amp about two or three years ago but with a lot of repairs and mods it sounds great now. Thanks for the advice!

[Leo_Gnardo]

It is probably the pre amps going bad. I have had them in for a while now. Time to get new ones. I had a handful of problems when I bought this amp about two or three years ago but with a lot of repairs and mods it sounds great now. Thanks for the advice!

Probably just one pre tube. Swap out just one at a time, & listen with each change. Why? Just because a tube is new, guaranteed, has people writing good things about it, etc. it's still possible to get a troublemaker or 2 in a batch. Swap all of 'em out and you might be installing more trouble.* By swapping out just one at a time you'll find the baddie, though it may seem tedious. A few minutes of tedium may save you hours of aggro later on.

*This link should take you to daz and his sad & aggravating story about new Russian TungSol 12AX7's. It's the tubes that are aggravating, not daz, just to be clear.

http://music-electronics-forum.com/t33577/

[J M Fahey]

(edit) Yes indeed follow Enzo's advice FIRST. Also keep your cell or iPAD or whatever away from your guitar & cable too. Those sort of gadgets send out radio waves the will put ticks plus other odd noises into your audio. (end edit)

Or move away from that location and try again.

FWIW I was plagued by a mysterious tick tick tick sound *everywhere* (amps/regular phones/tv/etc.)
It turned up to be a fishing ship's Radar !!!

Oh!!, I forgot!!
I live just 80 yards away from *here*:

[Leo_Gnardo]

Or move away from that location and try again.

FWIW I was plagued by a mysterious tick tick tick sound *everywhere* (amps/regular phones/tv/etc.)
It turned up to be a fishing ship's Radar !!!

You're safe as long as there's no fish in your workshop.

Working on a project in Ft. Lauderdale, New River Studio in 1985, they picked up a tick on their EMT plate reverb every time an EC2 surveillance plane flew up the coast. Just wait 10 minutes and it faded. Had 'em going before they figured out what it was.