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Having mentioned our Vox AD50VT amps on another thread, I flash-backed to an incident a year and a half ago that had me baffled for a few days. It illustrates that many times the obvious is not always obvious.

I was playing every Friday and Saturday during a 2 month period in a bar band (classic rock). I was using an Epiphone Alleykat thru the Vox. For a couple nights running I was noticing that my guitar sounded "fluttery", like there was a slight tremelo going on, especially on high notes, although I had no tremolo on. I disconnected my pedals so I could rule those out, and made sure I had no effects actuated on the amp, but the fluttering remained. So later I mentioned this to people, and the consesus was that maybe the one 12AX7 in the amp was going. So at home, I switched out the tube and it seemed to sound better.

So I'm back at the gig the next night thinking problem solved, but as soon as I played a note, there was the flutter. So now I'm thinking "oh great, the digital amp is living up to it's reputation for crapping out!". Nothing I can do so I bear with it. Then, I don't remember if it was later that night, or the next night, but I'm playing and I bend down to put my ear into the speaker, and then the fluttering was gone! I go "huh?" and then look up - and there was the answer right above me. I had been setting up right under an overhead fan, and that was causing the sound from my amp to swirl around with it, causing the fluttering I was hearing. So stood up and bent down several times to verify my conclusion. I was happy to have found the answer to the puzzle, even though I felt like a complete dunce for not realizing this sooner!

Byron

Man, that is indeed one of those typical EUREKA! moments when you finally get to put your finger on something you couldn't figure out before!

This is quite interesting Byron; even before finishing reading your story, I immediately said to myself "must be a fan". I often have a fan going when I play in the living room on hot sultry days and have noticed this 'shimmering' phenomenon too. (I even like it sometimes!) Reminds me too of the Leslie rotating speaker.

You know, I suspect that this is the reason for this same sound I'm hearing when I listen to Gerry McGee's solo riffs on his hardtail Sunburst Strat during a concert in Japan* with a couple of fans running on the stage (...well, the 'fans' of the standing-still-kind only ... ) I heard that it can be awfully hot during Summer in Japan -poor guys.

* The Ventures live in Japan 1993 (I have the original DVD as well as the CD) -one of their best performances and best recorded too IMO).

I was having trouble with my 3 channel Vox amp, lots and lots of noise. I checked every thing out, pedals cords input jacks but the noise was still there! plus there was a slight oscillating type thing going on. I was about to take it to the shop when I realized that the Normal channel was all the way turned up and the trem on slightly, also the tone "X" channel was turned up. ........Doh!!. It took a week but I figured it out. I'm glad I found the "problem" before I took it to the shop.. that would have been embarrassing......