How To Easily Locate A Rattling Tube - Ask Zac 134

well hello friends today we're going to
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get super practical and uh all of you
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have probably run into two brattle at
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some point if you are a tube amp owner
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so i'm going to send you kind of a a fun
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hack for helping you find the tube
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rattle and
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and then eliminate it
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so
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the only tools i used
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were this looper which you can use any
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looper and this pencil you can use
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mechanical or wooden but it just needs
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to have a
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a good eraser on there and so i'm going
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to show you how to
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you know i use this looper to play an
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offending note that makes the rattle
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happen and then i can get behind the amp
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and i can press against each tube
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with the the little eraser there and
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then i find it and then replace that
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tube
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enjoy
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well hello my friends
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today we are dealing with
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a microphonic tube rattle so this is
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this started probably about a month ago
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on my old this is my 1965 deluxe reverb
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still pretty clean i've had it for about
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a decade
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i uh have a good cover for it and that's
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uh
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really what helps it stay stay nice
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looking so
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anyway regardless of how nice looking uh
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the uh you know tubes wear out
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so
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i was trying to figure out how can i get
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rid of that because normally when i do
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this i try to have a friend with me who
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can play
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something and
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and get it to rattle and then try to
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figure out how to make it stop
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well guess what i'm here by myself you
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know at home
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and uh don't have any uh i'm not gonna
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have my son or someone do that so then i
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remember what about a looper pedal so
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i played i kept playing different things
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until i found the exact note that would
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really make it take off
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and then i looped it so here we're going
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to turn up the old
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clone looper pedal which i like to use
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for practicing and such but
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[Music]
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[Music]
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okay
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so
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you're hearing it uh rattle and uh
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that's that's enough so we're gonna stop
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the video and i'm going to figure it out
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i'm going to use a uh
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usually i like to use a pencil with a
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good eraser on it unfortunately all i
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had was this mechanical pencil
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uh but it does have a enough of an
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eraser on it so i'm going to uh
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you know tap on the tubes and press on
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the tubes and see which one when i tap
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on it it gets worse and that's probably
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the one that needs to be replaced so
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i'll be back in a minute
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okay guys so i know you didn't get to
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see it but basically what i did
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was
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while the sound was coming out of the
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amp
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i uh
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you know pulled off the covers carefully
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up
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and
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would press on the tube
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with
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the end of this pencil again you know we
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don't want to get shocked
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and if
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you feel in any way uncomfortable with
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this don't do it and take it to attack
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but uh you know i was just trying to
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find where the rattle was coming from
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and so especially you want to be careful
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uh getting near the rectifier of the
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power tube because you will you can get
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uh
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really uh
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those are really hot and you can get
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really shocked from them but uh
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yeah so it ended up being yeah that
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rectifier tube all the way at the end
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so this is not a uh
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a uh
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you know an old one in fact i have some
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old tubes in it uh in the preamp section
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but these are
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the electro harmonics tongue saw you
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know reissue
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tubes that are in there that i really
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like that unfortunately hard to get
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right now
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because of the whole uh war and
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everything that's going on over there
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but uh anyway so i'm gonna have to see
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what kind of rectifiers i've got lying
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around and i've got to
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let that tube cool off before
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i change it out all right
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we'll be back again
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and we're back
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and this is our culprit
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so this is uh this is the rectifier tube
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that's been in the amp for
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10 years uh at least
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i got i got this amp back in 2010
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and i took it to uh
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todd sharp
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and he re-tubed it now i have put some
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some new power tubes in there and i've
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put some other preamp tubes in there
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that have gone microphonic but but the
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rectifier tube has been good but you can
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see that it's got some
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it's a little uh a little discolored
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here we're probably from heat
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and then when you
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when you you know flick on it it's not
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terrible
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but you can hear
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some noise um
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so then
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i look through my stash and
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unfortunately i do not have any
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nos of any nice american japanese or
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european made
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gz 34 5 ar
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and so this looks to be the same tube it
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doesn't say
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a ruby on it
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but
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it has pretty much the exact same
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you know looks to be the same
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base and markings they look to be both
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you know made in china
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tubes when i was just under the
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ruby name
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so it doesn't have that high pitched
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thing going on so this is what i'm going
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to try now i've had some guys say really
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bad things about chinese uh rectifier
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tubes and they can
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blow up and such so i hope that's not
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the case and if anyone you know out of
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the goodness of their heart wants to
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send me a nice
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uh
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gz 34 5ar4 you know just
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contact me and i'll give you my mailing
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address but this is what we're going to
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put in there and let's let's see what
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happens
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all right now we've switched out the
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rectifier tube
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and now we're going to we've got it
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plugged back in and we're going to turn
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the old
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clone looper up with the horrible note
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[Music]
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you know there's a little bit still on
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there but it's certainly a lot better
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than it was so i'm gonna have to live
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with that for now and probably have to
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look for another uh rectifier tube so
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all right
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hope you learned something
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hope i did too
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well i hope you enjoyed the little
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little hack uh
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if you did please hit subscribe also if
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7:44
ant blueprint shirt at askzak.com
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also there's good old tip jar
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information and i appreciate you
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watching and i hope you have a great
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week
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bye