distortion with Mullen G2

[Mark Hargrove]

Hello everyone, I am having trouble getting a clean tone through my system. I am a new to this so I could be doing any number of things wrong, and am looking for some advice. I am running a Mullen G2 SD10 through a Sarno black box, into a goodrich CD42 volume pedal, and into a fender twin tonemaster. I am getting some distortion, especially when hitting more than one string at a time, and it seems worse up the neck. The volume does not have to be up much to hear it.
Here are the things I have tried so far:
1. Running the steel directly into the amp does not help.
2. Using the volume pedal at lower volume does not help.
3. A different amp (Egnater Tweaker) has the same problem.

From reading some posts it seemed like lowering the pickup might help, but from what I can tell the pickup is as low as it will go (its about 3.5 mM right now). Turning the screws counter clockwise removes them, turning them clockwise raises the pickup.

Any suggestions?
Thanks for the consideration!

[Larry Dering]

I hope you tried different cables too. It sounds like a pickup problem. Has it always done this? Pretty hard to distort a Fender Twin. What are your volume and tone knobs set on?

[Mark Hargrove]

I have messed with the volume and tone all over the place on the Fender (as well as the Egnator and a GK bass amp) and have the same problem. I have tried other cables with the same result. I am plugging the steel straight into the amp to try to get the problem solved. Is that the right approach?

[Dave Grafe]

If you tap the pickup with your finger does the thump distort? At this point the pickup appears to be the likely culprit.

[Quentin Hickey]

Try another amp. Also with the twin try a diferent guitar just to verify it's not the amp. Also try turning your preamp gain down and master up.

[Graham Bland]

Quentin is right
Never set the preamp volume above the master volume on any amp especially a Fender amp.
Have you always had this problem?

Dave, he is looking for just a clean no distorted sound
Never is never in that respect
When you increase the preamp volume above the master on any preamp
You are asking for distortion period.

[Dave Grafe]

Quentin is right
Never set the preamp volume above the master volume on any amp especially a Fender amp.

"Never" is a pretty bold blanket statement, especially considering the vast range of circuit designs available. For example Jim Webb among others expressly intended the preamp sensitivity on his amps to be run wide open and the master rarely set above 3.

[Dave Grafe]

I have messed with the volume and tone all over the place on the Fender (as well as the Egnator and a GK bass amp) and have the same problem. I have tried other cables with the same result. I am plugging the steel straight into the amp to try to get the problem solved. Is that the right approach?

If you are overdriving the amp with a volume pedal in the chain removing it will only make the problem worse. As stated before, check your pickup for microphonics or loose windings and use another instrument to check your VP and amp.

[Quentin Hickey]

Quentin is right
Never set the preamp volume above the master volume on any amp especially a Fender amp.

"Never" is a pretty bold blanket statement, especially considering the vast range of circuit designs available. For example Jim Webb among others expressly intended the preamp sensitivity on his amps to be run wide open and the master rarely set above 3.

Ok, my never "statement" may have been received wrong.

Fender twins (which we are specifically talking about) will go into breakup fairly early. I've played many. If I were looking for a really clean tone I personally would never increase the pregain higher than the postgain (on a twin). I've had to pay more attention to detail going through a twin than a solid state amp or other amps as I find they are pretty sensitive especially to the load fro a steel guitar pickup.


I'll reiterate:

Start with the preamp down all the way and master up at least half of thr way with volume pedal wide open. Slowly increase the pre gain until you are happy with the output. If the amp goes into breakup before you are happy with the output volume than I would start looking elsewhere. I just wanted to outline these steps incase you haven't done them, not knowing anything about your experience etc.
As I said early one way to trial and error cancel out each component is find another steel player with an amp and guitar and swap out each possible combination. I would also double check your pickup height as it may have been adjusted too close to the strings. Hope you get it figured out! Give some more details if you can.

[Dale Rivard]

Hi Mark, Sounds like you've eliminated the amp as you've tried 2 different 1's. Also, having the volume pedal & black box out of the equation leaves the pick up or cables. I've seen bad cables cause clipping(distortion) but it usually results in an overall lower volume as well. For the record, a Fender Twin Tone Master doesn't have separate pre & master gains. It has 1 volume control like the old blackface amps. Sorry, just read that you tried different cables. My money is on the pickup.

[Tommy Shown]

Take a Q -tip and some rubbing alcohol,and clean out your plugs on amp, volume pedal, steel. Then take a can of De-Oxit and spray the changer and around the pick up and the contacts of the neck switch.
.

[Donny Hinson]

Did this problem just start, or have you always had it?

It's important to remember that pedal steel pickups put out a LOT more signal than a regular guitar, sometimes as much as several volts. Therefore, plugging the steel directly into many amps will overload the first stage preamp, as the amp volume control is normally after the first preamp!

Since you're new at this, do you get the distortion when you're not using the bar? (It might be string rattle.)

Is the guitar strung properly; meaning, are the strings going over the tops of the fingers, or in between them? (Sometimes, string rattle can sound like distortion.)

Lastly, do you get distortion if you pick very lightly?

[Tommy Shown]

Check speaker connection on the back of the amp you may have some dust accumulate on the spade terminal just wipe off.