Drive pedals all of a sudden fizzy

[sticky1138]

I fired up my Blues Jr. today after not playing it for a couple weeks only to find all of my drive pedals sound like garbage through it. Thin with fizzy decay - but I don't remember them ever sounding like that. The Blues Jr. has always been a reliable pedal platform amp for me.

I tried everything, an OCD, BMP, DOD 250, singlecoils and humbuckers, EQing the amp, all with no success. My first instinct is that I need new tubes, but they are less than a year old and the cleans sound fine. Has anyone experienced this? Have I become an amp-breakup-only snob overnight? Am I losing my mind?

 

[BuddytheReow]

Try putting it in the effects loop if you have one. You'd be surprised in the difference in tone with some pedals.

 

[Coda]

How is the clean tone?

 

[sticky1138]

Clean tone sounds fine. No effects loop on this amp. It's just surprising that I'm noticing all of a sudden.

 

[Coda]

Has anything else changes? Settings?

 

[HamishR]

Is there a new pedal at the front which has a permanently on buffer? I built a Klon which made other ODs sound too bright.

 

[sticky1138]

After some troubleshooting I still think it's a tube issue. I'm going to spray the sockets with some contact cleaner and see if that helps.

 

[fig]

If it sounds fine without pedals, maybe it's a cable or the pedal psu?

 

[HamishR]

FWIW these days a tube being less than 12 moths old is no guarantee it should still work!

If something sounds wrong with a tube amp 95% of the time it's tubes. If something sounds wrong with effects 95% of the time it's patch cables and power supplies.