Aguilar Tone Hammer 500 Clipping Problem?

TopMarc

TopMarc

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Jan 21, 2013
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www.marcuscainmusic.com
#1
Well, I'm not entirely sire if this is a problem or not. That's why I'm here! So on Sunday's gig I had my old P-Bass going straight into my TH500 (with 2 112s). No pedals, just straight in. This was a blues rock gig and I had the gain knob somewhere between 9-10 o'clock, the drive at 0, master at around 2 o'clock and EQ completely flat. Perfect sound, good volume, all is well! However I turned round a couple of songs in and noticed the clip light coming on quite regularly even at this relatively low gain setting. Is this normal? Does anyone else notice the amp clipping even with plenty of gain and volume left to go before it's flat out? I've had the Tone Hammer for about 6 months and haven't noticed it before but I don't often turn round to look at my amp while playing so....

Interested to hear other people's thoughts/experiences with this.

Cheers!
 
#2
Hey there...not really and expert or anything close to that...but I own the Tone Hammer 350 and have owned the TH500 in the past.
I am pretty darn confident in relaying that the clip light is a non-issue and I seem to recall someone saying that you could play all night with the clip light on solid and it would keep on keepin' on!!! I will allow someone more knowledgeable than I chime in but to put your mind at ease I thought I would offer my insight!!!
 
#3
It's perfectly fine to have the clip light on, says so in the Aguilar manual...Here's some of what it says:

When the Clip light turns red it indicates that the preamp is being driven into clipping. Clipping can be a desirable characteristic, depending on your taste. If you would like a cleaner sound you can experiment with the input pad, Gain, Drive, and Tone Controls. All of these things, including the output level of your bass, affect how often the light will go off. Clipping the Tone Hammer 500 will not cause any shutdowns or damage to your amplifier.
 
#7
Hey TopMarc. A year ago I get a used TH350 and starting to analize the settings I found that the Gain isn't necessary on these heads. This control acts with the Drive control, giving character to the sound (tones of discussion and info on TB, just do a research), but you can play with the Gain and Drive completely off and you'll get the cleanest sound out of the head. Actually my settings are Gain and Drive at 9'oclok, Master at 10:30, eq depending on the room. Clips sometimes but nothing wrong. Also, as lot of people said, nothing happens when a Tone Hammer clips, just informs you're entering at the red zone.
P.D: I'll try your settings next week ;)
 
#8
TopMarc said:
Thanks for the input. Good to know it's not going to cause any damage. I just thought with 500 watts I'd be able to crank it up a bit more before it started clipping....
Click to expand...

IMO they should have called it something else because it's not clipping, not in the usual or accepted sense of the word or the way almost all other amp companies refer to their amps when clipping.

In the TH amps it seems to be purely an information message not a dire warning of impending doom.
 
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#9
I know this is an old thread but thought I would mention that my TH500 clips more with the gain at 0 and the drive at 0, not sure why that is - seems counterintuitive to me.
 
#10
You mean you turn the gain up and the clipping is reduced or disappears? I agree something's not right.

I would want to verify that with a sine wave test tone input to eliminate upstream variables. A "sane" frequency, somewhere between 100 and 300 Hz. Pretty easy test to do. Even Audacity (poor man's DAW) will generate test tones. Make the TH500 input signal strength the same as your BG under normal use, or as close as possible.
 
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