Plexi 50 Jump Noise Level - Is This Normal

Warrior

Power User
I was just curious if others experience this little bit of noise?

It's the amp/gain noise you hear between and behind the notes with the guitar volume rolled way down (to clean up). No drive pedal on and volume on guitar is low - 3.

I'm using my SSS strat in position 2. The noise doesn't change with pickup position.

Preset attached.

 

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I get something similar out of the 800 model and a few others.
It's been that way for me since the II.
 
I have noticed this too, although not as pronounced, specially with low gain pickups on marshall type amps. And as Funeral said my AX8 did the same thing, so I assume is normal.
 
When you roll the volume all the way down to 3 on the guitar, in some cases you’ll be very close to cutoff on the volume pot. That can ruin your guitar’s signal-to-noise ratio. When your guitar’s volume is close to its noise floor, you’re amplifying a lot of note set along with the desired signal.

Consider tweaking your preset so you can get it clean with less radical adjustment of the volume knob. You’ll find that the volume is also easier to control.
 
When you roll the volume all the way down to 3 on the guitar, in some cases you’ll be very close to cutoff on the volume pot. That can ruin your guitar’s signal-to-noise ratio. When your guitar’s volume is close to its noise floor, you’re amplifying a lot of note set along with the desired signal.

Consider tweaking your preset so you can get it clean with less radical adjustment of the volume knob. You’ll find that the volume is also easier to control.

Rex,
I had thought the preset was tweaked to allow for this. That's what seemed a little odd to me in that I was still getting that amount of noise.
Not sure if you have time but if possible, would you be able to import the preset and take a look to see if anything stands out?
 
When you roll your guitar volume down you increase it's output impedance dramatically. It can be upwards of 100K ohms. The self-noise of a 100K ohm resistor is quite high. Now amplify that (a lot) and you'll hear the noise.

If you continue to roll the volume down you'll notice the noise goes away because the output impedance decreases.
 
If you want to ride the amp's input volume while working around the pot's self noise issues, you've got some options.

Fairly simple - stick a volume block at the start of your preset's chain and control it with an expression pedal. The volume control is entirely in the digital world here, so no extra noise.

Not as simple - active electronics with low output impedance. EMGs for example use 25k output pots, which will result in lower noise than the 250k-500k pots a passive setup has. Still higher noise than using a volume block.

Also not as simple - use pots with conductive plastic elements or wirewound pots. These are lower noise, but generally cost a fortune if you can even find one that'll fit in your guitar.

Easiest of all - Just live with the hiss when you're rolling back the volume this much. That's what I do. :)
 
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