# I Dropped a Guitar Pick in My Amp



## NewGuitarGuru (Oct 14, 2006)

As the title says, quite awhile ago I dropped a guitar pick into my amplifier. It's a VOX AD15VT, with the casing elevated slightly above where the controls are, so things can fall in there fairly easily. Now, a guitar teacher friend of mine warned me not to be so quick to crack the thing open, for fear that I might get a surge of unwanted electricity.

So yeah, I forgot to mention my reasons for wanting the pick out. It's not diamond incrested or anything... yet, but I think that it is bouncing around when I ring out certain frequencies on my Strat. The guitar plays wickedly without the annoying buzzing on other amps, and that same guitar teacher friend played his Gibson SG through it and got a similar buzzing, while on one of his 6 amps, he got nothing.

So basically. I would like to know what the best approach would be for opening this thing up, and whether or not it is worth taking to the shop, with the embarrassing statement of "... I dropped my pick in there, please get it out."

Thanks alot.


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## Guest (Oct 20, 2007)

NewGuitarGuru said:


> Now, a guitar teacher friend of mine warned me not to be so quick to crack the thing open, for fear that I might get a surge of unwanted electricity.


Unplug it first. :wink:


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## NewGuitarGuru (Oct 14, 2006)

iaresee said:


> Unplug it first. :wink:


Will do. Amps seems to have the tendency to store away evil electricity for me to fear.


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

I just had a AD15 apart to fix it. Unplug it, undo the 140,000 screws/bolts that hold the back and chassis on and you will find the pick no problem. You don't have to worry about getting bit in one of those unless you forget to unplug it.


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## NewGuitarGuru (Oct 14, 2006)

Okay, I got it out. Thanks for the help guys.

I didn't explode.


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## Guest (Oct 21, 2007)

NewGuitarGuru said:


> Okay, I got it out. Thanks for the help guys.
> 
> I didn't explode.


Whoohoo! I drink to your not exploding! :food-smiley-004:


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## noobcake (Mar 8, 2006)

hahaha this thread made me laugh...I've never heard of someone dropping a pick IN there amp before haha


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

noobcake said:


> hahaha this thread made me laugh...I've never heard of someone dropping a pick IN there amp before haha



It's not as uncommon as you think. I have found quite a few picks inside amps when taking them apart to fix, along with other stuff as well, business cards, money and a cigarette butt. That one I've never been able to figure out how it got into the chassis.


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## NewGuitarGuru (Oct 14, 2006)

Yeah, the way this amp is built leaves just enough room for a pick to slide in, it must of happened when I was moving the thing. I found two picks in there.


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

Gotta admit those amps aren't going to fall out of the cases. I couldn't get over the amount of screws and bolts holding that together.


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## The Kicker Of Elves (Jul 20, 2006)

I have an AD50VT and the same thing happened to me the first week...the pick is still in there. It's not causing any vibration so it can stay where it is.


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## NewGuitarGuru (Oct 14, 2006)

Yeah, the amount of screws were overwhelming. I was so relieved when I finally got the thing open and well... you know, didn't explode.

The amp sound wicked now, NO BUZZ at all. I was thinking some of it was the guitar, but nope!


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

Glad to hear it! I've played around with a couple of them and they are a pretty good sounding amp. One other thing with those, they are known to have a problem with "farting" and then random noise/sustain loss. If that happens just look up in the manual (vox site has them too) and do a memory dump/system reset and it fixes the problem


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## greco (Jul 15, 2007)

jroberts said:


> That may or may not be true about that particular amp, but keep in mind that it's not true about amps generally. Even unplugged, you could get a nasty (or even lethal) jolt from a capacitor. Be careful.


Thanks for posting this comment. 

Anyone opening up *any* chassis should be aware of the dangers of capacitors and know how to drain/discharge them.

Dave


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## Ripper (Jul 1, 2006)

jroberts said:


> That may or may not be true about that particular amp, but keep in mind that it's not true about amps generally. Even unplugged, you could get a nasty (or even lethal) jolt from a capacitor. Be careful.


It is true for most solid state amps. They don't deal with the same voltages as tube amps and the majority have a power capacitor discharge built into the circuit so when the device is powered down the capacitor clears out.

that being said it is never a good idea to poke around in electronics without a little bit of knowledge.


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## -staind- (Sep 9, 2007)

noobcake said:


> hahaha this thread made me laugh...I've never heard of someone dropping a pick IN there amp before haha


I did it too haha! But luckily, right after I gave the amp back for a better amp. Let the next owner figure it out!


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

I used to hide things in my old bass amp--it had an open spot to reach in to change the tubes--but there was a space in there to hide small things. (it was a Garnet bass amp--a Canadian company I believe.

My main amp-- a Roland JC-60 has a mostly open back--so if I dropped anything in it--I could easily get it out.


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## I_cant_play (Jun 26, 2006)

> I used to hide things in my old bass amp--it had an open spot to reach in to change the tubes--but there was a space in there to hide small things. (it was a Garnet bass amp--a Canadian company I believe.
> 
> My main amp-- a Roland JC-60 has a mostly open back--so if I dropped anything in it--I could easily get it out.


I hide weed in my amp too! :wave:


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## zontar (Oct 25, 2007)

That's not what I hid--I have a brother that liked to borrow just about anything.

Nothing illegal--sorry...


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## Spikezone (Feb 2, 2006)

Maybe they should sell those amps with a free tube of silicone to pick-proof them?
-Mikey


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## acdc54_caddy62 (Mar 12, 2007)

Ripper said:


> It's not as uncommon as you think. I have found quite a few picks inside amps when taking them apart to fix, along with other stuff as well, business cards, money and a cigarette butt. That one I've never been able to figure out how it got into the chassis.


Would actully been a good place to stash some stuff if you had too haha

:smilie_flagge17:


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