Fender Steel King Ambient Hum

[Bill Kornke]

Hello everyone, new member here. I’ve been lurking for about a year now. Many of you have unknowingly contributed to my knowledge and ability on the pedal steel. I thank you all.
My specific question is about ambient hum on the Fender Steel King. I know the amp is a relatively new design but I bought one to compliment my GFI Student. It does have a noticeable (quiet carpeted practice room) hum that I’m pretty sure is transformer ambient or mechanical hum. I have several older Fenders including a Pro-Reverb, Deluxe Reverb, and Princeton II and they don’t seem to hum as much or barely at all. I have fairly good experience at diagnosing amp problems.
My concern is that Steel Kings seem to be showing up as B-stock on some musical instrument sites meaning there are a number of refurbs circulating. Also, IMHO, the reverb isn’t nearly as “celestial” as my other fenders maybe due to those having a tube driver. As an A/B check I tried out a Jazz King (the closest I could get locally) at the local music store and it was as quiet as a mouse. It could be a batch of bad transformers. I appreciate any feedback.

[Jon Light]

I can't address the b-stock thing you mention but, for what it's worth I can tell you that my FSK is perfectly quiet. No issues at all. I can't speculate on the cause of your noise but if you were wondering, no I don't think it's normal.
I am not in love with the reverb either---some folks may love 'lush' but it's a tad overbearing for my tastes and it dwells too long.
That being said, I've got a number of great amps, tube and ss, and the Steel King is my gamer.

[Larry Robbins]

Bill,
I found I had a hum with my steelking. Then I checked and found that the wall wart for my Hilton volume pedal as well as my power strip were a little too close to the amp. Hum went away when I moved them just a little farther away. .....worth a try!

[Bill Kornke]

Thanks for the advice so far.
The hum I'm describing occurs with and without an input, with and without reverb connected (although a higher frequency hum occurs with reverb turned up, that seems normal as it occurs on all my amps) and in several locations including an isolated circuit in my house with no other devices attached. It seems like a 60Hz hum. At 200W I'm guessing it's a fairly large transformer.
I know this stuff can be subjective and I want to be sure that I have a case if I decide to have it serviced or looked at.
Otherwise, it's a great sounding amp and it brought my GFI to life.

[David Mullis]

not sure if this will work, but I was looking at the manual for the FSK online and I noticed there is a ground lift switch. Apparently it's for the line out, but the manual says the switch "may reduce hum under certain situations"? Of course stating the obvious here, but, if it's still under warranty, get it back to Fender.

[Justin Griffith]

Bill, First welcome to this great place.
I bought a new Steel King when they first came out. I had the same problem you describe. I found that "lifting" the ground with one of those little gray adapters solved the problem.
I know that ground lifting is not a recommended practice (Except in Texas) so I took the amp to the local Fender dealer and they replaced a capacitor that was faulty. It took about 2 days and Fender covered it under warranty.
I loved everything about my Steel King but the weight. I think if you get it fixed you will enjoy many happy years with it.
Good Luck,
Justin

[Paul Arntson]

Bill -
I just fixed that exact same problem in my 1999 Deluxe 90 Fender amp. I went so far as to replace the filter capacitors in the power supply to no avail.

Then I noticed that I had reversed the leads to the reverb tank.


Just a simple swap of the RCA plugs cleaned it right up.
Boy was I embarrassed, but the amp sounds great now.
Worth a try...

[Jim Walker]

A single coil pick up can cause a slight hum.