Volume drops...

hotpickups

..... well I like to test you guys sometimes LOL. At tonight's rehearsal I had the most annoying thing happening (especially during my face melting guitar solos LOL). I randomly got volume drops or signal strength with my rig so much so that it took away my dirt/gain away somewhat. I have rebuilt my board a month ago and all has been working fine until now. Can it possibly be the EA patch cables I've made? I did test them with a meter etc. Could it be the guitar itself i.e. pickups/selector? Or could it be the power supply feeding the room? I say that because on some rare occasions I found I had volume drops using certain pedals in the same room however, I'm sure that would be a more frequent problem if it was.

Really not wanting to build the whole board again to check if it's possibly the board but gonna have to get to the bottom of it as I have a gig next week. Ironically I stripped down my board to make it simpler and now I get problems

Any pointers

mike_l

Any specific pedals being switched on/off creating these drops?
How are you powering the pedals?
Is the guitar using active or passive pickups?
How much gain are you using?

hotpickups

mike_l said:

Any specific pedals being switched on/off creating these drops?
How are you powering the pedals?
Is the guitar using active or passive pickups?
How much gain are you using?

@mike_l ;No set pedals really. Even happened when I was clean. Powering board with a Voodoo Lab 4x4. Guitar has passive pickups. When using Gain I guess i'm using a fair bit

mike_l

Are you playing with a second guitarist? My thinking is a second guitar is taking away from your guitar's range, try pulling the mids back a little, boosting the bass and treble a bit.
Also where are your amps in relation to you/other amps/speakers? I'm thinking you're hearing the others above yourself and hearing a volume drop when there isn't one. This has happened to me more than once.

hotpickups

mike_l said:

Are you playing with a second guitarist? My thinking is a second guitar is taking away from your guitar's range, try pulling the mids back a little, boosting the bass and treble a bit.
Also where are your amps in relation to you/other amps/speakers? I'm thinking you're hearing the others above yourself and hearing a volume drop when there isn't one. This has happened to me more than once.

I'm the only guitarist in the band other than the bass guitarist. No it is a definate volume drop. It almost dropped out all together at some point. Like someone had turned my amp off

ICBM

It's almost certain to be a mechanical connection somewhere - if it cuts gain rather than volume when using a dirty sound, somewhere early in the chain.

3PDT pedal switch
Pickup selector switch
Jack to plug contact
Patch cable (are the EAs solderless? If so they go to the top of the list)
Guitar cable
Guitar volume pot
etc

It's very unlikely to be a power issue - usually that will cause a complete drop-out, usually accompanied by a thump or loud noise.

hotpickups

ICBM said:

It's almost certain to be a mechanical connection somewhere - if it cuts gain rather than volume when using a dirty sound, somewhere early in the chain.

3PDT pedal switch
Pickup selector switch
Jack to plug contact
Patch cable (are the EAs solderless? If so they go to the top of the list)
Guitar cable
Guitar volume pot
etc

It's very unlikely to be a power issue - usually that will cause a complete drop-out, usually accompanied by a thump or loud noise.

Yes they are the EA solderless ones @ICBM . As for volume/gain It cuts both It's a new guitar I'm using so maybe I'm thinking it could be the pick up selector?

ICBM

First try a different guitar. If it still does it you know it's not that.

hotpickups

ICBM said:

First try a different guitar. If it still does it you know it's not that.

Yeah I will. Trouble is I won't be rehearsing til next week again where I can open it all up again (not very neighbour friendly) and that might be too late to fix anything if it wasn't the guitar I guess I can get my guitar tech to give it a once over in the meantime

Cabicular

I also bet on the patch cable
sometimes they wiggle loose
on a big board they are a pig to trouble shoot but I would start with the guitar on and strummed open and give everything a wiggle

hotpickups

I'm starting to think that it could be the valves albeit they are new ones but the symptoms are similar I.e. losing drive/power and volume. 

ICBM

New valves are more likely to be the problem than old ones. Did you change all of them at once? Do you still have the old ones?

If it is a valve problem it will be a preamp valve - it probably won't be a power valve if the sound drops out to nearly nothing, unless it's a Peavey or Blackstar, and maybe some others - some of these run the power valve filaments in series. (Most amps have them in parallel.) A power valve fault would affect the volume and not the gain too.

hotpickups

ICBM said:

New valves are more likely to be the problem than old ones. Did you change all of them at once? Do you still have the old ones?

If it is a valve problem it will be a preamp valve - it probably won't be a power valve if the sound drops out to nearly nothing, unless it's a Peavey or Blackstar, and maybe some others - some of these run the power valve filaments in series. (Most amps have them in parallel.) A power valve fault would affect the volume and not the gain too.

I've never changed or carry valve spares @ICBM. I know scary huh?

ICBM

If you kept the old valves then you now have spares, if the amp was working before. If you've got a gig coming up I would put the old ones back in if you really think it's the amp.

I should have asked this earlier, but are the changes in volume sudden, or slow? Even fading over a second or two would make it much more likely to be a valve than a pedal.

hotpickups

@ICBM it's a new amp do the valves are new that came with it. I haven't put new ones in it yet. It's a gradual volume drop about a second or two then will correct it self. Usually about 5 to 10 seconds 

ICBM

hotpickups said:

@ICBM it's a new amp do the valves are new that came with it. I haven't put new ones in it yet. It's a gradual volume drop about a second or two then will correct it self. Usually about 5 to 10 seconds 

Aha... in that case ignore everything I said about pedals, switches etc. It's almost certainly either a valve fault or an amp fault. The slow fade out/in means that it's probably a valve filament problem - it could either be a valve itself, the contact between the valve and the socket, or something in the amp's filament supply. Less likely, something in the high-voltage supply to the preamp valves.

What amp is it?

Cable/jack/switch faults don't do that, they cause sudden changes in volume.

hotpickups

It's a boutique amp @ICBM called a Dualist from RD Amplification. I'll get the amp checked tonight by my tech and get back to you all.

hotpickups

Just had it all checked out. Valves, board and guitar and it didn't do it again. All connected and flat out for two hours and nothing. Sounded amazing but no volume drops etc. It can only be the room's electricity that's caused it the other night, There's no other explanation?

was it a full moon last night ?

kjdowd

I had a v similar issue and turned out to be an old Boss Tu2 that was slowly giving up the ghost. V intermittent. Got worse. Swapped it out and no further issues. 

hotpickups

kjdowd said:

I had a v similar issue and turned out to be an old Boss Tu2 that was slowly giving up the ghost. V intermittent. Got worse. Swapped it out and no further issues. 

Interesting. I use a TU 2 tuner 

johnhe

Id guess that it's a jack plug/socket acting up. If you knew which one it was, a quick wiggle would sort it, mighty irritating though,