Rig problem...

fastonebaz

@hotpickups it could be the toggle switch in  your guitar.  Happened to me several times.  Take the back panel off your guitar,  use a small bit of lightgrade sandpaper to clean between the contact points on both sides of the toggle switch,  spray a bit of electrical lube to clean it out and hey presto it will be a good strong signal again

hotpickups

fastonebaz said:

@hotpickups it could be the toggle switch in  your guitar.  Happened to me several times.  Take the back panel off your guitar,  use a small bit of lightgrade sandpaper to clean between the contact points on both sides of the toggle switch,  spray a bit of electrical lube to clean it out and hey presto it will be a good strong signal again

Ok I'll try that too. Thanks 

UnclePsychosis

Any time this has happened to me it's been an intermittent cable fault. 

Really hard to diagnose, you just need to be methodical and pray it doesn't strike at a bad time! 

stickyfiddle

I have a Rat pedal that does this occasionally - it's something in the pedals' internal switch wiring. Very disconcerting the first couple of times it happened, but easy enough to diagnose and fix

koss59

I’ve had this before on a Dr.Z years ago, it was the input jack. Just needed a clean.
 A mate also had it happen on the jack of his fx loop.
Might be worth a spray of servisol in all jack sockets.

hotpickups

koss59 said:

I’ve had this before on a Dr.Z years ago, it was the input jack. Just needed a clean.
 A mate also had it happen on the jack of his fx loop.
Might be worth a spray of servisol in all jack sockets.

Of the guitar you mean ?

ZenOvertone

I've had a few of these...Gibson switches are a classic high resistance problem, play a big chord, all ok but then play softly and the sound goes on/off, jack sockets too where the guitar has been used then put away in a case then pulled out Friday night to the same issue, a few jack insertions sorted it.  Pedalboard with soldered EA cable to Hicon right angle connectors has been 100%.  If you have quite a few guitars this is a bit of a pain unless you have a through "maintenance programme", difficult with a life too!

JezWynd

hotpickups said:

One more question. Is the volume drop a typical possible sign of valve wear like what Waz mentioned?

I had a similar issue recently on my Ampeg head. New valves sorted it. It's usually the power amp valves going that give that symptom apparently.

hotpickups

JezWynd said:

hotpickups said:

One more question. Is the volume drop a typical possible sign of valve wear like what Waz mentioned?

I had a similar issue recently on my Ampeg head. New valves sorted it. It's usually the power amp valves going that give that symptom apparently.

Blimey. It's relatively a new amp though and haven't used it that much

meltedbuzzbox

To me it sounds like bad power to the power supply unit for your pedals. 
Was you running off a crappy 4 way or anything like that?

ICBM

A bit late to this, but if running the guitar straight to the amp fixed it, the problem is either in the pedalboard or the cable you were no longer using. It wasn't the guitar or the amp, so don't worry about those.

Checking cables with a meter doesn't always show up a fault, you need to do it with a signal through it. Flexing the cable may well have cured it (at least temporarily) when you took it out of the pedalboard as well.

koss59

hotpickups said:

koss59 said:

I’ve had this before on a Dr.Z years ago, it was the input jack. Just needed a clean.
 A mate also had it happen on the jack of his fx loop.
Might be worth a spray of servisol in all jack sockets.

Of the guitar you mean ?

No the amp input but also Fx loop jacks are also worth cleaning. It was the sort of thing that only happened occasionally so always seemed fine at home but volume wavered live.

hotpickups

meltedbuzzbox said:

To me it sounds like bad power to the power supply unit for your pedals. 
Was you running off a crappy 4 way or anything like that?

Ah that could be it. I do use a five or six plug gang bar 

Can you recommend a quality plug bar @meltedbuzzbox ;

hotpickups

ICBM said:

A bit late to this, but if running the guitar straight to the amp fixed it, the problem is either in the pedalboard or the cable you were no longer using. It wasn't the guitar or the amp, so don't worry about those.

Checking cables with a meter doesn't always show up a fault, you need to do it with a signal through it. Flexing the cable may well have cured it (at least temporarily) when you took it out of the pedalboard as well.

@ICBM ;How do you mean test it with a signal going through it? You mean if it works or not etc. It works at the moment

ICBM

hotpickups said:

@ICBM ;How do you mean test it with a signal going through it? You mean if it works or not etc. It works at the moment

By playing a music signal through the cable while flexing it to check for bad connections or shorts.

hotpickups

ICBM said:

hotpickups said:

@ICBM ;How do you mean test it with a signal going through it? You mean if it works or not etc. It works at the moment

By playing a music signal through the cable while flexing it to check for bad connections or shorts.

Ah right. Yeah done all that. All good now. Left the amp on all day and still couldn't recreate the scenario from last night when plugged the board in etc

fastonebaz

hotpickups said:

fastonebaz said:

@hotpickups it could be the toggle switch in  your guitar.  Happened to me several times.  Take the back panel off your guitar,  use a small bit of lightgrade sandpaper to clean between the contact points on both sides of the toggle switch,  spray a bit of electrical lube to clean it out and hey presto it will be a good strong signal again

Ok I'll try that too. Thanks 

Poor connection in the toggle switch will cause volume drop, loss of most (but sometimes not all) of the signal, and potentially be intermittent.  It's weird, but a simple 5 min fix if its the cause.

JezWynd

hotpickups said:

JezWynd said:

hotpickups said:

One more question. Is the volume drop a typical possible sign of valve wear like what Waz mentioned?

I had a similar issue recently on my Ampeg head. New valves sorted it. It's usually the power amp valves going that give that symptom apparently.

Blimey. It's relatively a new amp though and haven't used it that much

The Ampeg valves were Ruby's, 10 months old, with 1 - 2 hours daily use, never driven hard, home use only. Now replaced with EHX which I'm hoping will last a bit longer.