Guitar cables= Major wasted time= Very irritated.
This is so strange and I have never seen anything like this.
I bought my Guitar, Cables, GNX4 etc in March of 09. From the start I thought the distortion of the GNX4 was a little weak, But I still loved the GNX4. I Bought the MFX Supermodels to get better tone etc. I was and still believe they are a required upgrade to really get the most out of teh GNX4.
I noticed a couple days ago my guitar started to loose volume and distortion as signal was acting like it was being volumed down even though I had vol at max, I wiggled the cord at input of GNX4 and it seemed to come back to full. It keep doing it and getting worse very day where some times no sound at all until I unplugged and plugged cord in a few times so I thought it was the input jack as I have had jack issues on other items that acted identical.
I took GNX4 apart and could find nothing wrong with input jack so I was confused and sat there contemplating what was causing the issue then by accident when testing using the cable I found it was grounding from + to - Internally and doing it in a way where it acted like a Vol Pot. I have had cables work or not work but never act like a pot and ground of a certain % of level and still send some through to input device.
I was pleased as I have a couple new cables so I replaced the bad one and re-assembled GNX4 and get on with my playing.
I then found a huge issue as all my presets I have made, Fine tuned and did hours upon hours of tweaking to get the sound I wanted no longer sounded anything like what I had, as a matter of fact they all sound horrible as now with full signal they is way to much signal level in pre amp section causing all types of problems.
I had purchased cable when I bought guitar and have not used another one as I had no need to (I thought) I had no idea this type of thing could happen but it has so now I must re-tweak all my presets wich is over 80 at the moment as not one sounds like it did, or like anything I even remotely will use.
I posted this to warn others to make sure before you spend hours on hours tweaking your presets make sure to test cables and ensure you are getting the full signal from guitar so as to avoid the vert time wasting issue I had happen.
Just because the cable is sending signal to teh unit and you can hear it does not mean it is working properly as can been seen in my post as I had no idea I was having any issues until the cable got so bad it started dropping signal level drastically and even completely grounding out so I got no sound. Before that happened teh cord seemed to work fine, It never cut out or anything but once I replaced it I can tell there was about a 20-30% reduction in signal level at all times.
Has anyone else ever had the same type issue happen to them? If so I would love to hear about it.
I bought my Guitar, Cables, GNX4 etc in March of 09. From the start I thought the distortion of the GNX4 was a little weak, But I still loved the GNX4. I Bought the MFX Supermodels to get better tone etc. I was and still believe they are a required upgrade to really get the most out of teh GNX4.
I noticed a couple days ago my guitar started to loose volume and distortion as signal was acting like it was being volumed down even though I had vol at max, I wiggled the cord at input of GNX4 and it seemed to come back to full. It keep doing it and getting worse very day where some times no sound at all until I unplugged and plugged cord in a few times so I thought it was the input jack as I have had jack issues on other items that acted identical.
I took GNX4 apart and could find nothing wrong with input jack so I was confused and sat there contemplating what was causing the issue then by accident when testing using the cable I found it was grounding from + to - Internally and doing it in a way where it acted like a Vol Pot. I have had cables work or not work but never act like a pot and ground of a certain % of level and still send some through to input device.
I was pleased as I have a couple new cables so I replaced the bad one and re-assembled GNX4 and get on with my playing.
I then found a huge issue as all my presets I have made, Fine tuned and did hours upon hours of tweaking to get the sound I wanted no longer sounded anything like what I had, as a matter of fact they all sound horrible as now with full signal they is way to much signal level in pre amp section causing all types of problems.
I had purchased cable when I bought guitar and have not used another one as I had no need to (I thought) I had no idea this type of thing could happen but it has so now I must re-tweak all my presets wich is over 80 at the moment as not one sounds like it did, or like anything I even remotely will use.
I posted this to warn others to make sure before you spend hours on hours tweaking your presets make sure to test cables and ensure you are getting the full signal from guitar so as to avoid the vert time wasting issue I had happen.
Just because the cable is sending signal to teh unit and you can hear it does not mean it is working properly as can been seen in my post as I had no idea I was having any issues until the cable got so bad it started dropping signal level drastically and even completely grounding out so I got no sound. Before that happened teh cord seemed to work fine, It never cut out or anything but once I replaced it I can tell there was about a 20-30% reduction in signal level at all times.
Has anyone else ever had the same type issue happen to them? If so I would love to hear about it.
Comments
For whatever reason, I think the 1/4\" connectors are just a flawed design in the sense that they seem to develop shorts easier than other connectors. I have never had a speakon cable go bad, for example. And I'm trying to think of an XLR cable that has every failed me. The only problems I have had with XLR cables is that sometimes the cable and the input get loose, and that can cause intermittent connections. But again, I've had many more problems with 1/4\" jacks getting loose and having to be replaced.
I guess a person just needs to keep an eye out for guitar cables on sale and buy some extras for their case. Probably a good idea to rotate the cables so maybe you would pick up on when one cable does not sound like the others...
I have gig bags full of cables, and if I ever have any problem with my sound, the first thing I do now in troubleshooting is just replace the cable. That's usually the easiest first step. Also, when it comes to 1/4\" plugs, I have found that some 1/4\" plugs are different sized than others - not by much - but sometimes enough to affect the proper fit into the jack. Never have figured that one out, I thought they were standardized.