Troubleshoot/diagnose my problem

[HamerHokie]

Last night I was getting ready to play and noticed the sound was sputtering. I figured the battery in my Fat Boost was dying so I replaced it. Sputtering went away, proceeded without any further issues. But with about 3 songs left in the first set, the following took place:

1. Sputtering started again. Puzzled, I giggled the cord and the sound sputtered more. Replaced the cord, sputtering continued.

2. Disconnected cord from Fat Boost, went right into amp with cord 2. Still sputtered. Giggled cord, more sputtering.

3. Replaced cord again. With cord 3, still sputtered.

4. At this point I thought there was something wrong with the guitar jack. So I swapped guitars. Still sputtered.

5. Swapped guitars again. Still sputtered.

6. Down three guitars and three cords, I decided there was something wrong with the amp. Switched to auxiliary amp.

Still sputtered. Every time I switched something I giggled the cord at the jack and the sputtering worsened.

I staggered through the set and between sets I dicked around a bit more. I plugged my bassist's bass into Amp 1 with his cord and it sounded fine. I let it sit for a bit, then tried guitar 1 again with cord 3. It played fine. Managed to get through the night with no further incident, sans Fat Boost.

But having checked every possible cause of the problem and finding none, I'm stymied.

[alantigold]

Bad jack/connection on the Fat GBoost? I just had a similar incident, with hum, w/a G-System in my home setup. Ended up plugging a different cable into the G-System a few times, then back to the original cable, and everything was fine.

Alan

[HamerHokie]

Bad jack/connection on the Fat GBoost? I just had a similar incident, with hum, w/a G-System in my home setup. Ended up plugging a different cable into the G-System a few times, then back to the original cable, and everything was fine.

Alan

The Fat Boost was out of the loop at 2).

[DaveH]

So, every input and output jack in the chain was rotated out of the string at some point, and the sputtering continued? Could there have been something at the venue itself causing it? Can you duplicate the issue at home?

[Thundernotes]

Yep, my thoughts exactly - bad power. What are you using for a guitar amp and what is the bassist using? I've heard similar sounds before. Refrigerator motors, air handlers, and all sorts of other appliances can cause problems.

We have a club down the street that uses a paging system to notify their waitresses when they have an order ready. It dumps a pulsed tone on to the AC wiring in the building to transmit the signal and it goes right through the PA almost every time. An amplifier can function like a radio receiver if the conditions are right, so even your amplifier's input circuitry could be the culprit with your instrument cables acting like an antenna.

Tell me more about your amp, along with the rest of the amps and PA.

[Guest Mike Lee]

If you are using only Hamer guitars with the Switchcraft panel jack and have a bunch of cables with 6 mm metric plugs it might still be the guitar. Your bassist might have a cable with a true 1/4" plug (6.35 mm).

It's a long shot, but it might be the problem. I use Planet Waves 1/4" cables with the banana plug style spring standoffs on my Hamers and they work great.

[HamerHokie]

If you are using only Hamer guitars with the Switchcraft panel jack and have a bunch of cables with 6 mm metric plugs it might still be the guitar. Your bassist might have a cable with a true 1/4" plug (6.35 mm).

It's a long shot, but it might be the problem. I use Planet Waves 1/4" cables with the banana plug style spring standoffs on my Hamers and they work great.

I've been using the PlanetWaves cables for years and have never had a problem.

As to the house power, my bassist and I were using the same circuit, as always, but he didn't have any problems. My amp is a Mesa Lone Star, he has a small Ampeg 100 W. The only thing different was that the house had a sound system (we usually bring our own).

The emphasis here is not only on the bizarre chain of failures, but on the fact that I've NEVER had ANY problem with this rig before. I'm going to try and duplicate the problem, but I've already bought all new cables. My next steps will be to examine the internals of each guitar and retube the amp.