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Problem with bass signal cutting out.


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I had a rehearsal yesterday and the rehearsal studio amp seemed to be regularly crapping out, bass signal dropping out completely. I thought it was just a crap rehearsal studio amp, but that evening I had a gig where I know the amp works fine, mid gig the amp at that venue starts cutting out, it only happened briefly (once in each set for a few seconds over a 15 seconds period) I wasn't standing on any cable and was pretty stationary. 

 

I checked all the cables today and after wiggling them all the signal path seemed completely stable with no cutting out. If anyone has any ideas what the problem might be I'd really appreciate it. My setup is an old p-bass (1976), then just boss tuner- boss oc2-Noble Di pre, all with planet waves cables. I thought I take my bass into the shop on monday just to double check everything is ok with pickups etc. and I've also bought a cable tester so I can check that the problem isn't a dodgy lead.

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Could be a number of things,  dirty/dodgy pot, wire come loose/shorting (have you tightened the jack output and twisted the wires) dirty or corroded jack output.

could just be the jack contacts have become loose over time and you need to bend them back in (have you changed leads recently?)

Has as the bass been converted to active (battery problem)

best get the plate off and take a look inside. 
did you take the tuner/Noble out of the chain and go direct to eliminate them from the search for the fault? 
 

 

Edited by Bunion
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Thanks for the suggestions Bunion!

 

No active conversion. I did take the tuner/noble in the rehearsal studio and it was still happening direct into the amp, although didn't on the gig that night because it happened so briefly one in each set I didn't reroute my signal chain if it had continued I would have.

However in the rehearsal the sound on the amp was also breaking up in addition to cutting out which made me assume it was more a problem with the amp at the time. When the sound was cutting out on the gig it wasn't breaking up in the same way only cutting out. 

 

I'm quite useless myself when it comes to electronics so going to take the bass into the shop on Monday so they can take the plate off and try and diagnose the problem as you suggest!

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I had a similar problem that turned out to be a loose jack socket as Bunion suggested. Tightened it up and the cutting out and 'scratching' noise went away. The socket in question was the locking locking type mounted on the edge of the bass.

Edited by naxos10
Wording
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It may not be the case here, but I've come across an odd case like this on a guitar that hadn't been used plugged in for a long time. 

Assuming it would be the contact to the tip of the jack, it wasn't,  it was the connection to the ground of the plug,  the barrel of the jack. I  had to attack the bore of the socket with very fine emery paper wrapped round a screwdriver, then cleaned up with contact cleaner. Eventually the signal went from almost non-existent,  to scratchy, to pristine again!

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