Bizarre Amp Problem! Need Help!

Mataguri

Hey Guys. Im having a problem with my Triaxis and I really need help. If I go Guitar -> ISP Decimator (switched off) -> Triaxis I get a full signal but if I go Guitar -> Triaxis I get a really weak signal. I've tried different cables and wall sockets but they dont have any effect. Ive also tried a different preamp and it was fine. Everything was working fine yesterday and nothing has changed so I dont know whats happening.

Edit:

Audio sample now here: http://www.box.net/shared/4c7qrt6e9h

First playthrough is Guitar -> Triaxis -> Poweramp -> Cab -> Mic, Second playthrough is Guitar -> ISP Decimator (off) -> Triaxis -> Poweramp -> Cab -> Mic. All same settings.

Edit: Okay, I've tried it with a few pedals and it appears buffered pedals seem to increase the gain/treble but true bypass ones dont.

Paolo_M

Wow, you loosing a lot of highs there!!
The weak signal is due to a loss of highs and so it also appears to have less gain too.
Nice tone and playing by the way.

Loss of highs like this is caused by excessive capacitance somewhere between your guitar and amp. This capacitance works like when you turn the treble control on your amp down to 0, and that's what your clip sounds like to me.

Are you using excessive lengths of guitar cable? Try and keep cable a short as practically possible.
Is it decent quality cable with a low capacitance? Cable price and cable capacitance have and inverse relationship. If it's cheap and the cable capacitance per meter value is not even stated on the cable packaging then it's probably sh*te and should be thrown.
Can you the using the shortest cables you possibly can to see what happens?
Do you have active pickups, is the battery good?
Can you try different guitars, this one's obviously a humbucker and does sound like it might be an active super-straty type guitar? Do you have a single coil guitar to try?
Do have any replacement preamp valves for your Triaxis? If so then swap out V1 with a new one.

If the amp is good (appears it sounds fine to me) then problem is somewhere between the strings and the first preamp valve. Try some of this and see what happens.

Dord

What guitar are you using? Does it have active or passive electronics?

Mataguri

Thanks Paolo. The Guitar is a passive H/S/S Strat, I've tried it with a S/S/S Strat to pretty much the same avail.

Cables are all Planet Waves. There is a fair bit of cable length though: 10ft from guitar to wah, 10 ft from wah to Midi looper, numerous patch cables from Midi looper to bring various pedals in and out of signal path, 5 ft to Triaxis in, 5 ft from Triaxis out back in Midi looper (Im running two preamps so I need to return the signal to the looper so I can switch preamps via midi), 5 ft to GMajor and another 5 ft to the Poweramp.

The Triaxis was retubed two weeks ago with a matched set from Eurotubes, I'll put back in the old V1 and see what happens.

Last night I did try going from Triaxis -> Poweramp with just a patch cable between them and nothing else in the signal path. It was a lot better but still lacking some highs that I get when I add a buffered pedal into the signal chain.

Mataguri

Hey Paolo, took your advice. Swapped out the V1 and replaced whatever cables werent planet waves with planet waves cables. Everything is now peachy If I ever bump into you I'll buy you a pint