I have a Variax 500. A while ago, the G string dropped out, entirely. I bought a new transducer, but before getting down to actually changing it, I checked to verify that I was still having the problem. I had been using a really raggedy CAT5 cable, but had since bought a nice, shiny new Variax cable. When I plugged it all in, everything worked fine, so I figured the power being supplied by the cable had been dodgey. But 2 weeks ago, setting up for rehearsal, the G string was intermittently gone again, and I was getting crackles (like digital overdrive) on adjacent strings, intermittently. The G string was acting a lot like it had a somewhat high–threshold noise gate on it. But, within minutes, all was fine again. At rehearsal 3 days later, I was noticing that if I played a little louder, a few of the strings were responding a lot louder. At one point, I shifted position, and the ‘chirp’ of moving along the D string was so loud, the other guitar player turned to me with a “What was that?†expression. The chirp, by itself, was about 20% louder than I had been playing. (It’s a 0.026" string.) So now I'm not using the guitar, as it is not trustworthy; but I need it... (I am using three alternate tunings for each performance.)
Is this a typical symptom?
Is it more likely the bridge, or the interface to the digital electronics?
Is there an easy way to diagnose what it is, other than willy-nilly replacing parts, in the hope that I’ll eventually replace the problem child?