Original Helix losing input signal intermittently

[dwball]

Hello, I have a ten year old Helix. It has been flawless up until recently. After playing for about an hour or so, the input signal will fade out. After a few hours after shut down, it comes back. I have had it in an authorized Helix repair facility for 3 months for repair. They can’t seem to duplicate the issue. They leave the unit on for hours, but it works fine. Now, they are not playing through the unit for extended periods of time, which seems to create the issue. Has anyone experienced this and found a solution? Any suggestions or thoughts would be greatly appreciated!! 

[rd2rk]

Overheating? If your Helix is on a carpet, put it on a hard surface. I use a 12"W x 24"L shelf, but any hard surface that gets it off the carpet will do.

Ask the Service Center if they opened it up and blew out the dust.

[theElevators]

Try a different cable, if applicable.  As silly as it sounds, I have fallen victim to crappy cables and other silliness that caused me to diagnose various intermittent issues and waste countless hours.  

 

Five examples:

1. I have been using a cheap 10-dollar cable with absolutely no issues during rehearsal.  Then at a gig, my volume started fading in and out.  Turns out the tube amplifier was so hot, that the cable was losing signal.  

 

2. I have been using a wireless unit.  I have a receiver and a cable that connects it to the input of the Helix.  Everything was working fine as before, but my acoustic simulator sounds started sounding extremely brittle and had no bottom end whatsoever.  This was the night before the gig.  Well, I swapped out the cable and everything started working correctly.  

 

3. And my absolute favorite one.... I was playing at an outdoor festival.  Everything was fine during a soundcheck.  Everything is great as we start our very dramatic stage entrance.  Then my on-stage amplifier loses sound -- nothing.  I always use the onstage amp for amplification to hear myself, even when I go direct to FOH.  I had no guitar sound and didn't know if the sound was even coming through to FOH.  Frantically I started checking.  Long story short--the cable from the amp to the cabinet was not plugged in all the way and as we started playing, the vibrations caused it to come unplugged.  Luckily, this frantic diagnosis was during our freakout/noise entrance, so not a single note was missed basically....

 

4. I was sound checking at a venue, then all of a sudden the amp just stopped being loud, it was as as if the volume dropped to 1.  Long story short--the CABLE that connects the speaker was not fully plugged in.

 

5. Was practicing keys at home.  And every once in a while I started having my signal fade in and out.. Again!!  Long story short, I needed to clean the output jack of my Nord Electro.  That fixed the problem.  

 

  

 

Now my rule is to throw out "crucial" cables every 2 years or so.  Even if they work, they all will fail after some time.  I also buy expensive reputable cables, not something from the Guitar Center bin.  Last thing I need is to have a fun adventure onstage during an important gig and look like an idiot (been there!)  And of course making sure all the cables are fully plugged in!!

 

 

And lastly, I clean the jacks of all my equipment with liquid DeoxIT.  A lot of time you don't lose the signal completely, just have this "fading out" effect.  Just clean your jacks from time to time!