Erich Arndt
Member
To start with, I've already spoken once with customer support and while they did clear up some confusion I had, it was ultimately not helpful to my main problem. I suspect that my unit may be damaged but I'm trying to eliminate all other possibilities before I spring for another one.
Okay... here's the story. I bought a full stage rig from a friend of mine. It is, more or less, an EVH 5150 III (100w), a TC Electronic G-Major, a Digital Music Corporation Ground Control, a Furman power conditioner and an Amp Gizmo (AG-1).
Upon getting it all set up and running, the AG-1 was very strange and confusing for me to program to my needs but I was able to eventually get presets for all three channels set up and program them into my GC. At that time I was unaware of setup mode, as I'd received no manual with the unit, so I had to feel my way through. What I found using my friend's settings was that I had to find what appeared to be arbitrary combinations of activated and deactivated channel buttons in order to change channels on my amp. They are as follows:
Green channel - 234
Blue channel - 12
Red channel - 134
So... although that seems like a strange and rather nonsensical way of programming the channel presets, it works. I'm fine with all that. But then came my main problem.
It shuts off on me at random times. For no reason that I can find it will just occasionally switch everything off, leaving my amp in a non-channel state, with no channel lights lit, which sounds the same as the green channel. When this happens I need to switch to another preset with the GP and then switch back to the one I was on.
So, like I said, sometime last week I contacted customer support, figuring I had some setting screwed up and, flying blind as I was, had no way of knowing it. I asked for information on a factory reset, which isn't possible with this unit, and asked for information about setup mode, which they provided and was very enlightening, and I asked about information about how to set it up for my specific amp, which they also provided. They also included a copy of the manual which was also very informative for me.
So upon receiving all that new information I got back to work. They told me that for my particular amp I needed to go into setup mode and make sure functions 1 and 2 are enabled and that function 3 is disabled. I was relieved to find that exactly the opposite settings were currently applied. 1 and 2 were disabled and 3 was enabled. So I changed it. But that caused the AG-1 to stop changing my amp channels at all.
Function 1 should turn on momentary channel mode, as opposed to latching mode. My amp, according to everything I've read, requires momentary mode. Yet when this function is activated on the AG-1 it only seems to be able to switch to green channel and non-channel. One of the channel buttons causes it to flick briefly to the blue channel but it immediately goes back to green or non-channel.
Function 2 does not apply to me as I'm only using the AG-1 to switch channels and this function relates to function switching and not channel switching.
Function 3 should turn on channel independent mode, so that more than one channel can be switched on at once, and turning it off should make it so that only one channel can be activated at once. When I turn this function off, the buttons and lights on the AG-1 appear to function properly, with only one being on at a time and turning one on turns the previous one off. Unfortunately it does seem to reflect in my amp. The amp does not react at all to button-presses on the AG-1 in this mode.
So as far as presets go, I've had to make due with the settings as they were when I got it; functional but obviously nowhere near the way it was designed to function.
So given that I'm able to live with that problem, I'm still left with the issue of it resetting on me.
So I've tried a few things to get to the bottom of it. First I thought that maybe powering the Ground Control via phantom power from the AG-1 might just be drawing too much current, leaving the AG-1 with so little that it shut down, so I switched out my midi cable to a regular five-pin cable and plugged in the GC to the power supply on my pedalboard. This did not help. I've also tried power the AG-1 itself with the 18v outlet from my pedalboard power supply... and so the shut-down glitch has not happened with this setup, but I'm still in the process of testing it. The problem is so intermittent it's hard to say for sure. One day it'll happen five times in as many minutes, and the next it won't happen all day... so I need to let it sit like this for a while before I can confidently say I've solved the problem.
Also, for what it's worth, I have connected the amp's original footswitch and verified that it works as it's supposed to and there are no spontaneous channel changes.
Soooo... that's all the details I can think to include. I'm sorry if I was long-winded. Basically all I need to know is if anyone's had any issues like this before. Is it somehow a problem with my presets since I've basically had to set them up in such a strange way? Is it a bad power supply? Is it just a busted ruined piece of junk and I need to buy a new one? I'd just hate to have buy a new one. I've put myself considerably into the hole buying the rig in the first place.
Okay... here's the story. I bought a full stage rig from a friend of mine. It is, more or less, an EVH 5150 III (100w), a TC Electronic G-Major, a Digital Music Corporation Ground Control, a Furman power conditioner and an Amp Gizmo (AG-1).
Upon getting it all set up and running, the AG-1 was very strange and confusing for me to program to my needs but I was able to eventually get presets for all three channels set up and program them into my GC. At that time I was unaware of setup mode, as I'd received no manual with the unit, so I had to feel my way through. What I found using my friend's settings was that I had to find what appeared to be arbitrary combinations of activated and deactivated channel buttons in order to change channels on my amp. They are as follows:
Green channel - 234
Blue channel - 12
Red channel - 134
So... although that seems like a strange and rather nonsensical way of programming the channel presets, it works. I'm fine with all that. But then came my main problem.
It shuts off on me at random times. For no reason that I can find it will just occasionally switch everything off, leaving my amp in a non-channel state, with no channel lights lit, which sounds the same as the green channel. When this happens I need to switch to another preset with the GP and then switch back to the one I was on.
So, like I said, sometime last week I contacted customer support, figuring I had some setting screwed up and, flying blind as I was, had no way of knowing it. I asked for information on a factory reset, which isn't possible with this unit, and asked for information about setup mode, which they provided and was very enlightening, and I asked about information about how to set it up for my specific amp, which they also provided. They also included a copy of the manual which was also very informative for me.
So upon receiving all that new information I got back to work. They told me that for my particular amp I needed to go into setup mode and make sure functions 1 and 2 are enabled and that function 3 is disabled. I was relieved to find that exactly the opposite settings were currently applied. 1 and 2 were disabled and 3 was enabled. So I changed it. But that caused the AG-1 to stop changing my amp channels at all.
Function 1 should turn on momentary channel mode, as opposed to latching mode. My amp, according to everything I've read, requires momentary mode. Yet when this function is activated on the AG-1 it only seems to be able to switch to green channel and non-channel. One of the channel buttons causes it to flick briefly to the blue channel but it immediately goes back to green or non-channel.
Function 2 does not apply to me as I'm only using the AG-1 to switch channels and this function relates to function switching and not channel switching.
Function 3 should turn on channel independent mode, so that more than one channel can be switched on at once, and turning it off should make it so that only one channel can be activated at once. When I turn this function off, the buttons and lights on the AG-1 appear to function properly, with only one being on at a time and turning one on turns the previous one off. Unfortunately it does seem to reflect in my amp. The amp does not react at all to button-presses on the AG-1 in this mode.
So as far as presets go, I've had to make due with the settings as they were when I got it; functional but obviously nowhere near the way it was designed to function.
So given that I'm able to live with that problem, I'm still left with the issue of it resetting on me.
So I've tried a few things to get to the bottom of it. First I thought that maybe powering the Ground Control via phantom power from the AG-1 might just be drawing too much current, leaving the AG-1 with so little that it shut down, so I switched out my midi cable to a regular five-pin cable and plugged in the GC to the power supply on my pedalboard. This did not help. I've also tried power the AG-1 itself with the 18v outlet from my pedalboard power supply... and so the shut-down glitch has not happened with this setup, but I'm still in the process of testing it. The problem is so intermittent it's hard to say for sure. One day it'll happen five times in as many minutes, and the next it won't happen all day... so I need to let it sit like this for a while before I can confidently say I've solved the problem.
Also, for what it's worth, I have connected the amp's original footswitch and verified that it works as it's supposed to and there are no spontaneous channel changes.
Soooo... that's all the details I can think to include. I'm sorry if I was long-winded. Basically all I need to know is if anyone's had any issues like this before. Is it somehow a problem with my presets since I've basically had to set them up in such a strange way? Is it a bad power supply? Is it just a busted ruined piece of junk and I need to buy a new one? I'd just hate to have buy a new one. I've put myself considerably into the hole buying the rig in the first place.
