G2M v3 issue

[Louve]

( English is not my birth language and I'll try to do my best to be understandable. 'Hoping you'll be kind enought to excuse all my misspelling )

Hi,
I have a G2M V2, and I also just bought a G2M V3.

Here is my setup
guitar -> AB box, with a bypass switch on the "A channel"
-> A : G2M V3 -> Midi input Micro Korg -> Sound system
-> B : the rest of my pedalboard -> amp

Everything works perfectly fine (and better than the V2!) except when I bypass my channel "A" on my AB box. (So that the sonuus does not receive any signal.)
Here is the thing: sometimes it cuts the signal (as it should), sometimes the G2M v3 act like it's receiving a continuous trembling signal and produces a very strange noise (also continuous and trembling).
Trust me, this made me sweat blood on stage!

I changed the cables. Tested using the V3 with an AA battery (I feed my G2M v3 via a Voodoo Lab Mondo (red cable, positive center).
Still the same random issue.
I'm not encoutering any kind of trouble with my V2, and no problem either when I plug other kinds of pedals in the A channel.
I wondered if my V3 is not defective? Or if there is a setting with the V3 switchs I should do?

Hope you can help me with this. Cause I really don't want to go back to my V2 : 'Love the fact that now :
1/I can bypass the "off-when not played for 30mn" fonction
2/that it can be powered with my Voodoo Lab.
3/The real improvement of the accuracy of the V3 regarding what you play.
4/To be abble to play my guitar at 10 without making the G2M go nuts.
Stand up ovation for you guys !

(just hopping that the V4 will come in a standard pedal form, with a bypass footswitch directly on it - Just my two cents )

Best regards,

Louve.

[james]

Hi Louve,

Firstly, your English is excellent -- better than many native speakers!

Secondly, I'm very pleased to hear you like the new improvements in the G2MV3 We would like to make a pedal version too; it makes a lot of sense.

Now, to try and work out what's happening here...

There are small differences between the analogue circuits in the V2 and the V3 G2M. It wouldn't affect normal operation (other than the increased headroom), but it might affect noise pickup (some changes to how grounding is done to support the new power system might cause these differences).

What does the A/B box do to the A signal when it is bypassed? Does it short the inputs (so there is "zero" signal), or leave them open (so it is simply disconnected from the signal). In the latter case this leaves the G2M open to accept interference so I am wondering if this is happening. The G2M input is high-impedance (10M) which makes it very susceptible to noise pickup when there is no signal applied to the input. If you power from 9V and remove the jack from IN, the jack socket shorts the input to "zero" the signal so you don't get any noise pickup in this case.

Is there anything connected to the Thru of the G2M? This is a "T" connection so any signal coming into the THRU will also appear on the IN.

James

[Louve]

Hi James,

First of all, thank you for such a quick reply (and for your kind remarks about my english by the way. Do I have to confess that it made my ego purr like a kitten? Yeah, and I know : baaaad kitty! )

Is there anything connected to the Thru of the G2M?

Never, 'cause I use the AB box to split the signal between the "dry" and the "G2M" before G2M so I can bypass as I like the midi channel. But I've just made the test regardless and yes, there's no problem anymore when I simply plug a jack into the G2M "Thru" output. (NB : this doesn't work if I don't plug the other end of the cable into something).

What does the A/B box do to the A signal when it is bypassed? Does it short the inputs (so there is "zero" signal), or leave them open (so it is simply disconnected from the signal).

Damn! That's a good question but I have no idea, and I would gladely ask my engineer if he was rechable, but he's on vacation right now. I ordered him this custom made "AB box" specially to work with my G2M V2 (adding a volume knob to the " A " channel so I could lower the input level in the G2M V2 without turning down the volume directly on my guitar.) But surely your guess must be correct, cause I've just borrowed another AB box ( Morley - classic type : "A and B" or "A or B") and it works like a charm !

So thank you for your help James. All I have to do is to use the Morley's AB box until you pull out your awesome pedal version
Problem solved!

Best regards,

Louve.

[james]

Hi Louve,

Yes, you are entitled to purr

That's good you have it working for now. Hopefully you can get your custom one updated. It might be enough just to add a resistor (maybe 10k - 50k) onto the output used for the G2M. It will cause some loss of guitar tone (assuming it's being fed from a passive pickup), but it won't matter for MIDI. The resistor will avoid having the input fully open to all interference.

You'll need to check what pot is used for the volume control too - another resistor will affect the volume level.

James

[Louve]

Hello James,

That's good news! Since I really prefere to use my custom AB rather than the Morley one.
Thank you for the advices. I'll pass them right away to my engineer.

Take care,

Louve.