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Post subject: well, it was good while it lasted
Posted: Wed Jan 08, 2020 3:26 pm
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Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:53 pm
Posts: 972
Volume dropout is back after what, 6 weeks or so. If u recall i soldered all the wires on a suspect ribbon connector directly to the board bypassing the connector. I had been getting dropouts every day. After the surgery 6 weeks without one till today when it not only started but so bad i could not get it to stop till i overwrote the firmware via "forced update".

Now heres the interesting thing and a possible hint....i have a EXP-1 pedal i never use but i decided to try a few things with it today. Thats when it started. If that's a coincidence it's worthy of the record books. Not a single incident for 6 weeks, then i plug in the EXP and it not only started doing it but worse than ever. And once i removed the exp and all settings were as they were before including the global EXP settings, it continued to dropout even after multiple restarts. Only the forced update stopped it.

So that would seem to suggest it IS a firmware issue, but then why after the surgery did it stop for so long? This POS is really one he|| of a puzzle. One i wish i never started and in fact i am in the process of looking for a tube amp. I've had enough. I will keep the pile of junk only because i can't sell it in good conscience with the surgery i did.

EDIT: and to confuse matters even more, here another thing that points to it being a hardware issue. Something that just happened today after it started dropping out again, which by the way it is now doing every day multiple times. I have done this before and i just tried it again and it stopped the issue....picking the amp up and dropping it a foot or 2 onto the floor. The jolt got it working right again. And this was after once again trying a million things like rebooting, changing global settings then back again, switching presets, plugging and unplugging the power cable and the guitar cable, etc etc etc. So theres good reason to believe it's hardware related, yet as above there are good reasons to believe it's firmware related. But it can't be both, so WTF ! I can't believe fender can still sell these in good conscience.


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Fender Play Winter Sale 2020
Post subject: Re: well, it was good while it lasted
Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 10:41 am
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Professional Musician
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Joined: Fri Oct 06, 2017 6:46 pm
Posts: 1209
Location: ʞɹo⅄ ʍǝN
that's a shame. You really stuck with it from the beginning. And the silence on this subforum (from Fender staff) is deafening. They're doing the "Homer Simpson disappearing into the bushes" thing.

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Post subject: Re: well, it was good while it lasted
Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 11:04 am
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Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:53 pm
Posts: 972
Thats what companies do when they realize they screwed up and the consequences are too serious to confront. I have a motorcycle that the company did the same thing. Serious design flaw, tons of customers asking what it is, why can't they fix it, what will they do for us., And all they did was keep quiet and discontinue the bike leaving a lot of people in the dark with bikes they can't sell and taking a huge loss. I seem to be a fooking magnet for products like this !


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Post subject: Re: well, it was good while it lasted
Posted: Thu Jan 09, 2020 7:08 pm
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Hobbyist
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Joined: Sun Jan 14, 2018 1:56 pm
Posts: 67
Well, I too have been "battling" the same issues from day 1, one of which is the most bothersome - in addition to being the most "persistent" - and that is the patches that I create/save sound different the next time I turn the amp on...this in spite of what the parameters might indicate "visually"...iow, while the bass knob might be at 3 - the correct value - when I play my guitar the bass sounds way more....like it's set to 8... I then have to turn the knob up & down until its back at a reasonable level...but this makes the amp totally unreliable for a gig...I do like how it sounds...and all the effects...and its flexibility...but software & implementation...I give it a total fail...


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Post subject: Re: well, it was good while it lasted
Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2020 9:14 am
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Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:53 pm
Posts: 972
Ok, more evidence. This time it again seems hardware related (in particular the cable i suspected and modded) wand this is very hard to deny evidence. It started again today and i removed the handle so i can easily get into the amp. I strummed open strings while i reached inside and pushed on that cable. It immediately stopped dropping out. So maybe it IS that ribbon cable after all, but then again you know how that goes ! But the way it stopped immediately upon pushing on it seems pretty hard to deny. Maybe it's not the cable itself but one of the solder joints on one of the pins. The journey continues.

On a side note i have been demoing tube amps and it made me realize just how good the GT can sound because while the cleaner tones of most of the amps i demo'd were better, most of the OD tones made me feel they would be a downgrade from the GT. Thats pretty impressive for a modeler in this price range. But one amp stood out as beating the GT in all tonal respects and quite handily....vox. So i am looking at those but there are feature issues i have with them. If the GT was reliable i wouldn't be looking tho, as the many other advantages are so many I'd willingly deal with the tonal differences. Fender, why won't u step up and fix this thing?!


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Post subject: Re: well, it was good while it lasted
Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2020 11:13 am
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Professional Musician
Professional Musician

Joined: Thu Aug 07, 2014 3:25 pm
Posts: 1022
When you go after the ribbon cable this time.... Pull the pins from the board and solder the wires directly to the board.
Pull the boards to be able to work from both sides.
Don't worry about getting all the pins desoldered at once and pulling the entire connector. That's a PITA. Just heat each pin from the backside and pull it up through the plastic housing, one at a time. Suck the holes clean.
Strip the ribbon cable thermally to avoid nicking the conductors. draw a fine tip iron across both sides a quarter inch from each end and pull the insulation off. Cut up the length of each wire to be able to separate and stagger them for insertion. Twist and tin the conductors.
Its dicey to get them all inserted before soldering. I usually insert the back row, solder it in. Then insert the front row and solder them. Or you can tie down one on one end then the other and insert the rest.


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Post subject: Re: well, it was good while it lasted
Posted: Sat Jan 11, 2020 12:12 pm
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Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:53 pm
Posts: 972
I would have done that the 1st time but i didn't because it would be a far more tedious job. Unless i can miniaturize myself and get a tiny fairy sized solder station it would be a nightmare. But thats what i may do eventually if i can convince myself to go there. And with boards like this the quality of the traces is such that looking at them wrong will heat them up enough to loosen the pads. High quality very fine grade braid would be better tho. Suckers often will fail to pull the solder a few times before they do and in that time the pads will pull up. But we shall see. That will probably be my next step if i feel the need to fix it. But i may just end up with a vox in which case this will be a home use only amp that will collect dust more than guitar signals.


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Post subject: Re: well, it was good while it lasted
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 7:09 pm
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Hobbyist
Hobbyist

Joined: Wed May 09, 2012 12:11 am
Posts: 9
Fender Mustang GTX Amp
new Fender Mustang GTX Amp will be released
Mustang GTX
The new Mustang GTX series represents everything that Mustang GT promised ( but only intermittently delivered?)
– great tone, presets, Wifi, Bluetooth, and a looper – while also offering stage-ready cosmetics, improved Celestion speakers and great-sounding cabinets. When paired with the new Fender Tone 3.0 app, the Mustang GTX becomes Fender’s flagship amp for players looking for a wide range of incredible-sounding tones in a flexible, roadworthy and affordable package. The Mustang GTX offers several new effects, amp models, presets, global EQ settings
and 7-button footswitching.


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Post subject: Re: well, it was good while it lasted
Posted: Wed Jan 15, 2020 8:18 pm
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Aspiring Musician
Aspiring Musician

Joined: Tue Feb 10, 2009 7:53 pm
Posts: 972
Yeah, i saw that. Looks to be the same basic amp but with new switching, speaker, cosmetics and a few new models. the one hopeful thing is that fender MUST hit this one out of the park with NO dropouts and other bugs or thier rep will be hopelessly lost after the GT fiasco. And they gotta know that, so there's hope.


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