Zoom G5 Sound cutting off when changing patches

[Guitar1969]

I have had my G5 for pretty much the whole time its been out and love it. Lately I have been getting into more of the ambient - guitar swells, reverby washy type of stuff (maybe to loop while playing another patch on top of it live etc) and I have also noticed that sometimes when switching patches from one of those patches, I will get no sound from other patches - I can switch through a bunch of patches with no luck, but then ultimately, the other patch will come back. Since I play live, I am concerned about this happening on stage. I am not so sure that is a problem with my unit itself, but more of a design flaw, maybe tied to using such a processor hungry patch. Anyone else ever have a problem with no sound when switching to ap atch, with no way to get sound for awhile?

 

[chrisjnyc]

Check you master volume, and volumes in the FX... If you use the PC\Mac editor its easier to find and fix.

 

[Guitar1969]

Check you master volume, and volumes in the FX... If you use the PC\Mac editor its easier to find and fix.

Unfortunately its not that simple. These are the patches I use all the time, so its an intermittent thing, and definitely not tied to the volume settings. Like I said in the orginal post, its seems to occur with the very full and complex patch sound (My Slow Shimmer sounds like a full organ, and will sustain for over 30 seconds if I don't trail it off with the pedal). Wondering if that combo is just too much for the small processor in the G5, causing the issue.

 

[Cool Hand Luke]

I don't really understand the issue here. Is the problem that those 30 seconds trails don't keep going when switching patches? There are no trails in the G5 so that would be expected.

If the problem is that the strings keep ringing but no new sound is produced by the new patch then check the new patch for:
* noise gate settings. Maybe the strings are ringing too weak to kick it open
* auto swell (slow gear) settings. Basically the same as above. The slow gear effect requires the incoming signal to be beyond a certain threshold to trigger.

Good luck.

 

[Guitar1969]

No - it has nothing to do with trails. Actually no sound is being produced after changing patches in certain situations.

I have isolated the problem and believe it to be a design flaw in Zooms algorithims to do with the volume pedal parameters but need someone else who knows their G5 pretty well to test it on their Zoom G5 to see if they have the issue, which will tell us if its a design flaw.

Here is the issue and how I recreated the problem:

It has nothing to do with the type of patch you are using but more with the custom foot pedal settings. I use the foot pedal merely as an up and down volume control (No Z pedal effects), and on the Zoom you can set up the "Custom Pedal" to control either Output volume (end of chain) or Input Volume (beginning of chain). I mainly use input volume, because I use delay a lot, and want to cut the signal but still have the sound decay a bit, but on a few of my patches that sustain a very long time (Ambient stuff) I have to use the Output volume setting since cutting the input does not kill the sound quick enough. Basically when going from a patch that is using the output volume pedal when you kill the sound completel(Pedal all the way up), if you switch to any other patch using the Input Volume pedal setting, you won't get any sound from the patches, and have to keep fiddling with it to get the sound to come back - which sucks if playing live.

Patch A
Grab one of your patches(maybe a clean one) and for the pedal, choose the "Custom Pedal setting"(Do not use a preprogrammed Z-pedal effect), and set it to Output Volume , 0 when up, 100 when down. Do not set anything up for left and right pedal setting .

Patch B
Grab one of your other patchespatches(maybe a clean one) and for the pedal, choose the "Custom Pedal setting"(Do not use a preprogrammed Z-pedal effect), and set it to Input Volume , 0 when up, 100 when down. Do not set anything up for left and right pedal setting .

Engage Patch A(output volume one), play it a bit, and then bring the pedal up fully to kill the sound of the patch (like you would at the end of a song, etc), now switch to Patch B, and see if you can get any sound to produce from the pedal, You can try rocking the volume pedal, but on mine, no sound will produced. After a bit of pedal switching and moving hte pedal, the sound will come back.

It seems that if you switch from Patch A to Patch B while there is still sound coming out (Not bringing up the pedal fully), then there is no problem, but kind of defeats an important use of the volume pedal.

Can someone try this on there Zomm G5 and report back?

Thanks,
Michael

 

[RAFS]

I only had the G5 for a couple of weeks (didn't like it). But I vaguely recall the pedal value would default to either fully up or down when switching patches, REGARDLESS of the actual pedal position. Please correct me if I'm wrong. So possibly it is defaulting to up. Why not try setting up as 100 and down as 0 to see if that changes anything.

 

[Guitar1969]

I only had the G5 for a couple of weeks (didn't like it). But I vaguely recall the pedal value would default to either fully up or down when switching patches, REGARDLESS of the actual pedal position. Please correct me if I'm wrong. So possibly it is defaulting to up. Why not try setting up as 100 and down as 0 to see if that changes anything.

If you change patches, the G5 defaults to the volume set in the patch itself(under the Total menu). The pedal does not change it unless the pedal is moved slightly, which then sets it to the pedal setting. For example, if the volume in the menu is set to 70, that is where it defaults to when first entering the patch, until you move the pedal, which then will set it to whatever volume you are at with the pedal.

Unfortunately it isn't something as simple as that - I wish it were.

I know this unit back and forth - have had it since launch, and this one has me stumped, but the more I play with it, I see its some type of design flaw or limitation in the programming.

Just need someone to confirm its not specific to just my unit, and then I can contact Zoom on it to hopefully address in a future firmware.

 

[johnnymegabyte]

I had a similar issue last year, when I used the left/right of the Z pedal to control the Gain on an amp model. I remember it doing something to any patches with Z pedal