At a gig last night, all of a sudden my pedalboard started making staticy sounds and then cut out completely, then came back a few seconds later. Happened again, now happens intermittently so I can't track it down....sounds sort of like turning a really scratchy old potentiometer....I worked the volume pedal a bit and it didn't seem to affect it, pedal works fine...
Plugging straight into the amp works fine. Doesn't seem to matter what effect is on or off.

Any ideas? Pedalpower 2 power supply problem? Problem in one of the effect buffers? How to troubleshoot?

Signal path:
guitar->tuner-chiwahwah-Keeley1-hotcake-keeley2-Duncan pickup booster-Donegan Weapon-microvibe-POG2-volume pedal->amp

NOTE: this message was cross posted to the PedalPower forum - I wasn't sure which forum was the best one...please answer there if it is convenient. Thanks!

Another symptom>
When it fails, it crackles for a second or two, with fluctuating guitar volume, then cuts out completely for a second or two, then comes back on, gradually, crackling a bit, then is fine. This exact pattern has happened a few times now....

Sounds more like an audio signal problem due to a failing cable or something. Try pulling one pedal out of the signal path at a time and you will likely find the culprit quickly.

Good Luck!

My problem is that it is very intermittent....I can't recreate it on demand, so pulling one pedal at a time won't tell me anything for an indeterminate amount of time...it happened twice on one day, then two more times over a week....it self-corrects after a short while without me touching anything, so I can't test it while it is happening...

All I can do is stand there looking embarrassed for the 15 seconds or so until it comes back on....

Any other troubleshooting ideas?

If you cannot test each pedal alone, and you cannot get the board into "fail mode", perhaps wiggling each cable could be a good starting point. Listen for any crackles or pops or any other abnormal behavior.

Try repeatedly activating/bypassing a single pedal at a time on each of the true bypass pedals. It could be a failing mechanical switch on one pedal.

Let us know what you find.

You will either find something interesting, or you won't.
Intermittent problems are always difficult to chase down and certainly my least favorite, however you should not dismiss a potentially valuable test just because you cannot reliably trigger the problem or because you have guessed the results. In the end, either of the above tests will likely lead you to running through each pedal anyway.

I hope that helps!

Thanks.....I've certainly tried pulling, pushing, and wiggling all of the cables, to no avail. I'll try repeatedly stepping on the switches for them next, good idea. Then I guess I'll simply replace all of the cables.

The sound it makes is sort of like when a battery was dying on an old portable radio...scratchy, in and out...but here it comes back on full after a bit. That's what made me think of the Pedal Power...

Have you EVER heard of a Pedal Power failing in this manner?

Thanks!

Because most of your pedals look to use a mechanical true bypass switch, they wouldn't even require power to pass signal when in bypass. This alone should pretty much exclude the power source as the culprit.
You can test the power by first installing batteries in all the pedals. The next time the signal drops out or the static noise appears, start pulling the power cables from each pedal.

Good Luck!

OK....looks like Donegan Weapon, Tuner, and Hotcake are NOT mechanical bypass (signal goes away when power is off those). So if one of those isn't working right, it could kill the sound.

I played for a long while today, hit the switches on those (and the others) a bunch, nothing bad happened, maybe that even cleaned one that was dirty and it OK now.

I'll replace all the patch cords tomorrow just to be safe.

And then just wait for the next gig, when it is sure to happen again (never happens in practice. of course. Well, did once.)

I am completely convinced that Murphy was a gigging musician.

So, only non-mechanical passthrough pedals are Donegan Weapon (which I use for the sitar sound), Hotcake, and Tuner....so I guess they could be the more likely suspects if it is a pedal problem.
And I don't really remember which pedals were on when this happens - too busy trying to unplug nad go straight into amp at gig....if (when?) it happens again I'll certainly take note of what is on and what is off...