Higher Notes Cancel Power from Lower Notes

Can you turn down guitar volume pot, interface input pot, and all the options (input vol, gain, output vol) on the amp sim, to the point that your signal is clean?
If so, take all other effects out of the loop to make certain there's no other compression or limited involved, and make sure that your guitar track, and master track, in your software are no where near clipping,
then gradually raise everything bit by bit until the problem appears.

I'm still betting that some stage is just too hot for the next stage and it's going to be a case of reducing some level,
most likely input level at the sim or input gain on your interface.

If that doesn't help then I'm really not sure. I'd guess it's just a quirk of the amp sim or amp sims in general,
but that seems unlikely.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Can you turn down guitar volume pot, interface input pot, and all the options (input vol, gain, output vol) on the amp sim, to the point that your signal is clean?
If so, take all other effects out of the loop to make certain there's no other compression or limited involved, and make sure that your guitar track, and master track, in your software are no where near clipping,
then gradually raise everything bit by bit until the problem appears.

I'm still betting that some stage is just too hot for the next stage and it's going to be a case of reducing some level,
most likely input level at the sim or input gain on your interface.

If that doesn't help then I'm really not sure. I'd guess it's just a quirk of the amp sim or amp sims in general,
but that seems unlikely.
Click to expand...
Followed your suggestion and I brought everything down to zero. Slowly bumped it up and I can get about a quarter of the volume from the guitar knob, ZERO input on the amp sim, and ZERO input on the interface before I start to encounter the issue. Basically, the most minimal crunch tone will cause it to happen.

My thought is that the guitar is too hot going into the interface. Even at ZERO input (which is what I'm usually at), I'm still hitting yellow (around -10).
Maybe a DI box with pad would help?
 
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Ok, maybe we're getting somewhere!

Both the Maudio 2x2 and the SSL2 have hiz/instrument inputs.
With the maudio you'd be using a 1/4" TS cable plugged in to the front left (instrument (2)) input,
and with the SSL you'd be plugged into the input round the back, via 1/4" TS cable, and have the push button for hiz engaged.

Is that what you're doing?

If you are, is your guitar active?

Certainly it sounds like something strange is happening.
With input gain on either interface turned down to zero I'd expect silence.
 
That's correct. I've tried with and without the HI-Z engaged and doesn't seem to matter. The guitar is hot, either way.

Tried it on my active pickups (7-string Ibanez) and my passive pickups (6-string PRS custom), and both produced the same issue.

Yeah, that was my thought, as well. At the very least, I would figure I wouldn't be getting nearly as much gain as I am. I may pick up a cheap DI box and run it into the SSL 2. That should give me some more latitude to bring down the input gain.
 
Just got the DI box and switched the pad to -40db and I'm still having the issue.

Back to the drawing board. The only thing I can think of, that would be consistent across both PC's, is some kind of setting in Windows 11 OR some kind of interference in my house. I don't get any feedback, hum, or buzz, though, so that doesn't seem likely.
 
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