My Yamaha leads are both the same length and have straight jacks. I have had the cut-out problem (like so many others) and can't remember what leads I was using but ANY other leads I have are high quality ones. The problem seems to be down to the limiter deciding when things are too loud. What is bizarre, though, is that I have had individual channel and master volume levels set to about 10 o'colock (40% - well below the "peak" mark outside the knob) and have seen the red light flash with only two vocals going through the unit. Surely there is someone out there who could work out how to disable this silly limiter?