System drop out

Randy Gartner

Randy Gartner

Junior
Jan 12, 2011
465
18
18
72
Pennsylvania
randygartnersound.com
4th of July Weekend did a 2 day festival.Monday evening durring the final act the PA cut out about 4 or 5 times.Each time it was for just a second or two. The drop outs were so short,we couldn't tell where in the signal chain it occurred. At first,I thought that there must be limiters set,but checked the eq and the processor and no limiting was set. The amps had clip limiters set,but we wern't any where near clipping. After going over some possibilties with my electronics tech, he thought that perhaps the mute groups were engaging for some reason.We were running monitors pre fader from FOH and they wern't affected. I realize this is just an educated guess. Never had this happen before.Didn't have the system out this past weekend as one show was rained out and the other canceled.Any other ideas? APB Dynasonics Prodesk,Ashley Protea 4 channel digital EQ and Protea 4 x 8 processor into QSC PLX amps.
 
Re: System drop out

If you had really low power, some automatic output mute circuit might have mistakenly thought power was going away and muted prematurely.

Did the dropouts coincide with unusually loud musical sequences and/or light shows that might have been loading down the mains voltage?

JR
 
Re: System drop out

I just had a problem with an inserted EQ causing a drop out. It turned out to be the solder joints on the output XLR connectors in the unit. I took the unit apart and re-soldered the connectors and all is well with the world again.

Luckily it reared its ugly head during a rehearsal and I stopped using everything in that insert chain and trouble shot it on the bench shortly after that.
 
Re: System drop out

Bennett Prescott said:
Haven't you had DSP problems before? If everything is dropping out it seems like it would be a problem with something that affects everything... i.e. system DSP.
Click to expand...

Bennet,
you have a good memory.But the problem I had was completely different and I sent the unit back to Ashley and they said there was nothing wrong with it.I have used it about a dozen times since with no problems.But that is certainly one of the things I suspected. Just lookin to find out if anyone else has had a similar problem with any of the pieces in the signal chain.
 
Re: System drop out

John Roberts said:
If you had really low power, some automatic output mute circuit might have mistakenly thought power was going away and muted prematurely.

Did the dropouts coincide with unusually loud musical sequences and/or light shows that might have been loading down the mains voltage?

JR
Click to expand...
John,had no reason to believe we were having voltage problems.We were on a seperate 200 amp service and I measured voltage at the start.I saw no lights dimming and had no problem with loss of headroom which sometimes occurs with lo voltage.And to answer your question,the drop outs were not preceeded by unusually loud sequences.
 
Re: System drop out

Brandon G Romanowski said:
I had a voltage issue cause 4 PLX amps click off and back on before ....
Click to expand...
Hi Brandon,
In my experience, normally when the PLX's go off,it usually takes about 8 seconds to power back up because of the delay in the power up sequence.The drop outs weren't that long.

Thanks to all for the replies.I guess I'll see if it happens again this weekend.
 
Re: System drop out

Randy Gartner said:
Hi Brandon,
In my experience, normally when the PLX's go off,it usually takes about 8 seconds to power back up because of the delay in the power up sequence.The drop outs weren't that long.

Thanks to all for the replies.I guess I'll see if it happens again this weekend.
Click to expand...

I've had power drop outs of less than 8 seconds where PLX amps were starved for electricity. More like 3-4 seconds
 
Re: System drop out

It seems very unlikely that mute groups are involved. If only the main outputs were dropping out it is most likely a bad cable or connection. A bad insert point, or some other intermittent connection is almost always the culprit in a case like this.

Mac
 
Re: System drop out

Randy Gartner said:
4th of July Weekend did a 2 day festival.Monday evening durring the final act the PA cut out about 4 or 5 times.Each time it was for just a second or two. The drop outs were so short,we couldn't tell where in the signal chain it occurred. At first,I thought that there must be limiters set,but checked the eq and the processor and no limiting was set. The amps had clip limiters set,but we wern't any where near clipping. After going over some possibilties with my electronics tech, he thought that perhaps the mute groups were engaging for some reason.We were running monitors pre fader from FOH and they wern't affected. I realize this is just an educated guess. Never had this happen before.Didn't have the system out this past weekend as one show was rained out and the other canceled.Any other ideas? APB Dynasonics Prodesk,Ashley Protea 4 channel digital EQ and Protea 4 x 8 processor into QSC PLX amps.
Click to expand...

Hey Randy,
“Intermittent” is my middle name.
Hard to fix something if it isn’t broke at the time.
Hit the console with a double headed ax a few times and you know where to start…
 
Re: System drop out

Hey Curtis,
I'll give that a try.Today,there were no drop outs,but the Processor wouldn't communicate with the laptop.The rack unit showed everything was in mute,yet it passed audio.If I turned laptop off,audio went away,laptop on,audio was there,yet could not make any changes to the processor with either the laptop or with the front panel controls of the unit.Fortunatley,no changes were necessary.Guess I'll send it back to Ashley again.
 
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