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I had a problem with my 16.4.2 last weekend. During the first song of the night the board would freeze up and quit passing sound for a few seconds then start working again. This happened 3 times in about 3 minutes. We had a spare board so we swapped them out and finished the gig. Earlier in the day it happened once during the soundcheck when the whole band was playing. I called forum poster BigJD and asked him for advice and we both thought maybe bad power or maybe a one time glitch. After the soundcheck I had just the drummer playing throught he PA and it worked fine. We had our distro hooked up to a pole with a 50 amp breaker. The power conditioner in my amp rack was showing a flucutuation between 110 and 114. I have been using the board at my house since then but only one channel and it has worked fine. I posted over at the presonus forum but I know alot of you guys use them so any thoughts

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Do you use a UPS? I had problems like that early on. I put a cheap stand-by type UPS and still had problems. Ultimately, I had to put in a continuous UPS in line and I've been great ever since. Note the continuous UPS constantly power from the batteries and the batteries constantly being charged...stand-by UPS' run from the AC power and quickly switch over to battery when certain AC conditions are detected.

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Is this a new board? Have you verified that you have the most up to date firmware loaded?

 

Also, was it connected to a laptop? There were some bugs early on where if you had a bad firewire cable (such as the one they shipped with the early boards) you could get some strangeness like this.

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I have one of the original boards with about 175 shows on it now and haven't had a single issue other than it fails the "radio test" (

). I never had it fixed as I would have had to ship the board. That said, there have been documented instances of bad power supplies that Presonus has replaced.
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Modulusman: It was worth a check. It affected many people back then.

 

I'm not saying a UPS isn't needed (though I don't even bring mine anymore), but personally I have a hard time believing that would help in this case. The reason I say this is because, if the board had reset, it would have had to completely reboot. You know how long this takes. From what you are describing, I assume you just had some audio drop-outs, not a re-boot.

 

If the board is sync'ed with a computer, it can glitch if it losses lock, producing audio drop outs. But if you're not sync'ing clocks, that's not what's happening. I assume no one was pushing buttons on the board :) .

 

I would suggest contacting PreSonus service. IME it takes them a couple of days to get back to you, but they are very helpful once you get to them (if you call, expect to be on hold for quite a while).

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We spent a couple of hours talking about it,all I could figure was scetchy power.

Modulusman was outdoors. At the end of a single drop from a power pole , that also was feeding a bunch of conssecion stands before it got to him.

Sounded like when he and his drummer checked it out early on Saturday no one was around and it worked. I believe that when they started playing later that evening and the stands were open is when they had the troubles.

Full band and beer and food freezers and friges running probably put a big load on the power run occasionally ( freezers cycling on- off) no amperage when needed.

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We spent a couple of hours talking about it,all I could figure was scetchy power.

Modulusman was outdoors. At the end of a single drop from a power pole , that also was feeding a bunch of conssecion stands before it got to him.

Sounded like when he and his drummer checked it out early on Saturday no one was around and it worked. I believe that when they started playing later that evening and the stands were open is when they had the troubles.

Full band and beer and food freezers and friges running probably put a big load on the power run occasionally ( freezers cycling on- off) no amperage when needed.

 

thanks for any advice you offered over the phone.:thu: We just had band practice and the board worked fine but i was only using 3 channels. I may have to wait awhile before I use it at a gig because most of the gigs this summer are weddings. I don't want to take a chance on being attacked by a bridezilla if the board were to act up again.:lol:

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I can totally see how "festival power" and, what amounts to a mixing computer, wouldn't get along well.

 

 

There is absolutely no reason why it has to be like this with proper design. The problem appears to be that digital audio designers don't think as deeply about robustness and the support hardware like power supplies and output electronics because they aren't as sexy as software and GUI's.

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There is absolutely no reason why it has to be like this with proper design. The problem appears to be that digital audio designers don't think as deeply about robustness and the support hardware like power supplies and output electronics because they aren't as sexy as software and GUI's.

 

 

Maybe, maybe not. You don't know what the power situation was anymore than I do. If there was a true brown/black out, no computer would stay on. That said, if you had other devices like wireless mics, guitar processors, speaker processors, etc and they didn't go "blinky blinky" then yes it would seemingly be either a bad power supply or underengineering.

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The town electrician had came by that morning and installed a 14-50 range plug on a light pole for us. The main breaker on the pole was 50 amps. We were using a Peavey distro. We were actually about a 150 yards from the rodeo arena. We were also at the end of the line for the power being supplied to the whole complex. There was one more street light past the band stand. Don't know if it was power related but the guitar players Fender tube amp would not work the 2nd night of the gig. The on light worked but no sound. We always carry spare equipment. Peavey saved the day. We used a Peavey fx16 board and we had a Peavey classic 30 for a spare guitar amp.

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Maybe, maybe not. You don't know what the power situation was anymore than I do. If there was a true brown/black out, no computer would stay on. That said, if you had other devices like wireless mics, guitar processors, speaker processors, etc and they didn't go "blinky blinky" then yes it would seemingly be either a bad power supply or underengineering.

 

 

There is a history of problems with digital devices that do not have the robustness that analog or more professional gear has. Can't be sure in this specific instance, but it seems to be more and more an issue with digital specific gear which (probably) could be improved with a more robust design that was fault tolerant and incorporated more energy storage for carry through of these momentary events. I know that if I was designing this kind of gear, I would be looking at it this way.

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I had a problem like this a year ago at a festival. The 10KW gennie died, so they brought in a 5KW welding generator. Needless to say, it's power wasn't great, but I had a UPS with AVR on it. The juice from the gennie was so piss poor it cooked the AVR in the UPS. The house rig was all ancient class AB amps and they were pulling so much off the gennie it was bogging down, which dropped the line frequency. Once it got below 52hz, the desk froze. It still passed audio, but the surface was non reactive.

 

When I got back to the shop I put the desk on our power test rig (which allows you to dial in any combination of voltage and frequency ) and verified that the desk starts getting flaky at 54hz, and definitely isn't happy with anything sub 52Hz. This makes sense as the clock freq for digital stuff is derived from some multiplier of incoming line freq. It also starts generating audible artifacts when the voltage gets below 105V. So at least for the 16.4.2 those are the hard numbers to avoid. It also means you want to have some sort of frequency meter with you in the field.

 

So I thought, ok, I need a better ups. So I bought a "really good" APC always on UPS, and that one fried on a 30KW Aggrekko at another festival. UPS's are just not keen on modified sine inversions at all.

 

Since then I have a devised the final solution to solve that {censored} once and for all. It's 12V Deep cycle marine battery (which really aren't true deep cycle, btw, as they need to have enough starting current to start a marine engine, but I digress) feeding an a decent modified sine inverter with an 55A RV Converter powering the battery in a pelican wheel case.

 

The desk, laptop, wifi and all that stuff can run for 5 days non stop with a total loss of power and the whole solution costs way less than a computer UPS that just isn't designed for field use. This is my go to solution for recording festivals running off generators when I don't have my rig, and I've had zero issues with it since. For about half of what I paid for the "pro grade" always on UPS, I built one with absurd capacity that could give a rat's ass about what it's being fed for power, because RV Converters will run off the output of any crappy generator you throw at them.

 

Now when I have the desk in my rig (my remote truck is a modified 5th wheel RV) this is a non issue as I have essentially the same thing but on a much larger scale. It's a pair of 6V true deep cycle batteries in series to 12V (440 amp hour capacity) feeding a 6KW inverter with a 70A 3 stage converter feeding the house batteries. In a pinch, I can also run my PRX FOH and monitor rig off it for about 3 hours if things go really far south, and we came pretty close to that a couple weeks ago at Wakarusa when the storm took out all the shore power on the mountain and the only stages still running were those on gennies.. Fortunately the venue had a spare 25KW, so we just had to wait for them to tow it over to the stage.

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There is quite a difference between a professional 6kW PSW inverter and any of the MSW prodicts, ESPECIALLY those with tap changing AVRs. The problem is hunting and positive feedback loading to the source and a genny, ESPECIALLY a small genny has a high source impedance which falls into the positive feedback scenario... decrease in load causes the tap to change up, which increases the current which increases load on the genny which decreases the voltage which causes another tap change up which increases the load on the genny, etc. The increase in the load causes the genny to fall out of voltage regulation capability and the mechanical load on the genny head causes the engine to run out of available power (ie. the governor runs out of throttle). It's made even worse when the load is dynamic and you end up with oscillation and hunting due to wildly changing variables.

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I had a problem like this a year ago at a festival. The 10KW gennie died, so they brought in a 5KW welding generator. Needless to say, it's power wasn't great, but I had a UPS with AVR on it. The juice from the gennie was so piss poor it cooked the AVR in the UPS. The house rig was all ancient class AB amps and they were pulling so much off the gennie it was bogging down, which dropped the line frequency. Once it got below 52hz, the desk froze. It still passed audio, but the surface was non reactive.


When I got back to the shop I put the desk on our power test rig (which allows you to dial in any combination of voltage and frequency ) and verified that the desk starts getting flaky at 54hz, and definitely isn't happy with anything sub 52Hz. This makes sense as the clock freq for digital stuff is derived from some multiplier of incoming line freq. It also starts generating audible artifacts when the voltage gets below 105V. So at least for the 16.4.2 those are the hard numbers to avoid. It also means you want to have some sort of frequency meter with you in the field.


So I thought, ok, I need a better ups. So I bought a "really good" APC always on UPS, and that one fried on a 30KW Aggrekko at another festival. UPS's are just not keen on modified sine inversions at all.


Since then I have a devised the final solution to solve that {censored} once and for all. It's 12V Deep cycle marine battery (which really aren't true deep cycle, btw, as they need to have enough starting current to start a marine engine, but I digress) feeding an a decent modified sine inverter with an 55A RV Converter powering the battery in a pelican wheel case.


The desk, laptop, wifi and all that stuff can run for 5 days non stop with a total loss of power and the whole solution costs way less than a computer UPS that just isn't designed for field use. This is my go to solution for recording festivals running off generators when I don't have my rig, and I've had zero issues with it since. For about half of what I paid for the "pro grade" always on UPS, I built one with absurd capacity that could give a rat's ass about what it's being fed for power, because RV Converters will run off the output of any crappy generator you throw at them.


Now when I have the desk in my rig (my remote truck is a modified 5th wheel RV) this is a non issue as I have essentially the same thing but on a much larger scale. It's a pair of 6V true deep cycle batteries in series to 12V (440 amp hour capacity) feeding a 6KW inverter with a 70A 3 stage converter feeding the house batteries. In a pinch, I can also run my PRX FOH and monitor rig off it for about 3 hours if things go really far south, and we came pretty close to that a couple weeks ago at Wakarusa when the storm took out all the shore power on the mountain and the only stages still running were those on gennies.. Fortunately the venue had a spare 25KW, so we just had to wait for them to tow it over to the stage.

 

 

For the record, I highly doubt that the digital stuff runs from a multiplication of the line frequency. All the digital circuits are run from high frequency crystal oscillators. That said, lower frequency, lower voltage AC inputs likely do not allow the AC/DC converter to maintain voltage regulation, which is why the desk probably became flakey. Minor point, but good not to spread misinformation.

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So what I've learned here is "avoid festivals" :) I've only had to do the generator thing once, on a parade float, and it fried guitar players processor and wireless. They shut it off while all our stuff was powered on despite me expressly saying before, during, and after the parade to please let us turn our stuff off prior to shutting down the generator. I'd learned here actually that was a no no to just flip the off switch on a generator while everything is powered up.

 

Every festival I've ever been approached to do has been some seemingly half baked situation for low ball pay or "exposure" and I've passed on the "opportunity". From what I've read lately I'm not feeling too bad about that.

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No reason to avoid festivals. Plenty of reasons to avoid cheapskates. I use a generator often with digital gear and have never had a single issue. The problem is you must have the correct generator, not a welding or construction generator. I own a Honda EU3000 and it is better current than I get out of the walls in a home or club. I also use lots of MQ Whisperwatts, and they are excellent if sized for the gig. The festivals to avoid are the ones where there is no money to do it right, or they just won't spend that money that they DO have.

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No reason to avoid festivals. Plenty of reasons to avoid cheapskates. I use a generator often with digital gear and have never had a single issue. The problem is you must have the correct generator, not a welding or construction generator. I own a Honda EU3000 and it is better current than I get out of the walls in a home or club. I also use lots of MQ Whisperwatts, and they are excellent if sized for the gig. The festivals to avoid are the ones where there is no money to do it right, or they just won't spend that money that they DO have.

 

 

Is this what you are talking about?

 

http://m.powerequipment.honda.com/generators/models/eu3000is

 

Just one?

 

Would one run:

 

StudioLive 24.4.2

2- IPR3000

3- IPR1600s

2- LS800p's

Misc band gear? (bass amp, 2 guitar amps/keyboards)

 

Might have to pick one up.

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No reason to avoid festivals. Plenty of reasons to avoid cheapskates. I use a generator often with digital gear and have never had a single issue. The problem is you must have the correct generator, not a welding or construction generator. I own a Honda EU3000 and it is better current than I get out of the walls in a home or club. I also use lots of MQ Whisperwatts, and they are excellent if sized for the gig. The festivals to avoid are the ones where there is no money to do it right, or they just won't spend that money that they DO have.

 

 

My comment was a bit tongue in cheek, but not entirely. It just seems like for every real festival there are 10 doing it partially or entirely wrong in that provided production is woefully inadequate and all the risk is on the entertainer. Early on in the band we did one of the largest festivals in the country. The board was from the early 80's and had been struck by lightening some time ago so only like 5 channels worked. The board was also behind the stage and nobody was running it. This was the main stage and they forced all acts through this system. The speakers were M*A*S*H style on poles with some kind of lower frequency driver in a flying saucer like disc hanging further down the pole like a giant hubcap. No monitors. They wanted us back next year but wouldn't pay for us to bring in real sound so we declined. Last I heard they now hire out. Still, most festivals I see have atrocious setups. Luckily most festivals also don't think about booking the bands until a few months before the festival so we're long booked by then and don't have to deal with a lot of inquiries. For the ones we do they quickly run away after I ask about "their sound" or price it with "our sound".

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