Noise Issues

[Thunderbroom]

My band played a fest Friday night that was using a generator for power. I got set up (bass player) and sound checked. When we started the first song, a howling distorted mess came out of my amp. I'm running a wireless unit to/from a pedalboard and into my amp. The sound engineers at this gig used their own external DI and mic'd my cab. Ultimately to get the noise to go away, I had to plug direct into their DI to get the problem to go away. It took about a song and a half to get to this realization.

 

I checked all of my gear earlier that day and had no problems. On Saturday, the day after, I set all of my stuff up again in my garage. It sounded great.

 

We played another fest gig last night (Saturday). Using the exact same setup on my end we had zero issues. The sound folks last night suggested that it was likely a problem with the generator at the Friday night gig.

 

What say you folks? Is there a way, as a musician, that I can guard against (and be prepared for) situations like this in the future?

[madjack]

I notice your wireless unit in your sig covers from 516 - 865 MHz. Part of the frequency is in the illegal band now. Did you check to see if you were operating in the 700s range? You might have had interference from another source?

[Thunderbroom]

 

I notice your wireless unit in your sig covers from 516 - 865 MHz. Part of the frequency is in the illegal band now. Did you check to see if you were operating in the 700s range? You might have had interference from another source?

 

 

I didn't check; however, the first thing I did was take the wireless out of the loop (kept everything else) and still has the same issue.

[agedhorse]

Was the generator ground bonded to the genny frame and a ground electrode?

 

By change was genny power beingused with other power at the same location (another genny, shore power etc.?)

[jwlussow]

Sounds to me like the generator was not properly grounded. We had a similar problem a few years ago. The fest used a generator to supplement the power to the stage. Bad idea.

[Thunderbroom]

Was the generator ground bonded to the genny frame and a ground electrode? By change was genny power beingused with other power at the same location (another genny, shore power etc.?)

 

I certainly didn't check out the generator, as I was there to play music not run sound. I wouldn't know what to check anyway. I was playing some pretty awesome GB gear though. I was pretty certain that the problem was on there end when they got noise out of the DI on my Shuttle as this thing is normally dead quiet.

[agedhorse]

If the FOH was powered by shore power and the back line and stage power was from a genny, there's almost sure to be noise problems and very big ones too.

 

Generator power requires a fair amount of ground path planning, otherwise results will probably be erratic and random throughout the day.

 

I have had little trouble using generator power, but anytime I do I spend a great deal of effort planning and executing things properly. Last show I had a 65kVA CAT genny which was flawless and ran for 96 hours straight.