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Power conditioner idea?


One Bad Monkey

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I'm actually surprised how badly this theatre is wired for electric, but then again, maybe not. Depending on what lights are on in the house, my little EA amp makes all sorts of crackling noises and humming. Not that big of a deal, except it made enough noise that the "sound guy" (it's student run) demanded that I use a DI box instead of the one on the amp. Tossing one of those Monster strips in front of the large medusa-coil of outlets (half of which aren't grounded) helped a little and when the house lights are off my amp (as well as everyone else's) sounds nice and quiet.

 

Anyone have any ideas on how to remedy this? The guitarist and I are thinking this is probably just one of those "well, it is only a two weekend run" type gigs and to just deal. But I'm curious for ideas for the future.

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A power conditioner would be recommended. After you get one, watch how fast everyone else wants to plug into it...it acts like a plug magnet. :freak:

Just last month i took mine outta my rack to use on a different rig for an outdoor gig, i set the conditioner up first, pluged it in, started setting up my amp, went to plug in...i was left with 2 outlets in that short amount of time on a 9 plug unit...everybody jumped on it. :mad:

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A power conditioner would be recommended. After you get one, watch how fast everyone else wants to plug into it...it acts like a plug magnet.
:freak:

 

The conditioner I got was this one. There's an LED on it that shows that a ground is present, and it ain't lighting up anywhere in the pit. It did cut the sound down to a little more than half of what it was without anything.

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I need to get a power conditioner. Not just a power strip, but a conditioner that actually cleans up the power instead of just adding multiple outlets.

 

I learned from the amp fixing guy I took my amp into yesterday that some ground lift switches built into amps just cut the ground to the DI. Others cut the ground from just the input power. And others (including mine) cut the ground from the DI and the input power. There is also a difference between earth lift and ground lift. I can't remember what he said though.

 

 

 

And, for Salt Lake City forumites, if you ever need an amp fixed, take it to Mike at House of Guitars. He is extremely helpful and will tell you everything you want to know (and lots that you can't even comprehend) about your amp and what is wrong with it and what he is going to do to fix it.

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It sounds like the wiring is just horrible. It also sounds like there might not be viable ground connections at any of the outlets you've tried. I'd bring this to the owner's attention, and mention that it's a safety issue. You're one "vintage guitar amp" with an internal fault away from getting someone seriously shocked, and possibly killed. An experienced electrician should be consulted.

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I've had some success using a UPS I bought at Fry's for 30 bucks. Using the battery side seems to stabilize my power pretty well.

 

 

That's interesting. Why do you use a UPS? If the power goes out at the club you can keep playing? A UPS isn't a conditioner, so it's interesting that it stabilizes your power. You can certainly get one with a conditioner, but it ain't gonna cost $30.

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I was mostly dealing with the effects of power from a house that's built in the 1930s, and sometimes power would flicker or what have you with a bunch of amps attached. A surge protector + battery backup combo was always sufficient for my computers so I just did the same thing for amps.

 

Honestly I have no idea if it's good enough or whether it has the same effect, but I get no hums or anything under flourescent lights and other people do.

 

The OP's situation is weird though in that I wonder if he's getting interference from the lights or if the power is crappy because of the power draw of the lights.

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I was mostly dealing with the effects of power from a house that's built in the 1930s, and sometimes power would flicker or what have you with a bunch of amps attached. A surge protector + battery backup combo was always sufficient for my computers so I just did the same thing for amps.


Honestly I have no idea if it's good enough or whether it has the same effect, but I get no hums or anything under flourescent lights and other people do.


The OP's situation is weird though in that I wonder if he's getting interference from the lights or if the power is crappy because of the power draw of the lights.

 

 

Totally viable reason! I was just curious.

 

I've got quite a few UPS's here at work for various peoples computers, but then we have one giant one that carries our entire data center for when we lose power. We've got a generator as well, but it takes a second to kick in...which would be enough time for the servers to all blink...which would be bad!

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We use a portable power distribution box that is essentially like the breaker box in your house that plugs into a 220v outlet with a 50' 12ga power cable. It has 8 15A breakers - each with a 2 outlet box coming out the side connected with a 2-3" piece of conduit. This provides us with our own clean power as long as the 220 outlet we plug into is wired correctly...

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The conditioner I got was
this one
. There's an LED on it that shows that a ground is present, and it ain't lighting up anywhere in the pit. It did cut the sound down to a little more than half of what it was without anything.

Be sure that if you do ANY vocals, that you pre-test the mic. If you're running an ungrounded rig, you can really zap the crap out of your lips by touching them to another circuit (like the mic and PA system). :idea::idea::idea:

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The OP's situation is weird though in that I wonder if he's getting interference from the lights or if the power is crappy because of the power draw of the lights.

 

 

I don't think it's that weird, just sadly more common that you'd think. The theatre was built in the mid-late 70's and had (then) state-of-the-art sound and lighting. As the years have progressed, they've updated all of their sound and lighting, not realizing that tossing in a couple new circuits or requiring everything be grounded now is safer. Unfortunately, it probably goes down to money, and if we can "get by" without rewiring the entire theatre, then we're okay.

 

EDIT - Forgot to mention that around noonish, I got a reply email back from Gary at EA. Other than suggesting that I try to run a big extension cord to that wall outlet in the "newer" part of the theatre, it's a lost cause unless I want to try a voltage regulator (which he said run around $3-400). The Monster surge suppresor/power conditioner I bought did bring the hissing level down quite a bit (from very to mildly annoying) and since it's just a two weekend run, I think just dealing with it works.

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Totally viable reason! I was just curious.


I've got quite a few UPS's here at work for various peoples computers, but then we have one giant one that carries our entire data center for when we lose power. We've got a generator as well, but it takes a second to kick in...which would be enough time for the servers to all blink...which would be bad!

 

Hah, the worst part of that for me was walking through the big scary UPS room with a wall of batteries labeled "scary poisonous bad" all the time. I'm kind of a hypochondriac and that {censored} made me nervous.

 

Testing the generator always made our neighbors love us too, at the NOC I used to work in. One time my boss came in and tested it during some guy's karate class and he was mega pissed :)

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