From mkarl2@uswest.net Wed Jan 21 18:58:43 2004
Subject:power problems at gig

Monday eve my band played a gig for a private party in the Grand
Saloon at Old Tucson Studios, Tucson AZ. Due to scheduling
conflicts, we only had 45 minutes to set up. And so our debugging
efforts were desperately high-speed..

Moments after we turned on the power - grounded wall outlets - my
problems started. My Motion Sound Pro/LoPro combo turned into a
crackling hum generator.. whether the instrument cable was plugged in
or not.. moving around the speaker caused the hum to change..
dragging a wedge monitor away fixed the hum.. for about 15 seconds.
I changed the power source, ran another long extension from a
grounded outlet about 50 feet away.

I ended up disconnecting the MS stack and used a Voce Spin that the
guitarist had in his bag. The Spin stepped on the tone badly, and
had two speeds - fast and stopped. Major suckage all night. During
our first break I checked everything again and turned it back on..
same thing.

Meanwhile, the guitarist's Peavey solid state amp was acting up..
his 'rhythm' channel had no power, then it did. There was
unaccustomed hiss coming from our PA.

All I can figure out is this was either a low-voltage situation, or
there was some sort of huge transformer right under the wood stage.
Upon bringing everything home and setting it up, it sounded just fine.

What would protect against this nonsense? If I got a small computer
UPS I'd have to match its amperage against the draw the Motion Sound
plus the P80 and Voce V5 would place on it.. what do YOU do to ensure
against horrid power problems playing out??

thx karl