It’s always fun to be getting ready to do a show and discover that you have no audio. For the past two Saturdays, this has been the case. Two weeks ago, I noticed that the audio clove was intermittently going out. I was also having intermittent noise coming through the speakers, usually in the rear left speaker, though this has happened many time in the past and the exact cause is unknown. Even though the audio went out, I usually able to get it to come back on. Still I needed to figure out what was failing.
Well, last week I noticed that the input cards were still showing that they were getting signal, so as a test, I patched the audio from the input cards around the output card and directly into the EQ and thus speakers. “Ahoy!” said the sound coming from the speakers (no, not really). This told me that the problem was more than likely with the clove’s output card. Now, the clove has two slots for output cards, but we only have one in there, because we don’t need both of them in there at the same time.
Long story short, I removed the clove from the rack, removed the output card from it, and replaced it with the second output card. I slid the clove back into the rack and plugged all the audio cables back into it. It was alive! So I was able to successfully do the rest of my shows this past Saturday. During the week, I checked the audio every now and then and it was good. Mission accomplished! … or so I thought.
I come back in today to do the public shows… lo and behold what do I find? The audio is out again! NOOOoooOOOooOOoOoooo!
I’m back to step one… or zero… that’s probably more accurate. I really don’t see the other output card that I inserted having some sort of a problem, since I hadn’t even removed it from the package since Sky-Skan sent it back to us the last time. No, I think that the problem lies elsewhere, I just need to find it.
The LED on the front of the clove that would normally show ID09 is just a jumbled mess of symbols. I still wonder if the host processor card is having some sort of an issue. I thought this the last time we had problems and it turned out to be the power cord having a loose connection inside the wire itself. Surely the replacement cord we just got not too long ago is bad. I checked the wire this time and everything looked fine. No, it HAS to be something else this time. Toggling the power a few time got it to work for a whole two seconds.
Not wanting to disappoint paying customers, I had to move on to Plan B for the time being. What’s Plan B, you ask? A jury rigged solution! Grabbing an extra Mackie board from the performance hall, I pulled all the audio cables out of the rack and plugged them into it. Working quickly to adjust the volume levels to something that wouldn’t blow anyone’s ears out, I was able to do the 2 PM show, albeit a little late, but that’s fine. Better late than never, right?
I’m going to have to speak with Ron and Sky-Skan about the situation. While we will eventually get the problem fixed, both Ron and I would love to take another route. That is, upgrading this aging system to something more recent. That, of course, costs money and that is something that they are reluctant to spend if they can avoid it. We shall see.
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