What I accomplished today at the studio.

Well first of all I slept in since I didn't have any work AGAIN! Then I went down to the studio to get they system ready for the Halloween show on Saturday.

I had to find a ground fault somewhere between the control booth and the stage, there was a horrible buzz, and it was even worse with tracks on the multi track armed and piping into the system. I also had to get the clean channel bypass working on at least one of my 3 rigs. It was not working on any of them. I need it working for the CARBONSTONE gig I have on the 7Th of November where we will be opening for LA Guns. We also recently secured a spot opening for Psychostick December 11Th. Sweet.

So I get to the studio, grab a diet coke from the Chinese food place next door and get to work. First thing I do is start taking EVERYTHING out of the loop as far as outboard gear goes. But then I reconsider my approach. In the back of my mind something has been telling me for months now that the problem is a phase difference between FOH and the stage rack, and more recently I have considered the possibility of A/C converters (wall warts) also being the culprit since I recently put all my outboard gear into a nice big rack that I got from a friend in trade for a smaller portable rack (we both think we got the better end of the deal). So I put every thing back in place and then run the splitter all the way up to the stage and plug it into the same outlet that the Furman (power conditioner) that all the amps are running through. The buzz in gone, sweet! But not so fast, I arm a track on the multi track and there it is again. Dammit! So I go poking around and find that when I move the Amphenol connector on the D-Sub cables back and forth the buzz cuts in and out. OK so I have an intermittent ground on the D-Subs, not a big deal since I can just push them around until the buzz goes away and pray that they don't migrate. Before I did all that I also moved the wall warts away from all the equipment and there was yet more improvement.

I did notice that there was an awful amount of hiss coming from the multi track with lots of channels at unity, but just hiss, no buzz. I generally am not running the board at unity when I am recording because the multi track is more sensitive than the amps anyway, so that's not a big problem, but one I would like to tackle eventually. I think the hiss is a result of the multi track not running balanced signals due to the fact that I do not have direct outs or returns, and as a result I have to use the channel inserts. I have a line on a 24x8 that does have them though, as well as a built in meter bridge, I just need to get some decent paychecks in first.

I'm also trying to put some money aside for a pair of Crown amps (2 more?, yes 2 more) that I have my eye on, to replace the monitor amps. So speaking of amps, I figure now that I have the buzz licked I should give the Peavey CS 800 another chance (that was the first piece of gear that I thought was at fault for the buzzing). Worked like a charm. So now I have the Peavey CS 800 running the top pair of full range cabs and the Crown CE 1000 running the lower pair. Then there is the Crown CDi 1000 running all 4 bass bins. The Crown CSL 800 is not doing anything right now. I need to change it around so that it is set up as follows...

CDi 1000 - Sound Bridge bins
CE 1000 - Behringer bins
SC 800 - CGM full range cabs (lower full range cabs)
CSL 900 - Behringer full range cabs (upper full range cabs)

Anyway, now on to the guitar amps. The Ampeg VH-150 (with Celestian loaded V-412TC) has a clean channel, and distortion channel and a separate level for the spring box for each. The Classic Chorus 212 (which was chopped down into a head) has a clean channel and a distortion channel with spring reverb and stereo chorus. The Stereo Chorus 212 has a clean channel, a crunch channel and a lead channel with stereo chorus and digital reverb and delay. But, as I mentioned above, the clean channel bypass button on the foot pedal on all 3 rigs is out. So the first thing I needed was a half stack with at least 2 working, switchable channels. Since I can dial the gain all the way down on the crunch channel on the Stereo Chorus and use it as a clean channel (which is what I have been doing in practice with CARBONSTONE) it made sense to switch the guts between the Stereo Chorus 212 Combo with the Classic Chorus head. So now the Classic is a 212 combo once again and the Stereo is a head. Now on to the foot switch. I opened it up and stated wiggling the cable around trying to find the intermittent part. I thought I found it, cut the insulator back and cut and spliced the lead to the clean switch. Didn't make a difference. Repeat process a few times, add head ache, add a few swear words and you get the idea to replace the cable altogether. But where are you going to find a shielded 6 wire cable on this kind of notice. I thought about using multiple PW291's and taping them together. It would work, but look like crap. The answer? Cat5! That's right, I wrote down the sequence and reassigned the 7 pin din connector to schedule 568B (minus the white/brown). I was worried because it is a smaller gauge cable than what Peavey had originally used, and I made it a bit longer than the original cable. But it worked like a charm, it's all just contact closure and some LEDs (which operate at only 1 volt), plus I saw that there was a bank of resistors in-line with each switch and LED, so I figure there can't be too much current running through it. If my foot pedal cable catches on fire during a show then I know I'll need different cable.

The Classic Chorus by the way decided it was going to behave, the clean bypass didn't give me any problems. I may go ahead and replace the cable with cat5 anyway, just to be safe. The Ampeg is only a 2 button pedal that uses any standard TRS 1/4 inch cable. It should not be too hard to sort out, if it become too much trouble I may just replace the switches or look into a whole new pedal, they can't be too much. Oh yeah, the output jack on my Schecter it being funny too. It may be time to re-do all the internal connections in that axe. Or maybe just the ones to the output jack, or it may be as simple as bending the spring for the tip in so that it makes tighter contact. Oh and one last thing, I put a modular service cord jack on the back of the Stereo Chorus head, so now the head is completely sealed. I may consider putting a cooling fan in it, but it has 2 huge heat sinks on the back so I should be in pretty good shape.

Until our next adventure...

Neely