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[Dan Brown]

Jeff,
I am glad you feel you have mastered the basics, but you need to learn to use the PFL button.  Set your gains on EACH and EVERY channel while using this button.  Turn the gain up or down till it averages around Odb or unity.  I know you are probably going to say "I already know this", but because of your comments earlier about having to turn the gain knobs up to 4 or 5 o'clock that you ARE NOT doing this.  If you were then you would have known that it was not your console and would not have had to ask the question.  When I was your age taking in all I could and going through the school of hard knocks, I had the same attitude.  I have since learned to take every lesson learned and use it.  NEVER stop learning, DON'T claim you know everything, I don't and never will.

As far as your second question, The Sub Groups probably are broken/intermittent, but none of us can say for sure.  Take it into your local, reputable repair shop and have them look at it.

Also Remember:
"If you stop learning or think you know it all, your are not becoming a better engineer."
respectfully

[yamaha135]

thesuperspike wrote on Sun, 03 April 2005 04:48

Jeff, I am glad you feel you have mastered the basics, but you need to learn to use the PFL button.  Set your gains on EACH and EVERY channel while using this button.  Turn the gain up or down till it averages around Odb or unity.

DUH!

AGAIN, as I stated in my first post. I WAS NOT THE SOUND GUY! The normal "sound guy" left not long ago leaving us with a 60 year old mechanic who knows nothing about live sound. Because of my age and people not trusting a kid to "mess around", they wouldn't allow me to touch the sound system. To make a long story short, I ended up running the sound for an easter performance and the whole church was very impressed. No mics squeeled... everyones mic was on when it was supposed to be, soundtracks were the right ones, etc etc(God forbid any of this happen in my church with the last sound guy); all very simple stuff, but it proved I knew more than most. My pastor, in his flesh, complimented me for about 15 minutes (he doesn't do that) along with 90% of the church. My worship leader went out of town and told me i'm in charge of setting everything back up for normal services and change what needs changed on the system. I JUST THIS WEEK got the responsibiliy of running the sound and setting eveything up. I haven't been doing this for more than 6 days (In my church)! I know to use the PFL button! Trust me! The reason why I never changed anything before was because I wasn't allowed! IF you told the guy that "runs" the sound now to use PFL, he would probably think your talking about some medication! In fact, I bought them their own set of studio headphones ($100!) for them to use so they could do that, but they didn't listen! I WAS NOT the one turning the gain up at 4-5 o clock! They didn't know any better, but ignored me when I told them they have something wrong in the system.

I dont take being called dumb or "unlearned" or "inexperienced" for my age as you can see. No, I dont know everything, but I'm always always always learning.

I would rather people just try to help me out than to try and tell me I need to go back to basics because they know my age. I'm not being a know-it-all, but I DO know what I'm talking about. If for some reason I dont, I ask for help (which I did... boy did that work well). I ended up solving it myself anyway! If I said that I was 35 and an experienced sound guy, there would have been no problem.


Bus problem: Can't take it to the repair shop. The church can't afford it (as stated in the first post.... does anyone read here?... not being snotty, but gosh). I need to repair it myself if it needs done. Will contact cleaner ruin the faders? I'm not sure that would do anything though because they aren't scratchy or touchy... one of them (#7) is just lacking signal. Should I replace the fader?

[Dan Timon]

Most of the experienced LAB readers who read your first post knew that the problem was most likely that your gain structure was out of whack, and that the sensitivity of the amps probably needed to be turned up. They did not respond to you because your know-it-all attitude leaped out onto the screen, and it seemed likely that you would respond as you did.

To reinforce that suspicion, you have now used a considerable amount of your attitude on two people who have offered you free advice.

You are undermining your chances of getting more advice, because it is much easier for a knowledgeable reader to go on to the next post than it is to answer the questions of a person who is likely to respond as you did.

Dan Timon

[Dan Brown]

Jeff,

Quote:

I dont take being called dumb or "unlearned" or "inexperienced" for my age as you can see. No, I dont know everything, but I'm always always always learning.

I don't see where anyone says this to you.  We are here to help and from what you SAID(I read your posts several times), I think we were trying give you suggestion we thought would help.

Congratulations on finding the problem.  This is a big part of doing sound and troubleshooting is needed to make it in this buisness.  

Quote:

The church can't afford it (as stated in the first post.... does anyone read here?... not being snotty, but gosh).

Don't get testy, Gosh Napoleon, relax

Your first post does not say you don't have money for repair.  It states this.

Quote:

Obviously going all wireless would be the key, but we can't afford it... we are working to pay the building off within the next 2 years which will leave us a TON of money to update the building.

Bringing the Console into a tech would be the best thing.
If you really can't, you should probably replace both (as a PAIR) faders.  This will make sure you have equal volume on both.  I only say this because I know someone who had only one replaced and the other was left, and becuase of age it wasn't as strong.

I am glad your CHURCH thinks you are the MAN.    

You stated:

Quote:

I'm not being a know-it-all, but I DO know what I'm talking about. If for some reason I dont, I ask for help (which I did... boy did that work well). I ended up solving it myself anyway! If I said that I was 35 and an experienced sound guy, there would have been no problem.

I think you have some ego issues going on here.  We can only help you with what we understand from your posts.  Just back down and relax.

Keep doing what you are doing and you will EARN your respect.  Learn all you can(as you say you are) and soon enough you will be answering the questions of others with ease.

I am only TRYING to HELP YOU!!!
respectfully

[Ivan Beaver]

As a suggestion-the FIRST thing you should do if something does not seem loud enough is to solo it and see what level you have in the channel itself.  Then start from there.  If your gains were where you said they were (4-5 O clock) you probably had a good bit of distortion as your channels would be peaking out.

In any good troubleshooting you should start at the input and work your way to the output.  You assumed that the inputs did not hae enough gain and looked for a solution for that, BEFORE you actually checked the levels-which is just a button push away.

The mackie is not a do it yourself type repair.  It involves a bit of work just to get to the component  side of the large master section and all the electronics are LSI surface mount.  You can try contact cleaner, but it may displace the grease in  the fader and make it rough feeling.  Are your assign buttons pushed on sub 7 & 8?  That would stop the signal from going to the mains.

Ivan Beaver

[yamaha135]

Alrighty then... maybe I blew up a little, but i have reason to. I guess I'm very tired of the fact that people dont think I can do anything because i'm just a teenager.

Heres where I pulled everything from:

yamaha135 wrote on Sat, 02 April 2005 06:08

I'm currently not the person in the back running the sound every sunday (i play the keyboards)

Then I get this:

thesuperspike wrote on Sun, 03 April 2005 04:48

Jeff, I am glad you feel you have mastered the basics, but you need to learn to use the PFL button.  Set your gains on EACH and EVERY channel while using this button.  Turn the gain up or down till it averages around Odb or unity.  I know you are probably going to say "I already know this", but because of your comments earlier about having to turn the gain knobs up to 4 or 5 o'clock that you ARE NOT doing this.

Of course I'm not using the PFL... I'm not even in the sound room.. I'm on the stage playing keyboard!

thesuperspike wrote on Sun, 03 April 2005 04:48

NEVER stop learning, DON'T claim you know everything, I don't and never will.

I never said I did! Never not once did I say I know everything. I said I know what I'm talking about so that I dont get some "Live Sound for Dummies" answer. I'm tired of posting questions and getting weak answers like read the book or check cables... obvious solutions that are common sense to check. People are always afraid of confusing the little boy with big words like decibel or compressor/limitor/gate.  

thesuperspike wrote on Sun, 03 April 2005 06:05

I am glad your CHURCH thinks you are the MAN.

Thanks for the sarcastic compliment... thats really trying to help me isn't it?! I guess I shouldn't be proud of myself for being the first successful "sound man" in the 15 years of the system being installed. It may not sound like much to you older experienced people, but it is... especially for our church who has listened to feedback for 15 years. I'm the first to accomplish setting up the sound system so that you could sing right by the speakers without feedback... in only 10 minutes. Point the mic at the monitors and mains and you wont get feedback... and the system doesn't have a feedback destroyer.



I guess I dont like when I solve a problem and then someone throws some articles at me like I should have known that. I did, but I was never allowed to change it! Idiots in the past blew the sound system completely so they weren't about to let a 17 year old mess with anything. To the church, they could hear Pastor when he spoke... good enough for them.

Sorry if I came across as a Know-it-all, but that is the LAST thing I would EVER consider myself. I love learning new stuff with audio and engineering... THUS the reason for coming here. I was pretty darn excited to find a place like this, but not so much anymore.

[yamaha135]

Ivan Beaver wrote on Sun, 03 April 2005 16:27

ou assumed that the inputs did not hae enough gain and looked for a solution for that, BEFORE you actually checked the levels-which is just a button push away.

I did... not sure where I said I didn't.  I had either 0db levels or pretty stinking close to it without clipping on the mixer. The problem was is that you had to have the gain at 4-5 o clock to get it there. Thus the reason I thought a pre-amp might help.

By troubleshooting, I went cable by cable from mixer>eq>amp>speaker to see what was missing. I noticed a 2 switches on the main EQ cutting the signal by 40db. I turned it off and the system is crazy powerful... as it should be with 1,400+ watts.

Doing this, I turned the gain down on all the mixer channels. They dont come up to 0 anymore, but they are close enough that I'm happy. With the lack of equipment (new amps, more EQ's, more cables), and lack of funds, I can't really go any further to correct this. This morning's service went without problems, so I will probably keep it that way until the church will allow me to upgrade the equipment and set it up they way it should be.

Unless anyone has suggestions as to what I should do (without buying anything), I assume I'm stuck. I suppose I could draw up a quick little diagram to show whats going on if that would help.

[Mark Cartwright]

yamaha135:

I was in your shoes probably 10, 11 years ago.  But, I was 14 and thrown into the sound tech position at the church with about 1 hour training on how to run the brand new board we had just got.  It went okay and we made it through.  I was never removed from the position.

It's now 11 years later and I'm 25.  Still doing the sound, but was promoted to Sound & Multimedia Director at the church several years back.  I have, over the past 11 years, learned a tremendous amount and done all I can to learn as much as possible.  This meant spending hours at the church trying things, reading online, reading magazines devoted to sound and pro audio, and recently visiting prosoundweb.com almost daily to read threads just like this one.

I did, for a few of my early years, hate to have anyone correct me or tell me anything.  I wanted to do it myself.  Now, I don't mind asking for help or getting comments from people - usually if one thinks something is too loud then someone else thinks it's too quiet.  My point - hang in there.  I got tired of people not respecting me in the position because I was only 14, 15, 16 years old.  But soon, after I showed them I could do it and do it well, I rarely got any complaints and anytime I needed anything it was no problem.  So, just show them you can do the job, be positive about it and don't let comments get to you, and hang in there.  Soon, you'll be wowing them and they'll wonder why you weren't doing this in previous years.

Just trying to help out.  Wanted you to know there are others who have been in the same place you are and, you're right, it's frustrating sometimes.  But, if you enjoy it then hang in there and keep doing just what you did here - look for ways to improve and get help whenever you don't know about something.

And always remember 1 Tim. 4:12 (in this situation or any situation):  "Let no one despise your youth, but be an example of the believers, in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity." (MKJV)

[yamaha135]

thx for that very kind reply!!! lol Glad to see someone round here knows what I'm talkin about.

BTW... that is one of my fav scriptures other than Jeremiah 29:11 and Isaiah 40:28-31.

Still no takers on what I should do? Tonight, I set everything back up the way it was before yesterday and I couldn't stand it. No, the levels on the channels weren't up to zero, but there was no power! Faders were maxed and trim pots were about maxed, and the amps were maxed.
What should I do here? The switch that I'm talking about is on the back of a Yamaha EQ. You can set it to -20db or +4db. The system is extremely weak if set to -20db. If I change it to +4, everything works awesome except the meters dont show 0db.

Thanks in advance.

[Mac Kerr]

Let me get this right...with the switch in the +4 position "everything works awesome", and with the switch in the -20 position "the system is extremely weak", and you want someone from this board to tell you how the switch should be set. Do I have it right? If it was me I would go with "everything works awesome", but that's just me.

Mac

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