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Church and H.O.W. – Forums for HOW Sound and AV - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Church and HOW Forums => Church Sound => Topic started by: Jeff Richmond on August 01, 2015, 06:43:08 PM
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Hi everyone,
First time posting here but we had an experience last weekend where I feel like this information should be somewhere on the internets.
For our mobile church plant we have a Soundcraft Si Expression 3 and a Mini Stagebox 32. It's a fine board and stagebox combo which has been working weekly without any major issues...until this past Sunday.
We set the system up normally, then when starting to soundcheck we discovered there was no pre-amp / gain control of anything plugged into the stagebox. Further, even though we were getting signal through (mics were quiet, but line levels were coming through alright) there was no meter reading on these channels despite the audio signal coming through the mains.
Our techs that morning noticed there was a small red stagebox icon on the top right corner of the board which we'd never noticed before. (Later we learned it is there when a stagebox is plugged in, and green when working correctly).
So, we took to troubleshooting, turning things off and on, reseating connections, trying different cables, etc. No dice.
Worst of all, no amount of googling was giving us any help, nor the manual for the Expression, nor the manual for the stagebox. So we did what comes naturally: acoustic set. It wasn't the end of the world as line level signals, and anything plugged in at FOH was fine (wireless mics, etc.).
We were pretty sure it was a stagebox issue, so we came the next night and setup the essentials (board, stagebox, mains, etc.) to troubleshoot. Again, same problem.
We got on support with Soundcraft (the california number, apparently the only support in US) and they were able to help us resolve it: There is a "reset" pin-button (need a paperclip) on the back of the stagebox. We have ours mounted in a rack, so not easily seen and we didn't see it mentioned anywhere on the manual.
The support person said there was a problem with the data stream, not necessarily any specific cause. The check he had us do was try to turn on phantom power for a channel of the stagebox and if no red LED comes on, there's an issue. Once we did the reset on the back, we were back to normal: gain control, meters, phantom power, etc.
The only indication something was wrong was a little red "stagebox" icon on the top right corner of the board's display screen. If the stagebox is working correctly, the icon is green. Not a very "in your face" indication of a problem, especially when it's not mentioned in the manuals for either hardware piece.
Anyway, hopefully this post will stay on the internet and someday help someone else in desperate need!
God bless,
Jeff Richmond
The Block Church
Philadelphia, PA
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among the many lessons I have learned running a digital board is always use a UPS on them. We once had a brown out which corrupted some memory in the unit. We had to do a similar "reset" and reload the firmware. Fortunately I am a stickler for backups so recovery was fairly painless. Now we have ups units on all our digital mixers.
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Thanks for the information.
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I had issues with an installed expression 2 and 16 channel stage box. We got no audio signal from the stage box. I think it was due to a brown out.
there was a small hole in the back of the stage box with a reset button in it. I hit the reset button and it has been fine ever since
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Jeff,
Your post saved me this morning!!! Phantom power not working when I turned everything on this morning. Hit the reconfigure button on the back and all was instantly well. Praise God. Thanks for your post!
Hi everyone,
First time posting here but we had an experience last weekend where I feel like this information should be somewhere on the internets.
For our mobile church plant we have a Soundcraft Si Expression 3 and a Mini Stagebox 32. It's a fine board and stagebox combo which has been working weekly without any major issues...until this past Sunday.
We set the system up normally, then when starting to soundcheck we discovered there was no pre-amp / gain control of anything plugged into the stagebox. Further, even though we were getting signal through (mics were quiet, but line levels were coming through alright) there was no meter reading on these channels despite the audio signal coming through the mains.
Our techs that morning noticed there was a small red stagebox icon on the top right corner of the board which we'd never noticed before. (Later we learned it is there when a stagebox is plugged in, and green when working correctly).
So, we took to troubleshooting, turning things off and on, reseating connections, trying different cables, etc. No dice.
Worst of all, no amount of googling was giving us any help, nor the manual for the Expression, nor the manual for the stagebox. So we did what comes naturally: acoustic set. It wasn't the end of the world as line level signals, and anything plugged in at FOH was fine (wireless mics, etc.).
We were pretty sure it was a stagebox issue, so we came the next night and setup the essentials (board, stagebox, mains, etc.) to troubleshoot. Again, same problem.
We got on support with Soundcraft (the california number, apparently the only support in US) and they were able to help us resolve it: There is a "reset" pin-button (need a paperclip) on the back of the stagebox. We have ours mounted in a rack, so not easily seen and we didn't see it mentioned anywhere on the manual.
The support person said there was a problem with the data stream, not necessarily any specific cause. The check he had us do was try to turn on phantom power for a channel of the stagebox and if no red LED comes on, there's an issue. Once we did the reset on the back, we were back to normal: gain control, meters, phantom power, etc.
The only indication something was wrong was a little red "stagebox" icon on the top right corner of the board's display screen. If the stagebox is working correctly, the icon is green. Not a very "in your face" indication of a problem, especially when it's not mentioned in the manuals for either hardware piece.
Anyway, hopefully this post will stay on the internet and someday help someone else in desperate need!
God bless,
Jeff Richmond
The Block Church
Philadelphia, PA
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Jeff,
Your post saved me this morning!!! Phantom power not working when I turned everything on this morning. Hit the reconfigure button on the back and all was instantly well. Thanks for your post!
And welcome to the forums! You will find there's plenty of great resources on here for people of all skill levels. However, per the Rules of Participation for the ProSoundWeb forums, your Display Name does need to be your Real, Full Name. Would you mind popping back into your profile and updating your Display Name to reflect your Real, Full Name?
Thanks!
Ray
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Wow this is really good to know.
We have an Si Impact and 2x 16 mini stage boxes. On one of them Channel 1 pre amp "went out". Produces a horrible buzz/hum/hi pitched noise when turned up. I doubt this will fix that issue, but its worth a try!
Thanks man!!!!
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Jeff thanks so much for this post! This really helped our show out of a jam.
- charlie
Charlie, please take note of my previous post on this same thread... :)
And welcome to the forums! You will find there's plenty of great resources on here for people of all skill levels. However, per the Rules of Participation for the ProSoundWeb forums, your Display Name does need to be your Real, Full Name. Would you mind popping back into your profile and updating your Display Name to reflect your Real, Full Name?
Thanks!
Ray