mound Posted June 21, 2004 Share Posted June 21, 2004 Ok, this was weird, shocking, a bit disturbing, scary, name it, but lets see if I can explain it, bear with me please. The scenario is this. The jamspace is in the basement of an older house. Into a wall outlet was plugged the guitar player's 4x10 amp (I forget what kind, doesn't matter). I come in to the mix, with my keyboard rig which consists of a power amp, some racked effects, and a mixer as well as my Roland stage piano. When everything in it is running, it's hogging up maybe 1.5 amps according to the readout on the Furman power conditioner. Anyway, my rack and the stage piano were plugged into a 6 outlet strip/surge protector. So we have my surge protector and the guitar player's amp plugged into this one wall outlet. So far no problems. Now, my rig needed to be connected into the mixer that the rest of the band was plugged into for recording, and 'cause the drummer uses headphones coming out of that. This main console was plugged into another wall outlet on the other end of the room along with other gear. I needed to get lines out from my rigs mixer into two channels on the main mixer. I grabbed a 1/4" TS plug, plugged it into the line input on the main board, and as soon as the tip of this plug touched the Control Out jack on my small mixer, I saw a flash of light, and my whole rig shut down, as well, a fuse was blown in the house. At first we weren't sure what was going on, took a few retries at the fuse box and trying again until we realized it was the contact of the plug between the main board and my board. We also thought we saw a flash of light at the wall outlet. So, we unplugged the guitar amp and my surge strip into another wall outlet entirely, (one that is actually much closer to the main mixer) - now everything was smooth sailing (luckily none of my gear was fried) So what happened here? Can gear that is powered by different circuits in the room short each other out if their chassis grounds are connected as was the case here? Is it defective wiring in the house or something we did wrong? All plugs were 3 prong of course. thanks! -Paul "You look hopefully for an idea and then you're humble when you find it and you wish your skills were better. To have even a half-baked touch of creativity is an honor." -- Ernie Stires, composer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GY Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 Sounds like a wall outlet is not wired properly. If you don't know how to shut them off at your breaker box and check if they are wired properly, you can buy one of those 3-prong checkers from Radio Shack or Home Depot. They've got 3 LEDS on them and they'll tell you if they're wired properly. That would be the first thing to check and report back. GY Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mound Posted June 22, 2004 Author Share Posted June 22, 2004 I'll have to have my buddy check one of those out. I'll let ya know! "You look hopefully for an idea and then you're humble when you find it and you wish your skills were better. To have even a half-baked touch of creativity is an honor." -- Ernie Stires, composer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
where02190 Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 Yep, sounds like the outlet you bypassed is wired out of phase, the hot and neutral reversed. Hope this is helpful. NP Recording Studios Analog approach to digital recording. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mound Posted June 22, 2004 Author Share Posted June 22, 2004 hmm - so is it dangerous to use this plug if it's not being connected through roundabout ways to the other circuit? I know the guitar player has been plugged into that outlet for well over a year. "You look hopefully for an idea and then you're humble when you find it and you wish your skills were better. To have even a half-baked touch of creativity is an honor." -- Ernie Stires, composer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hard truth Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 The previous suggestions are good, but may also be a problem with a specific piece of equipment. After checking the outlets for proper wiring connect everything one at time and do some tests (being careful not to get electrocuted) to be sure it is not faulty gear. www.oranjproductions.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ITGITC Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 You forgot to tell the rest of the story... "In all the excitement, I ran outside to find a HUGE CROP CIRCLE in my back yard! Here... I drew a picture of it! It looked JUST LIKE THIS!!" http://www.reliance.com/logo_elements/ullog.gif Is There Gas In The Car? "Music expresses that which cannot be put into words and that which cannot remain silent." - Victor Hugo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mound Posted June 22, 2004 Author Share Posted June 22, 2004 In all the excitement, I ran outside to find a HUGE CROP CIRCLE in my back yard! Here... I drew a picture of it! It looked JUST LIKE THIS!!" http://www.reliance.com/logo_elements/ullog.gif dude now yer freakin' me out! How did you know? I was going to tell that part of the story, but I thought folks would think I was crazy! "You look hopefully for an idea and then you're humble when you find it and you wish your skills were better. To have even a half-baked touch of creativity is an honor." -- Ernie Stires, composer Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Botch. Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 Ah, "UFO Landing"! Always wondered what UL stood for... Botch "Eccentric language often is symptomatic of peculiar thinking" - George Will www.puddlestone.net Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fantasticsound Posted June 22, 2004 Share Posted June 22, 2004 BTW - Be sure to get the little yellow outlet tester. The cream colored Radio Shack version has 3 tiny windows to view the LED's. If the outlet is mounted sideways or upside down you won't be able to see the lights well or at all. The yellow ones from other sources have LED's that are visible from virtually any angle. Be sure to check out the 6-bar (6 outlet plug) your rack and keys were plugged into. It may have a loose wire (for that matter, this could be true of any of your gear) that crossed the hot wire. I had this happen to a band during a corporate gig for several thousand people. I had a bunch of new quad boxes with tails for daisy chaining across the stage. They were built by one of our lighting guys at Opryland. Good tech, but one of the boxes failed on it's output to the next box. Everyone down the chain now had neutral connected to hot. They finished a solo section and went to sing and were shocked with 117VAC which, of course, stopped the show dead in its' tracks. When I arrived at the stage from FOH the guitar player, who had been knocked on his butt, was up and deliberately putting his guitar strings up to the SM58 to show me it would arc. (I was tempted to deliberately shock him again to shut him up. ) Turned out the wire was jogged loose when the acoustic guitar amp plugged into the quad, which was leaning against the drum riser, had fallen over on top of said quad box. The guitarist completed the circuit with his hands on the guitar strings and lips on the mic. Despite being wireless, the fiddle player burned his index finger. (Because he likes to wedge it under the volume knob and rock it back and forth when he's singing. His finger made contact with the pot's post.) The keyboard player lucked out. Somehow it neither fried his gear nor caused any of the programming to clear or corrupt. It's easiest to find me on Facebook. Neil Bergman Soundclick fntstcsnd Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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