Last night was my first gig and thanks to the excellent help from this forum, the night went pretty well! Had lots of fun and some new connections for later gigs.
I do however have got some opportunities when it comes to ny set-up. Last night didn’t go on without a hitch; I did experience some issues. Here they are:
The VCI-100 would intermittantly lose connectivity with the computer. I figured out all I had to do was unplug the USB and reconnect - but this did prove stressful if it happened near a transition. BTW - this happened on both USB ONLY AND USB WITH A POWER CHORD CONNECTED.
There was a complete sound loss about 4 hours into the set. Luckily everyone was drunk and having a good time and this was at a house party. I’m concerned 'cause I’m looking to get into clubs but not with that. I ran a latency check and every 5 seconds, latency spikes (with Traktor on). I’ve got no internal sound drivers, no Wifi, all firewall, auto update, system restore settings off. I’m running practically a bare bones set up… any ideas?
much appreciative of all the help so far! Thanks guy/gals!
i remember something that used to happen to me in my old apartment which i would have never thought of until someone suggested it on the ableton forum
the wiring in the building was really old and every time certain light switches were flicked on and off it would freak out my sound card and also make me lose the connection between midi controller and laptop
this probably isnt the answer to your problem but it jsut reminded me of it when i read that you were playing a house gig - ofcourse im sure it can happen in old buildings that are gig venues which have some half-assed job wiring done in the building
@buzby - No this makes a lot of sense. The house I played at was built like in the friggin’ 50s or 60s. The wiring was bad. I had to crank the speakers loud to over come a buzz we realized came from the amp but was caused by the outlets. Huh… that’s interesting…
like i said, i would have never thought of it until someone on the abe forum asked how old the building was an the last time it had been re-wired and i found out that the wiring had nt been touched for over 20 years and the initial job was pretty dodgy …
i guess i should have guessed cos also whenever the kitchen light was turned on and off i used to get a sharp glitch pop come through my monitors
so - only gigs in luxurious pent house suites is the pre-requisite that you should demand for future house party bookings
This may sound stupid but shouldn’t a surge protector fix this. Also if you have a buzz in your sound you need to raise the ground, get a 3 prong to 2 prong adapter for your computer / speakers.
yeah, this is a grounding issue in how the laptop is feeding power into the motherboard (and directly routing to the USB and sound channels)
same reason why some laptops have a hum whenever the fan turns on.
there are lots of ways to correct the problem, but it can be variable to each laptop.
and foreverhex, a surge protector wont magically fix an internal board grounding issue. (especially if, like most laptops, the grounding issue is on the DC jack, not the ac adapter.)
I had a bit of trouble with my VCI dropping out on me and 1 thing i found was that i had a smoke machine plugged into it at the club and after noticing a click through the speakers when switching it on sometimes i worked out the smokey was drawing too much power and resetting the VCI. Swapped power supplys around and took it the smokey outta the loop and never had a problem since.
For buzzing, the car stereo ground loop thing worked wonders for me… My mate spent far too much time/money trying to solve his buzz issue, turns out the loop isolator that cost about £5 from the local electronics shop did the trick
I’ve had large intermittent clicks coming through the speakers before, turned out it was the beer fridge powering on
“IF”, the problem is power fluctuations from your Event location or Home outlets, this can be solved by using a Power Strip with a Power Conditioner. This will keep a steady flow of power to you equipment. It should also keep your equipment from drawing too much power and “steeling” it from other peaces of equipment, which would cause problems. wisegeek.com breaks it down pretty good…
" A power conditioner is an electrical device that provides “clean” AC power to sensitive electrical equipment. A typical power conditioner for home or office has up to 10 or more receptacles or outlets and commonly provides surge protection as well as noise filtering. Many models also provide Ethernet, cable and phone line conditioning.
Most people are familiar with surge protectors, which guard against damage due to sudden spikes in the electrical current. While surge protectors safeguard equipment, a power conditioner cleans the signal, eliminating interference on the line. This can translate to faster, more reliable network operations, improved modem throughput, better quality cable TV feed and superior audio/video for home theater systems.
Line noise can result from a number of issues including random fluctuations in the AC current, inferior or damaged wiring, interference from other machines or appliances, overhead fluorescent lighting or even bad weather. “Dirty power” impedes signal clarity by causing disruption of signal integrity. In the example of a television set, static translates to a visually degraded picture or “snow.” Audio signals suffer distortion. A dial-up modem might get frequent disconnects, while static on a DSL or cable modem will negatively impact data transfer speeds."
