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Hello, all!
I'm opening a show at 8:00 tonight, and I'm having occasional static distortion coming through my amp. It's occuring at very random intervals and for anywhere from a few seconds to a couple minutes. A few details:
I'm on a very new modx8
The theater has dirty power (it's in an old barn) and experienced a brownout earlier in the day. Later during the run there was another small one, but it was having the distortion issue before that. It's also plugged into a surge protector.
Also, the Guitar center I bought it from literally sold it to me with a Roland power adapter. I've been using the adapter from my MOXF8, dunno if that would make a difference, but I've been using it for a couple months with no issue.
The sound is being routed through a direct box, the cable going from the board to the box is brand new as of today (though I know it's not impossible to get a faulty cable), and the cable going from the box to the amp is the theaters, it might be old.
Most importantly, I've got a guitarist who is a gearhead (I'm very much not)- he said the brownouts may have fried one of the boards chips- is this in the realm of possibility? And if this were the case, wouldn't the problem be consistent instead of off and on? It was doing this before the brownout as well, which makes me really wonder if this is the case.
Thanking you in advance!!
Posted : 30/08/2022 4:48 am
Can you hear that thru headphones plugged directly into the MODX?
Posted : 30/08/2022 7:27 am
Topic starter
[quotePost id=118139]Can you hear that thru headphones plugged directly into the MODX?[/quotePost]
I haven't actually tried it with headphones in, but I'll be going to the theater plenty early today though to troubleshoot and I'll try it then. Could you tell me what it would mean if I'm playing with headphones and it's still distorting vs if I'm playing with phones and it's not still distorting? Thanks!
Posted : 30/08/2022 1:25 pm
If it's still distorting in the headphones (plugged directly in the back of the MODX), then you can be pretty sure the problem is with the MODX.
If not, then it's more likely it is somewhere else (but there's still a chance to be something with the main out of the MODX).
Posted : 30/08/2022 2:14 pm
If you think power quality is likely then you can purchase a UPS with a sine wave output which would provide clean power even when fed dirty power. Purchasing from a retailer with a liberal return policy can ensure you're not straddled with unnecessary equipment if that's not the culprit.
Posted : 30/08/2022 2:55 pm
MODX doesn't utilize earth ground so an external ground influence would come in through a USB cable or other cabling that has a GND pin (MIDI, maybe the audio path although these would probably be isolated since their connections are over such high inductance paths).
Your sound reinforcement is equally susceptible to whatever the power condition is in the room.
Some surge protectors have minimal filtering but you cannot really isolate completely without a more active solution (if that's the problem).
Posted : 30/08/2022 3:28 pm
