Pedal board frustration

[uk_lefty]

Summary version: problem with my pedals and I don't know what it is or how to work it out.

 

Last week I giggled, had a great time. Friday this week in a venue where I know the electrics can be a bit iffy I powered on my pedal board and the lights on the pedals flashed on and off, not a good sign. Plugged into a different mains socket, no flashing but during soundcheck my amp wasn't getting any input, or it was intermittent. Bypassed the wireless, same problem. Ended up having to take my tuner off the board and go bass-tuner-amp, no effects except the onboard amp effects for a whole gig, which is manageable. Tested at home yesterday morning rather than break everything down and it was all fine, so I thought it must have been some dodgy sockets at the venue. Played a festival last night, very short turnaround and the bass sound kept dropping out in the first few songs. Waited for a quiet bit in a song, muted the amp, went direct to amp, no tuner. By the last song I was slightly out of tune, had no effects for the whole set, but at least had sound. 

 

How do I go about diagnosing what's wrong when at home with the same kit there just doesn't seem to be a problem? 

 

Could it be my power supply, a very cheap Caline unit? A worn out patch cable? A bad output jack on one of the pedals? 

[uk_lefty]

These are the pedals I'm running. The chain starts at the Boss wireless, everything else is in the FX loop of the EBS Microbass. Half the pedals are powered from the Caline which is strapped under the board, the other half daisychain off the Boss wireless which itself is powered by the Caline...

Edited September 10, 2023 by uk_lefty

[Downunderwonder]

In and out sounds like a dud patch cable. You'll tear your hair out trying to find which one, or you'll find it with the 1st wiggle. If you can't find it then it's a dud pedal on the blink. Good luck with that.

[uk_lefty]

33 minutes ago, Downunderwonder said:

In and out sounds like a dud patch cable. You'll tear your hair out trying to find which one, or you'll find it with the 1st wiggle. If you can't find it then it's a dud pedal on the blink. Good luck with that.

Thanks mate. I know someone who has a cable checker gizmo, I'll get hold of that and see what's what. It would be more worrying if it's a pedal or the power supply. I want to check thoroughly, was so close to sending my amp back to Ashdown until I thoroughly checked and realised it was just a speaker cable that must have worn out, £15 later and no issues.

[sandy_r]

Bummer!  It's a series system fed by a parallel system - plenty fun to troubleshoot, but unless you get lucky picking at random then a stage-by-stage check is needed

 

Since the Caline is common to all, a quick 1st check would be to remove that completely from the equation and thoroughly test it with a decent load, before then checking each pedal without the Caline. It might be a pain, but do you have the individual psu for each pedal? or someone to borrow a PSU from?

 

When checking the pedals (one by one), try different/same patch cords - I'd leave the wireless link disconnected 'til last so wireless signal issues don't muddy the water (use instrument cable until all checked?)

 

keep a note of what you checked - compile a 'good' list

 

if you get more gigging opportunities, in the meantime, try and split the pedals into 'good' and 'unchecked' sections and confirm which section of the chain is behaving or otherwise

 

A neat approach to homing in on something with many sections is the 'binary chop' - divide the problem into 2 'halves', one half should be ok, the other iffy.  Then divide the iffy half into 2 sections and repeat. If you had 8 items to check, you should always be able to get to the dodgy one in 3 steps, rather than maybe taking as many as 8 steps, depending on where the issue is in the chain. 16 items will only take 4 test steps, etc (patch cables count as an item to test!)

 

Just some ideas from an old geezer. Good luck, hope you get it sorted soon

 

 

Edited September 10, 2023 by sandy_r

[fretmeister]

Lights flashing sounds like inadequate current.

 

Have you calculated the current draw for the pedals and compared it with the outputs on the Caline?

I still get it wrong sometimes, and use the wrong supply output for the wrong pedal and then it all goes wrong.

 

I’ve got a bunch of high current pedals so as unsexy a purchase as it is, I bought a Cioks DC7 and now all is well.

[Downunderwonder]

Lights also flash when the input is interrupted so the pedal is 'thinking' it is unplugged.

[itu]

There's so much space in the board, that you could detatch all patch and power cables. Then start from the beginning of the chain. Put a cable from the pedal output to the amp and test it.

||: Connect the next pedal to the chain and test. :||

 

I would calculate the power consumption of the whole system, too.

[A.G.E.N.T.E.]

Just adding that sound drops might also be caused by corrosion building up inside the pedals jack sockets. Connecting and disconnecting a few times might be enough to remove them. 

[Pamparius]

Since the problem doesn’t occur at home it will be harder to diagnose, but cable testing is a good start, not just audio but also power, maybe there is something wrong with the ones you use to daisy chain.

 

Someone more knowledgeable may be able to comment on using the wireless to power more pedals.

 

You didn’t say which caline you use, but maybe this helps:

 

https://www.talkbass.com/threads/caline-effects-pedals-power-supply-reviews.1570202/
 

I hope it’s ok to post links to talkbass here.

 

all the best mate

 

[Jack]

Don't read too much into the fact that it works at home. If something is loose or intermittent then it might just have been taken out of the bag in a good mood and, seeing as you're at home, it's not being knocked around any more. 

[AJ567]

Some pedals powered by daisy chain off the boss wireless... Could be insufficient current here? The wireless is pretty thirsty, especially when charging I think. So that combined with the daisy chained pedals might be too much for that one power supply outlet to manage?

[uk_lefty]

4 hours ago, itu said:

I would calculate the power consumption of the whole system, too.

Thanks, how would I do that pls? Then what do I do with the information once I know?

[itu]

Check specs from pedal manufacturers' pages (owner's manuals). Add all mAs together / line, and you have the answer(s).

[BigRedX]

Whenever I've had problems like this it has been the digital devices going into some sort of protect mode or failing to "boot" properly due to under current or voltage, and it normally takes more time then is available at a gig for things to settle down which is why they don't work at the gig and are fine once you get home and have a proper electricity supply to test things out with. IME the only guaranteed way to stop this happening at gigs is to run your complete rig from a UPS.

[LukeFRC]

5 hours ago, uk_lefty said:

Thanks, how would I do that pls? Then what do I do with the information once I know?

is the green light also running off the power supply? How power hungry is that? 

[rwillett]

I have a few UPS's at home for work purposes. I tend to buy them second hand from a reputable firm who fit new batteries into them to replace the knackered ones. I have no conenction with them other than a customer.

 

https://secure.ups-trader.co.uk/

 

I have a couple of these 1500KW to keep the computers on for long enough for a blip but also one of these smaller ones for the network comms as that comes into a different part of the house to my main office.

 

Something like this would keep a pedalboard going for some time https://secure.ups-trader.co.uk/tower-ups/277-apc-br550gi-tower.html

 

Weighs 6Kg, so not light but not stupidly heavy. £68 isn't bad either, can't work out the power consumption of pedals but they can't be that bad (unless they've got valves in, can they?)

 

I'm about to buy another UPS  as the ones I have are five years old and batteries go, thats about par for the course. I do fancy a 5K one and shove it in the cellar but suspect the wiring costs would be too expensive. Bit sad I suppose, lusting after a UPS

Rob

 

 

[uk_lefty]

14 minutes ago, LukeFRC said:

is the green light also running off the power supply? How power hungry is that? 

Yes. No idea but it's just very small LEDs, can't imagine it's doing much at all.

[LukeFRC]

5 minutes ago, uk_lefty said:

Yes. No idea but it's just very small LEDs, can't imagine it's doing much at all.

From DIY building pedals... a pedal has a LED and then a resistor to control the brightness - if you make it too bright the LED can easily use way way more power than the audio circuit. I would remove them first as part of your problem solving and working out the power consumption.
 

[TimR]

Sounds like two problems.

 

Generator undersized or more probably cable run too long with too much load. This will cause voltage drop on stage. The amps will appear to be OK, but any digital devices will be in trouble.

 

And at the pub, similar problem, extended circuits that haven't been impedance checked, so high resistance cause voltage drop under load.

 

Had exactly the same when we played a school fete once. Found out after the gig that we were being supplied by 3 50m extension leads in series. 150m run of 10 amp leads. Whoops. Was OK in first set then when it got dark and teh lights came on the reverb unit in the PA died and guitarist lost his pedals.