Karaoke Forums

Saturday I had one of my worst experences ever running a show.
I was asked to host a local political rally where the hat canidates giving there stump speeched from a flat bed trailer in a field beside a school (like the county fair scene in the movie Wild Hogs). I got there an come to find out the electricity I was promised was going to be supplied by a generator/lighttower. Oh boy! I get set up and start to do sound checks and I begin to getting intermittent poping and buzzing through the speakers. I knew there wasnt any problems with my system as I had just come from a morning event with all the same equipment and had a great show. Also, I have never had problems in the past.
Then I noticed something, everytime the generator would slow down, I was getting a voltage drop and it would conenside with the pops and buzzing. Boy was i thinking that I was looking bad to the guest and all the noise was reflecting on me.

I finally found the person in charge of the generator and found out that the govenor on the generator was not kicking in and was running only on idle....big problem. They asked if i could continue and agreed as long as they were aware that it wouldnt get any better. They said OK. Second problem was that during the Karaoke portion of the event, every time the generator slowed down and the voltage would drop, my Karaoke player would shut down so we had to cancel the karoke. Not to mention the voltage drops are really hard on the amps.

At the end of the night, everyone in charge appologized to me for the issues and was more than happy. The $700 (for 4 hours) I made for the event made the bitterness of the performance go down a little better. To Boot, I scored a wedding event in Augest (that is the good news).

My advice is, if you are ever at an event that has lightotwer power, make sure it will run a full speed or you are screwed.

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No venue to big or too small. From your den to the local club or event, we have the music most requested. Great sounding system!

Should have just wired the governor open not full bore but open more than idle. Seems like whoever owned the generator would have known how to do that.

Seems like you came out pretty good though $700 for 4 hours not bad and a future gig to boot.

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I like everyone when I first meet them. If you don't like me that's not my problem it's YOURS!
A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet

I was running a show, and the gennie ran out of gas..

Ten minutes later.. back on line..

Would have wire it wide open but it is was electronic and besides it wasn't mine so I figured I wouldn't touch it in the event it got screwed up then there goes my profit.

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No venue to big or too small. From your den to the local club or event, we have the music most requested. Great sounding system!

A power line conditioner would have solved that issue right off the top. If you intend to do any more gigs with power supplied by generators, I would either invest in one myself or insist that they supply a good one to protect your equipment. You're lucky you didn't do some damage to your gear by not using one.
Personally, I would just buy one myself. That way, you're guaranteed that it will actually work and you KNOW that it's a decent one. Peace of mind is SO worth the couple of hundred bucks it will cost you.

Heres what we rented last month for a outdoor tent party.

The rental company said they use this thing to power bands all the time and I should have no problems.

Well, I was very dissapointed, the power from this thing was dirty. My crown amps would not power up properly and I even run everything though a Furman. I ended up getting power for my system from the building and using this monster mostly just to power the tent uplighting.

I've used a Honda 2000i before with no issues.....and its half the size of my rack.

Mojo

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"It looks just like a Telefunken U47 !"

If you're noticing voltage drops, it's time to call it a day right there. There is a huge potential for damage to your power amps (not to mention other components) when the power supply is suspect like that. No way would I play a gig with issues like that.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke

No. The "couple hundred bucks" devices you are referring to would not help anything in this situation. Only an online, dual-conversion UPS would have been able to correct for the low voltage condition, and small UPSes are not particularly good at handling dynamic audio loads. It would cost much more than a couple hundred bucks to do anything useful with that power.

I suspect you're referring to the inexpensive Furmans. These do nothing to help low voltage.

When using a generator, you basically need enough "rig for the gig." Events and sound/light providers who are not experienced with generator power often make this mistake. I specified a Caterpillar XQ30 or similar for my 4th of July gig, and when I arrived I found they had supplied a no-name "7000 watt" diesel with an engine about the size of the one on my lawn mower. It metered 112V with no load, and that was once they were finally able to get it started. I pulled my gas-fired generator off the trailer and used it instead. It wasn't what I wanted, but it got the job done with no subwoofers and the PA high-passed at 80Hz. FYI it only would have cost them $70 to rent the generator I specified for the day.

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Jeff Wheeler, moonlight DJ/KJ

all good advice.

I always bring my own Honda EU1000 generator. Runs almost 4 hours on a HALF GALLON of gas, makes no noise and is about the size of a woman's large purse.

http://www.steadypower.com/catalog/honda_eu1000.php

I never depend on someone else's generator... especially if it's also tied into an inflatable... that's the worse because the blowers are a steady draw and usually almost all the power...

While reading the original post with the title of the thread I was expecting to hear he had ended up with some sort of damage to his equipment.

Just to kind of wind this up, if you're doing a show off a generator, you need to be using a power distro with AVR (Automatic Voltage Regulation). And that's only if you have a generator that is operating at proper efficiency. If you go to large outdoor gigs where bands are playing in a tent run off a generator you'll notice a few things. First, most if not all will have a generator that is dedicated to nothing but the bands. No beer coolers, house lights or other things running off it. Second you'll see both at FOH and in or next to the amp racks off stage, large power distro's that do include voltage regulators that correct both high and low voltage situations. In most cases these are 3-phase power distros, but there are plenty of high quality single-phase models for folks like us.

This is not overkill, it is a requirement to do a show outside. Pulsing voltage changes are horrible for your expensive pro-audio devices, so why would you even consider taking a chance.

Power requirements should be something you have in your contract. You should be very clear about both what you require and what the ramifications are if the buyer fails to provide power that meets those requirements. Whether you're doing something like this for charity, for pay, or whatever, you should always have a contract for situations like this.

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DJ Tony
Let It Rip Karaoke