Topic: Church Audio UBB Issue

[daspyknows]

Yeah - I emailed him about it but haven't heard back yet (to be fair, its a weekend). Little frustrating because I ordered this stuff well over a month ago but only received em on Friday - the shows I'm most excited to tape are next week

And thanks that's very kind of you! Unfortunately I'm in Ottawa and the shows I'm seeing are in Toronto/Kingston.

You got gear in a month?  That may be a record.  What gets me is you said if you reverse the battery it works.  Almost sounds like it was soldered backwards.

[unidentified]

Given the circumstances, I would contact Sound Professionals and see how quickly they can send you a battery box.

[joeldotc]

---
Now, the Zoom H1N uses the same preamp, but instead of the digital 0-100 level settings, it uses a 0-10 physical dial to set gain. The principle is the same, but I hear the 'clear' gain (equivalent to 37 on the H1) kicks in just after the 6 mark. You can easily hear it with headphones, so I suggest you set it beforehand. Honestly, you will be totally fine IF your mics don't overload due to insufficient voltage, but there isn't much you can do about that right now. It's worth a try.

Amazing, thank you for the info. I'll give that a go

You got gear in a month?  That may be a record.  What gets me is you said if you reverse the battery it works.  Almost sounds like it was soldered backwards.

Haha yeah I emailed him about once every day after the 2 week "build time" and he finally got to it - shipping to Ottawa also only took 1 day, so that was a big help. I do think he soldered it backwards, unless maybe its some weird short happening.

Given the circumstances, I would contact Sound Professionals and see how quickly they can send you a battery box.

Yeah I should reach out to them, I really doubt I'd be able to get anything by Tuesday given customs and stuff though.

[jefflester]

You could just get a couple of 9V battery leads and wire them back-to-back but flip the polarity,

[joeldotc]

You could just get a couple of 9V battery leads and wire them back-to-back but flip the polarity,

Good idea, gonna try this - may as well. I considered doing this earlier, but I wasn't sure if the BB was actually messed up or not.

I'm gonna bring a second recorder to use the internals on as backup, and then, even if I mess up Tuesdays show, I should be good for Wednesday.

[Gutbucket]

^ What Jeff said. Doing that will get you through your upcoming show.  You then either continue using it that way or return it to Chris to be reworked.

[joeldotc]

^ What Jeff said. Doing that will get you through your upcoming show.  You then either continue using it that way or return it to Chris to be reworked.

For sure. It'll be really funny if it works.

Definitely gonna be returning it to Chris - I'll probably build my own DIY BB as soon as I send it to him since that seems fun/easy and then if he takes 6 years to send me a working one I'll have something to use in the mean time.

[nulldogmas]

I'll probably build my own DIY BB as soon as I send it to him since that seems fun/easy and then if he takes 6 years to send me a working one I'll have something to use in the mean time.

Now that sounds like a plan.

(Btw, I checked my UBB and the input plug is aligned the same way as on yours. Doesn't mean Chris couldn't have munged up the internal wiring somehow, though.)

[joeldotc]

An update for this - ended up just running the h1n internals last night because I didn't get the 9v connectors in time and didn't want to risk the CA14s without the battery box. The recording actually came out pretty banger, I'm always impressed by the sound quality of those internal mics (there are quite a few GYBE shows taped w them)

Just picked up the 9v connectors, wired them back-to-back, and it seems to be working perfectly - hilarious.

For tonight, I'm gonna run CA14 > SUBB (Stupid & Ugly Battery Box) > r-05. Hopefully that works well

Once I ship off the BB back to Chris, I'll use these connectors to build my own BB!

[nulldogmas]

For tonight, I'm gonna run CA14 > SUBB (Stupid & Ugly Battery Box) > r-05. Hopefully that works well

Please post a photo of the SUBB, I am laughing already picturing it. But glad you may have found a (temporary) solution!

[joeldotc]

Please post a photo of the SUBB, I am laughing already picturing it. But glad you may have found a (temporary) solution!

Just need to toss some electrical tape on it haha!

[joeldotc]

So... it kind of worked. The recording seems really really weird and sounds off. (That being said, it is certainly listenable, just seems off). I think it might be DC offset/bias, but I'm not sure. I attached the spectrum here (after normalizing to -0.1db).

The gain levels were definitely low enough (peaks around -18db in the raw file), but the audio sounds sort of clipped.

Any ideas what could have caused this - maybe the flipped polarity battery running through the battery box? And any ideas how to repair the file?

[nulldogmas]

That looks like what I typically see from a dying battery in a UBB. If you're sure the battery was at full strength ... I dunno, is there any way the jury-rigging isn't passing along full voltage to the mics?

[joeldotc]

The battery was brand new prior to me testing it in the UBB when I was trying to diagnose it - definitely wasn't plugged in long enough to discharge it a significant amount.

I don't have a voltmeter to check, but I would not be surprised at all if the jury-rigging wasn't passing the full voltage to the mics. (could also be something happening inside the UBB, but I can't check)

[capnhook]

The battery was brand new prior to me testing it in the UBB when I was trying to diagnose it - definitely wasn't plugged in long enough to discharge it a significant amount.

I don't have a voltmeter to check, but I would not be surprised at all if the jury-rigging wasn't passing the full voltage to the mics. (could also be something happening inside the UBB, but I can't check)

Don't let Chris Church know you jury-rigged it

Might void the warranty