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Gear / Technical Help => Battery Boxes, Preamps, Mixers, ADCs, and Processors => Topic started by: brianp on September 26, 2013, 12:15:07 AM
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I was taping a show tonight and my levels were fine for the first 20 minutes or so, and then eventually the right channel slowly petered out on me. I could give the right channel all the gain I had available and it still wouldn't match up with the left side.
I was running mk4v's > kcy > Sonosax SX-M2/LS 2 > M10. The Sonosax was powered by a fully charged tekkeon battery. It looks like it was losing power but that doesn't seem to be the case as the battery was still showing a full charge at the end of the night. Could this be anything other than a battery/power issue?
After spot checking the recording I don't hear anything weird, it just gets softer as the recording goes on. I've run this same combo for over a year now without any problems.
Thanks for any help.
Screen capture of the wave file is attached.
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Hmmm, def sounds like a battery issue?!?!?! I had this happen once before and once I replaced the battery it was all good! I don't trust Lithium batteries AT ALL!!! That's why I use AA/9v batteries and that's it!
DEF doesn't sound like caps/KCY so it's gotta be the preamp, which leads me to believe that it's the Tekkeon one way or another!
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There's that strage spot on the right channel near the 5 minutes mark, but that could be something that bumped against the R cap. The channel fading seems like a battery failure as Bean points out.
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That spike in the levels around the 5 min mark was pre-show setting up stuff. I had an 6-7 min of extra stuff at the beginning before the set started.
I guess I'll chalk this up to something weird going on with my Tekkeon. I'll have to run some test recordings at home tonight and see if I can duplicate it.
Thanks for the input so far, guys.
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If it was a battery issue wouldn't it be I both channels?
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If it was a battery issue wouldn't it be I both channels?
I don't have the slightest clue as to how is the Sonosax wired, but at first (before reading Bean's post and posting my own one) I thought the same, but then I thought... What if the preamp somehow "divided" the battery current for each of the channels, and one of them was affected while the other was intact? It doesn't make much sense but then again I cannot honestly think of anything else that could cause this. If a resistor or something else had blown up in the preamp, I think there would be a total lack of one of the channels - not a proggressive fading... I could be totally wrong though.
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The sax is wonky with it's power implementation; the overload point varies by the voltage you feed it, but the output doesn't. However, I'd had mine die during a show due to lack of power (from a regulated supply) and it just dies, it doesn't fade out like this. The tekkeon is a regulated power supply, so you shouldn't see a sag in voltage like normal batteries, it's basically all or nothing.
I'm not sure I have an idea of what caused this...
edit: missing a phrase (now in italics).
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The sax is wonky with it's power implementation; the overload point varies by the voltage you feed it, but the output doesn't. However, I'd had mine die during a show due to lack of power and it just dies, it doesn't fade out like this. The tekkeon is a regulated power supply, so you shouldn't see a sag in voltage like normal batteries, it's basically all or nothing.
I'm not sure I have an idea of what caused this...
Cable,Cap or interconnect page is right sax will just die not fade out like that.
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The tekkeon is a regulated power supply, so you shouldn't see a sag in voltage like normal batteries, it's basically all or nothing.
Good point.
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Fading our on one side? Check the capacitors. If one stopped taking input voltage, it could have a tail off as it discharged.
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The sax is wonky with it's power implementation; the overload point varies by the voltage you feed it, but the output doesn't. However, I'd had mine die during a show due to lack of power and it just dies, it doesn't fade out like this. The tekkeon is a regulated power supply, so you shouldn't see a sag in voltage like normal batteries, it's basically all or nothing.
I'm not sure I have an idea of what caused this...
Cable,Cap or interconnect page is right sax will just die not fade out like that.
Not 100% true CK. I had that same exact thing happen with my old Lemosax and it slowly started to fade. I was using 9v batteries that weren't full. Is that my old Lemosax ??? Maybe the same thing happened again ???
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I set up everything at home last night and couldn't recreate it after about 15 minutes of recording. Not sure what's going on. I've got a show to tape tomorrow night, I'll report back if this happens again. If not, I'll just write it off to something weird happening. I hope that's all it was.
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The sax is wonky with it's power implementation; the overload point varies by the voltage you feed it, but the output doesn't. However, I'd had mine die during a show due to lack of power and it just dies, it doesn't fade out like this. The tekkeon is a regulated power supply, so you shouldn't see a sag in voltage like normal batteries, it's basically all or nothing.
I'm not sure I have an idea of what caused this...
Cable,Cap or interconnect page is right sax will just die not fade out like that.
Not 100% true CK. I had that same exact thing happen with my old Lemosax and it slowly started to fade. I was using 9v batteries that weren't full. Is that my old Lemosax ??? Maybe the same thing happened again ???
Go back to my first bit, it's a regulated power supply; it's puting out X volts or nothing. I did update my post to clarify the statement. Internal 9v or batteries that don't regulate the voltage (and have a curve to them on discharge) may exhibit something different, but the regulated ones are an on/off within a few fractional volts of the target.
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The sax is wonky with it's power implementation; the overload point varies by the voltage you feed it, but the output doesn't. However, I'd had mine die during a show due to lack of power and it just dies, it doesn't fade out like this. The tekkeon is a regulated power supply, so you shouldn't see a sag in voltage like normal batteries, it's basically all or nothing.
I'm not sure I have an idea of what caused this...
Cable,Cap or interconnect page is right sax will just die not fade out like that.
Not 100% true CK. I had that same exact thing happen with my old Lemosax and it slowly started to fade. I was using 9v batteries that weren't full. Is that my old Lemosax ??? Maybe the same thing happened again ???
Go back to my first bit, it's a regulated power supply; it's puting out X volts or nothing. I did update my post to clarify the statement. Internal 9v or batteries that don't regulate the voltage (and have a curve to them on discharge) may exhibit something different, but the regulated ones are an on/off within a few fractional volts of the target.
Chalk mine up to something weird then ;)
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Was the show outside?
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Yes, this was an outdoor show next to the river. Low humidity, cool evening.
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I had a VMS02ib fade out on me once but it was both channels and definitely a battery issue and it took about 5 minutes for the audio to get to almost 0.
The power is shared all the way up to the Y junction in the KCY - so it's either a problem in the KCY Collete or the SAX IMO - My guess would be with the SAX due to the simplicity of the KCY
Could be a power issue with the FET in one Collete having a wider voltage tolerance.
Is it working ok now?
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I ran the same setup tonight for an hour long set without any problems.
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Could be a failing Capacitor (where environment may cause the issue to arrise more heavily)
Could still be a power issue - I have found that over time the battery gauges on Tekkeon, Battery Geeks, etc becomes less reliable due to Lithium Cell age.
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Could be a failing Capacitor (where environment may cause the issue to arrise more heavily)
Could still be a power issue - I have found that over time the battery gauges on Tekkeon, Battery Geeks, etc becomes less reliable due to Lithium Cell age.
Cracked trace leading into capacitor? Also would check solder point at capacitor. bigger ones can stress through holes.
Environment related intermittent.
gradual discharge of current during failure.
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Still - wouldn't all those potential problems affect BOTH channels, and not just one of them?
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Still - wouldn't all those potential problems affect BOTH channels, and not just one of them?
Not necessarily - nothing is perfectly matched and /or if something is starting fail it may only affect one channel's components
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Still - wouldn't all those potential problems affect BOTH channels, and not just one of them?
Not necessarily - nothing is perfectly matched and /or if something is starting fail it may only affect one channel's components
That's what I thought first, but then other's arguments led me to think the other way.
Anyway, the OP has recorded another show without problems:
I ran the same setup tonight for an hour long set without any problems.
Same settings & battery? Indoor, outdoor, cold, hot?
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Anyway, the OP has recorded another show without problems:
I ran the same setup tonight for an hour long set without any problems.
Same settings & battery? Indoor, outdoor, cold, hot?
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Same settings and battery. Outdoors again next to the river.
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Funny thing - early yesterday morning I was tracking out a show I recorded late last week. So as to not disturb anyone, I listened using earbuds plugged into my computer speakers.
While listening to various pars of the show, I suddenly heard the right channel slowly fade out and disappear. My first reaction was to think the recording was messed up. Turns out, once I reinserted the connector plug (3.5mm), everything was fine.
Maybe the op just had a dirty cable connection.