L R stopped working

[lesouvage]

Yesterday I did the sound for a band at a small bar using my Qu-16. After setting up the sound equipment in the afternoon I tested the monitors (Nexo Ps8) and the FOH speaker (x-act Sound Projects). Everything was working fine. When I arrived later on and switched the Qu-16 and the amps back on to do the sound check with the band L R wasn’t working anymore. I restarted the Qu-16 but that doesn’t fixed the problem. I checked and checked what could be wrong but didn’t found anything wrong, there simply was no signal coming out of L R although the leds indicated otherwise.

Finally I connected the FOH speakers to mix3 and that “solves” the problem of silent FOH speakers.

I run the 1.7 firmware on my mixing table.

Is there any setting, other then muting L R that can cause this problem and can it be set by accident?
Do one of you has the same problem after updating to 1.7
Does any of you have suggestions on the strategy to follow when such a problem occurs.

[Dick Rees]

Yesterday I did the sound for a band at a small bar using my Qu-16. After setting up the sound equipment in the afternoon I tested the monitors (Nexo Ps8) and the FOH speaker (x-act Sound Projects). Everything was working fine. When I arrived later on and switched the Qu-16 and the amps back on to do the sound check with the band L R wasn’t working anymore.

You left your gear unattended in a bar???

Check assignment, DCA and all other routing and control options.

After setup/soundcheck, save your scene. Allow scene access only with administrative level permission.

Don’t leave your gear unattended.

[lesouvage]

Dick Rees, thanks for posting. I made a kind of stupid mistake by assigning channels to the DCA using the app on my iPad, and leaving the faders down. Just tested it at home and, what seems to be pretty obvious, with channels assigned to a DCA and the faders down, there is no sound. 🙁 Problem solved and lesson learned.

It was a small bar where I do the sound on a regular basis with a small stage that is a no go area for the handful of costumers at the bar. I’m not leaving my gear at all venues where I offer my services.

[Anonymous]

Always check the output meters!

[mamerica]

I did that once. I set up a custom layer a couple of weeks before the festival. Everything was working fine until the first act took the stage. Suddenly, I was in panic mode. I switched to a different layer like you did and mixed from there. We all make mistakes. And, I don’t think I’ll ever make that one again!

[Dick Rees]

Dick Rees, thanks for posting. I made a kind of stupid mistake by assigning channels to the DCA using the app on my iPad, and leaving the faders down. Just tested it at home and, what seems to be pretty obvious, with channels assigned to a DCA and the faders down, there is no sound. Problem solved and lesson learned.

Good.

The problem when something like this happens is the emotional reaction (technically referred to as a “tizzy”) that ensues. With experience we learn to go directly into problem solving mode to “make it right” rather than “what went wrong”.

In this instance one must ask “what changed” and re-trace ones steps. I assume that you continued working with the iPad AFTER you had finished sound check and grouped things in DCA while finishing up.

I don’t usually encounter this scenario as I commonly just do line-checks and assign any DCA groupings once up and running. If I have such a glitch I ask myself, “What would a REAL engineer do?”

[Anonymous]

I need a shirt saying “what would a real engineer do?”

[lesouvage]

[XAP]Bob, a real engineer, or what I tink you mean by ” a real engineer “, is on the top of the “sound men pyramid”. I really think that i’m normally doing a pretty good job and the Qu-16 and the high end speakers and amps are helping me a lot. Like any other (sound) (hum)man I’m making mistakes and this was one of them. Being a real sound engineer has a lot to do with basic attitude and taking the extra mile (we have the same phrase in Dutch but then it is an extra step) to deliver the best sound possible.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely – we are all human, I still think it would be a funny T Shirt 🙂

[Author]

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