[SplinterheadParticipant]

I agree. Thanks for your reply.

[SplinterheadParticipant]

ntermittent faults are a pain to find.

I think, from here, I’d proceed by checking connectors inside the installed snake at both ends for anything odd. Then re-patching the snake, maybe by swapping 2 & 3 over at the desk, and observe what happens. If the problem then re-occurs on Ch2, you’ve almost certainly eliminated the desk.

That’s an excellent idea. I’ll give that a shot.

One thing you can do for testing intermittent problems these days is use a recorder & computer (and you have a recorder built in of course). Record a test tone, or something, at a low level of several hours, then examine the waveform on a DAW – spikes are very obvious, while dropouts may require some zooming to spot, but it saves having to listen all the time.

If all else fails I’ll go for this idea.
Thanks very much for your reply.

[SplinterheadParticipant]

Check as much as you can of the snake cable, open up the box, check the connector at the mixer, shake and wiggle the fan tail, move the connector that’s plugged into ch. 3 at the snake box. Do all that while someone is watching the ch.3 input level or listening to ch.3 in PFL with headphones at a low level. Do the shake and wiggle test with the phantom power turned on and a mic plugged into ch.3.

Thanks again for your reply.
I actually did this at the end of the night. I had a friend of mine plug in a cable while we were troubleshooting and wiggle where the connections met while I watched the levels. i was figuring that maybe the cable was hung up and at a bad angle creating interference in the signal. What I didn’t do was check this with the phantom power on. That’s something I’ll do. I also checked the connection at the board. I tapped/moved channel 3 and there was an effect on the signal level but it turned out that all channels did it when the connection was manipulated. I have this feeling that its not a mechanical issue but more of an electrical interference issue.

[SplinterheadParticipant]

Yes

[SplinterheadParticipant]

Thanks for replying!
We have a traditional snake that’s permanently installed from the stage to the mixer about 50′ away or so. The wires are buried in the walls.

So the first night I was running 2 condenser mics (Neumans) both using phantom power. Cables were about 15′ long. One was in channel 2, the other in 3. Channel 3 was spiking like crazy towards the end of the set. At that point I had no idea what was going on. Channel 2 had no issues.

Second night I was running a wireless mic through channel 3 using a short 3′ cable. The wireless unit was right in front of the monitor (not sure if that could affect the signal). After a 1/2 hour or so it started spiking and making audible pop sounds. I had the singer switch to a different mic (SM58). I then switched the cable on the wireless and it seemed to behave while NOT in use (mic was off but unit was on). It was just idling. Phantom power was definitely off.

Third night I had just a regular dynamic (SM58). No problems at all.

During the evening I took the cable out of the board on channel 3 and watched it for a good hour, no issues. I put a cable in with no mic, no issues. I couldn’t seem to replicate the problem. Very weird.

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