Volume Surges...

[asucaldito]

Our sound system has had intermittent audio issues recently. During the worship through music portion of our service, all audio would go through random volume surges/dips with the mixer levels remaining unchanged. Because all audio sources were affected, it seems like this is either a board or amp issue. I'm not quite sure where to start. Has anyone had issues with this before? If so, did you find a way to resolve the issue? Anyone, have an idea what the problem might be?

Thanks for the help!

Aaron

[chaselivingston]

I would lean towards blaming the amps, though I don't have any evidence to back that up, just a hunch.

[dvbc-jim]

Aaron,

Do you have multiple amps or just one. If it's multiple are all of the amps doing it? If it is a single amp, do you have another amp to try in place of the existing one? Do you have a different output port you can try on the mixer? Is the mixer digital or analog? If it's digital are there any effects turned on? How are the amps controlled, just power on or does your board control them in any way? Can you disconnect all of the inputs and try one at a time to see if the problem still exists?

Those are the only things I can think of right now to check.

Jim

[GregSimmons]

I would definitely look into your amps. When's the last time they were cleaned?

The easiest thing to do is turn them off and then use compressed air to clean them out. Dust acts both as an insulator and a conductor (strange huh?) depending on where it has accumulated. As such, it can cause parts of the equipment to overheat or have irregular voltages which can both show up with symptoms that you listed.

Give that a try and let us know what happens.