Okay, we now have an idea as to what all the parts of the sound and we can kind of get around and mixed up very well. And that's all well and good, but a great sound pitch needs to be really cool in any situation and know just how to troubleshoot problems when they arise and trust me they, they will arise. Here's a short list of Gremlins, that will keep you up at night. Okay, there are probably others. But these are probably the Big Five that I can think of no signal feedback, distortion, noise and hum. On the first one, when you have no signal, you can't get much of anything done.

And of course, there are hierarchies of you know how important a signal outage would be, right? I mean, if the lead vocalist input guys out, we have a big problem. The drummer's left overhead, you know, probably not so much. Certainly if the main speakers go out then you know, you have a major part We'll learn how all these signals flow to and from each other so we can, you know, pinpoint where the problem would be. Feedback is a big one and it happens when you get a feedback cycle of sound coming out of a speaker back into the mic then goes back around looping, you get this sound that we're all familiar with. distortion is when a sound happens like this.

And that tells me I've driven some part of the signal. Also, noise normally comes up, levels low and some power signal shine and harmony, the sound like Dan Ryan, will learn how all of these problems occur and, more importantly, how to fix them. But first, let's look at the entire signal path so that we can can know exactly where to look for these problems when they arise. signal flow is really important as allows you to quickly diagnose where your problem will lie All sound comes from a sound source, a vocal microphone a keyboard electric acoustic guitar. Sound flows from that to your input box on stage, either directly from a microphone, or from a DI box, or directly down a quarter inch cable. That input makes its way into your mixer input, which then gets sent to a couple of different places get sent to the main mix through some processing, then on some main apps and speakers, and a portion of it could be sent out to an ox and feeding an apple on stage monitor or in monster transmitters.

A portion that signal could also go out to an effect unit. Don't forget the input may have an insert effect placed in line with that channel to that sure seems like a lot of stuff going from piece to piece. But a little studying that diagram will really kind of help you understand that signal flows from one device to the next. to the next, and so on once that's rock solid in your mind and troubleshooting really becomes second nature. Let's go back to a little tiny, tiny PA system here for an example. Okay, so here's one when do I bring this up?

And you can hear this mic is working. So from here I know that the mics working the cables working, the input channels working, and the amps working the speakers working all that is good. I was having my bass guitar hooked into the first one with the first child with the fader is up here. And I'm not getting anything out of it. So what's the deal? I know that the PA is working, in other words, the mixer, the amp and the speakers as Speaker in this case, that's all working there must be something breaking down between here and here.

So here's the first thing I do. Is this a bad cable. So let me put this back down here. I'll bring down the PA I'll pull this guy out here. This is a known good cable. I know this cable works.

I've tested it before. So I'll plug this guy in. And the other end of this guy, I'll put in the bass guitar and hopefully everything should work out with a bad cable in with a good cable. And we'll bring this up and still get absolutely nothing. Well, I know this is a good cable. Here's another thing I could do.

I could pull this out and try it out with a guitar, another guitar, another sound source. And with the other end of that plugged in here. bring this up. Great. So that is working. Now I know that everything is working from this point onwards, right.

So let's bring this down. Why the heck isn't this bass guitar working? Well. A couple of you guys might be bass players or guitarists in general. If you have have active preamps on a lot of guitars like this guy here. There's no battery in here.

So, here's the deal. Throw a battery in here. Where's that guy gonna do? Okay, we put that in get the other end of this guy. Where is he? I got too many cables around here.

Plug this in this up. So now we have everything working. How did I come to that conclusion? Well, first thing I did was swap out of cable. And then even if the that new cable is working, then what you what I could have actually even done if I bring this back down here. I don't suggest you do this if the PA is you know, turn up all the way.

But I can hit this is a good cable right? So everything is from good from this point out. So therefore, if nothing's happening Say a sound source like this, then first thing I'd look is to have an active preamp. And you know electric bass like this aren't the only ones to have things like that. In terms of electric preamp, a lot of electric acoustic guitars will have that so swap out the battery. But can you kind of get an idea this is a very small example of troubleshooting, but the principles really are the same.

Let's go back to that example. Again. If we can hear something through the main speakers, then we can surmise that the mixer to the speakers is okay. We don't have to check any post mixer processes, amps or speakers, something is happening from the input to the mixer. Like is it a bad cable, maybe something wrong with the mic or a DI box. Conversely, if we're hearing nothing from the main speakers, then I wouldn't be sweating anything from the stage to the mixer.

Clearly something is breaking down between the mixer and the speakers. So the logic kind of goes like this is that The problem before or after the mixer or before or after the ear monitors transmitted or before or after the monitor sense. If you can develop a quick set of questions to ask yourself, then you can go ahead and test that question. So for example, imagine the vocalist says that she can't hear her any high hat in ear monitors, ask her if she hears anything. And she says yeah, I hear everything else. I just don't hear the highest so you can conclude from that from working backwards but her ear monitors are working which means that her receiver pack is working.

So is the transmitter and so is the connection from her monster center the transmitted you also know that other people are hearing a hi hat. So you can hear me in the middle of the main speaker so you know that the high hats mic inputs to the mixer response. Where's the problem? You bet. You don't have any hi hat child feeding her monitor. Mix Here's another example.

Maybe there's no sound coming out of the right hand side speakers. So working backwards other speakers connected to amps yet other amps on? No, I guess there's someone obviously forgot to turn on the main apps that run the right hand side turn them on and you're good to go. So you can see that understanding signal flow allows you to systematically move through the signal chain cut backwards until you identify the source of the problem. And you know, you can normally rule out big chunks of the signal path like now when you can hear everybody else through the main speakers then you know, everything from the mixer on out is fine. Start working back from the input back to the sound source because this is actually where most of the problems occur.

I will start with a source input signal path. Let's look at an example of the kick drum mic. The sound of the kick drum is transferred pretty simply just a mic goes into an input box, which is an input channel where the points of failure from source to mix it what it could be a bad mic. If it's a condenser mic, it'll need phantom power make sure that's on. It might be a bad cable. It might even be a bad line down the snake.

And also the other end of the snake may not be connected to the mixes input channel. In this signal China all lists the most likely values were you know, down to the least likely ones probably most likely at all is it something isn't plugged in correctly. Is the mic connected, is the mic cable connected to the input box is the cable from the input box connected to the mixer channel. Also make sure that the mic has a phantom power button either as a condenser microphone. Now, if you have a professional installed with a snake running, you know either through the rafters or underneath the floor, then this is probably The least likely part of the chain to be bad It can happen but it's probably not that it's not the most likely. So let's look at a wireless microphone.

This is pretty similar to the wired microphone Sarah, we just looked at the added steps of the transmitter in the microphone and the wireless receiver. So in addition to the regular steps of checking all the connections we have to check with the mic signal is making its way through the air to the receiver. So is the mic okay? Is it on? Is the receiver on and is working? Are they communicating?

Is the receiver connected to the input box, the other end of the snake to the mixer input shell you can see that we have a number of points of value in both scenarios of wired and wireless microphones. A line input or something that comes down a DI box has similar points of failure is the source okay? Is the keyboard on and it's boring. Up. Does the electric acoustic guitar have a preamp that maybe needs a new battery? Then is the connection okay to the DI box is the DI box okay?

Is the connection from the DI box to the input box okay is the connection from the snake to the mixers input channel okay so these are the three main types of inputs on the stage, the mixer, wired and wireless mics and di boxes all of these are pretty basic in terms of what can go wrong. With the probably exception of wire systems. We'll look at that in a second. With the exception of the wireless signal shine, the other ones are fairly simple, a sound source that makes its way to the mixing input channel. So here's how to troubleshoot them in the wired mic scenario are all the connections Okay. Next, start swapping out each element in the chain tests a microphone by swapping it out with another known working microphone I always have a spare dynamic mic like the you know, the old standby sm 58 in my toolbox, we can use this all the time for testing and just swap out you know, possibly bad mic with if we tap the you know, sm 58 and all works.

And we hear that mic just fine and everything up the mic is okay and we've just zeroed it down to that bad original like, no other it's a bad mic, or maybe it's condenser mic that needs power, just plug it back in and press phantom power on your board and it should fly right up from there. And by the way, that's why I have an old beat up sm 58 in my back pockets a dynamic mic that works as easily just plugging it in and just tapping it just make sure it works. And then just leave it in your pocket when you need to troubleshoot, it's very handy. So we can use the same procedure in every part of the signal chain. We normally call it you know swapping out or a being take a known good element like our trusty trusty sm 58 or known mic cable and swap it out a bit.

With the unknown one, you'll soon get to the bottom of the problem with that it's really easy to swap out a mic or a DI or mic cable, it's a little harder to do with a snake that goes from your stage to mix it, just swap out a line that does work. And if that fix the problem, and you have a bad line down your snake, bit of a hassle with that snake has been professionally installed up in the rafters or underneath the floor, but at least you know where the problem lies. Then By the way, that's why I always have a number of spirituals on that snake run when we install that just in case any of those guys go bad. So you can see all the places of failure in these chains both in the connections and also other things that are fairly simple to diagnose.

But always pay attention to the ones where people mess with your cables the most. If you're running sound in a permanent installation, like a club or church where there are many different sound people who come in and out, you know with varying degrees of skill levels who regularly just you know, run a Mac and stop pulling cables out of here. These the two places that I would look first are your cables all connects at the input box on stage and has someone routed around the back of your mixer and unplugged something to plug in a DVD players audio for a special need and just kind of let them unplugged. When I leave the I can't stand this up. It happens all the time. So a good remedy to this is to clearly label the cables on the rear of the mixer so if anybody ever unplugged them, they'll be very easy to read patch in.

So always look at the connections on both sides of the snake and also you know the easy steps to diagnose and swapping out mics and di boxes here. But wireless troubleshooting probably needs a little more detailed explanation. A wireless system consists of a transmitter and receiver See that and both must be on the same frequency. To communicate VHS systems operate from 150 megahertz to 216 megahertz, UHF systems operate in the 470 megahertz to 698 megahertz, right. It actually used to be a little bit higher, but that was recently reclaimed for digital TV. Now I won't go over the benefits of each you can find all of that in the whilst buying God at the buying guide at the following URL.

Now that even some in the 900 megahertz range but we don't need to bother about most these because normally when you buy a wire system, they just come you know completely matched up. Some wireless systems allow you to automatically find a suitable frequency to work with, you know, automatically scanning but you know, unused frequencies. And I won't get into how to set the frequencies just consult your user's manual because it really varies from from manufacturer to manufacturer. Make sure that your transmitter is turned on, and of course as a fresh battery as well and also receivers turn on as well. in whatever way your particular model does it, make sure that you match their frequency so that the transmitter can actually transmit to the receiver, the receiver can pick that up. The output of the receiver then goes down that signal chain just like a wired microphone from now on.

And you can decide whether you want the receiver to live up on the stage, or next to your main mixer, their pros and cons of each, I would normally always put the receiver in a position where it's the closest the transmitter that can be and that's normally now out there on the stage, you could move the receiver around until you get the best position to receive a glitch free noise free signal then connected to that input box, just like any other input from the stage. But here's where you might want to place the receiver by your mixer out in the main mixing position. Maybe you're running short on lines down your snake bigger from the stage to your mixer position. So go But you can alleviate that by placing the receiver out here at the mixer position, it's not the optimum place, especially for mixer position is really far out into the room but you know it's a, it's a good option if you don't have an appliance in your snake that and it's kind of hard to run in once.

Now the same goes with any other wireless systems such as wireless guitars or in ear monitors, make sure that you bought packs of fresh batteries in here and you have a good line of sight between your transmitters and your receivers and you know certainly match up their frequencies are going to be matched up. By the way, there's a good source for looking at available frequencies at the following URL. Some of your wireless systems will allow you to set your your own frequencies others don't. In terms of troubleshooting monitors, we can follow the same logic. The flow goes from an input channel through auxins onto either an app, an onstage monitor or an image Monitor system so as long as you have an operating input that is you have a vocalist for example coming to into your mixer if that's all fine we worked out all the input troubleshooting in the last section then the fault points would be is that signal being sent down or is the oxen master up is the old son Connect is my app and onstage monitor or the in ear transmitter slash receiver.

So there are basically three different stages of possible problems The first is inside the mixer Do you have the auctions do set up properly. The sends on ox one pull up no across or in varying amounts across all the mixer and also is the ox one master up then is an ox one sent from the back of the mixer out the app and enter the onstage Moses among other amps on if we're using any losses then we use need to use that basic wireless troubleshooting logic that we just saw. Learned a moment ago is the transmitter on other receiver belt packs on are they matched up to the same frequency that if a person onstage can't hit any monitors, then it's either inside the mixer problem with no sends up, or maybe the master not being up, then is the app not being on or any bit connections in between, like I said it was issue if it's in a monitor deal as well.

Now, if they can hear one thing, but not the other, then everything past the mixer is fine. And now it's just to deal with the individual accents and how they're set. Most likely, it's going to be the connections, check the oxygen out of the mixer, and also the connections between the amps and in the onstage masters shake up the amps on it as an NMR thing. Then take out your wireless troubleshooting guide that we learn a moment ago. So you can see how many things can go wrong with connections and or frequency. So my biggest suggestion here is actually make that you know, actually made this a commandment you need to have a line check before the pen even turns up.

Take a few moments to tap out all of the inputs and make sure that they're coming up onto the board right here. I normally have someone on stages with a drumstick just gently tap on all the mics and make sure that they're all coming up here where they're supposed to come up, maybe strumming a guitar or just banging on a keyboard or do the old go one two down all the vocal mics just make sure that so you can also listen to all the monitor sounds on it maybe by sending if you have a CD players like that. Right here. You can send that CD channel right here down to the various orcs and have some on send it out orcs and what are you doing the CD or sent to you here in the CD or that kind of stuff. Also make sure that all the you have fresh batteries and all of your wire systems are all working correctly.

Once you know all the inputs are good coming into the board and all the auctions are good going back to the monitors and also out to the main speakers, then you're pretty much you know you're good to go and then you'll be ready for when the band comes in. So a good solid line check ensure that everything is connected and working you'll learn how to you know make them sound good. In the soundcheck you know when the actual musicians come in on the stage, we'll learn that no one