09-08-2022, 09:52 PM
(This post was last modified: 09-08-2022, 09:54 PM by B.J. van Hoek.)
We are a 4 piece -modern- Bluegrass band, rehearsing as 2 couples of 2 with 180 km between us.
After some initial problems, things have been fine with UMC 202HD as our audio interfaces.
Each side fitted with two Audix SCX-25A mikes, giving us a good quality and leaves some room to "weave in and out" as people in Bluegrass bands do, controlling their dynamics & blending.
This setup keeps our overal latency at or below 4 msec which is just right for playing real time Bluegrass.
We'll rehearse every Friday from 13:30 to 15:30 LT and this really kept us alive ( as a band) during the Covid period.
Crackle experience: zero
Except last week.
My wife (guitar, leadvocal) mentioned to 'the other side': 'your picture just froze'. And indeed, there seemed to have been a small dip in the power.
I (banjo/dobro/mandolin, harmony vocal) tried to answer (we were still hearing our friends), but a strong hissing and crackling sound made it all inaudible for 2 seconds, followed by a strong 'Click' and then total silence, except the decaying notes of the banjo.....
Next thing we knew was a power down in all our house.
Checked the fuse box, all circuit breakers were still armed, so it should have been somewhere outside.
And indeed... I found the source of this crackling....
The whole province blacked out. You can even see the HT lines on the left smoking, as the safety switches didn't trip. Took minutes switching it all of manually.
Extensive damage to the HT grid there. Luckily we've been re routed to a different net and things are OK for the time being, but repairs (railroad electric infrastructures were damaged too) will take weeks.
After some initial problems, things have been fine with UMC 202HD as our audio interfaces.
Each side fitted with two Audix SCX-25A mikes, giving us a good quality and leaves some room to "weave in and out" as people in Bluegrass bands do, controlling their dynamics & blending.
This setup keeps our overal latency at or below 4 msec which is just right for playing real time Bluegrass.
We'll rehearse every Friday from 13:30 to 15:30 LT and this really kept us alive ( as a band) during the Covid period.
Crackle experience: zero
Except last week.
My wife (guitar, leadvocal) mentioned to 'the other side': 'your picture just froze'. And indeed, there seemed to have been a small dip in the power.
I (banjo/dobro/mandolin, harmony vocal) tried to answer (we were still hearing our friends), but a strong hissing and crackling sound made it all inaudible for 2 seconds, followed by a strong 'Click' and then total silence, except the decaying notes of the banjo.....
Next thing we knew was a power down in all our house.
Checked the fuse box, all circuit breakers were still armed, so it should have been somewhere outside.
And indeed... I found the source of this crackling....
The whole province blacked out. You can even see the HT lines on the left smoking, as the safety switches didn't trip. Took minutes switching it all of manually.
Extensive damage to the HT grid there. Luckily we've been re routed to a different net and things are OK for the time being, but repairs (railroad electric infrastructures were damaged too) will take weeks.