Those of us who reside in the mid-Atlantic region are well aware of brown-outs, times when the electric company lowers line voltages to prevent a total blackout. This past Sunday was no exception.
The heat index that day hit 107 degrees in our area, thus everyone that had a air conditioner was running it full blast by high noon. Temperatures soared into the upper 90s and the humidity was nearly 100 percent. The air felt so thick you could almost slice it with a knife--not a good day to be performing outdoors.
Well sports fans, that's where several of us were--out in the blast furnace playing our hearts out and singing to crowds that were too exhausted to do much more than drink cold beer and take a leisurely dip in the warm waters of Chesapeake Bay.
When I set up I happened to notice the lights in the pavilion where I would perform was a bit dim looking. Oh well, not a big deal, or at least that's what I thought. The lights were dim because the brown-out voltage was down to 95 volts--not the normal 120 volts that is available most of the time.
After setting up and turning on all the equipment, it became very obvious that the screen on the PSR-3000 was not nearly as bright as usual. Additionally, the laptop screen also seemed dim. The most startling thing that happened was the Digitech Vocalist VR suddenly turned off, then rebooted, and turned off again. This happened repeatedly. Additionally, the Digitech emitted a weird ocilating sound that I had never experienced. A few minutes later, the guy who was supposed to slice the pit beef said he could barely get his electric slicer to run. An electrician measured the line voltage and quipped "What do you expect--there's only 95 volts coming out of the outlets. You'll be lucky if you don't fry the motor."
At that point I disconnected the Digitech from the system, fired my mic directly through the keyboard and was able to easily get through the day. As it turns out the Digitech's power supply will not operate properly with line voltages lower than 110 volts. Upon arriving home, I plugged everything in and checked out the system--everything is fine.
Again, I cannot stress enough the value of having spares and backup devices. In this caase a simple XLR to 1/4 adapter cable saved the day by allowing me to plug the mic directly into the keyboard. Without that inexpensive cable, the day would have been lost, 200 people would have been mad as hell at me, and I would have lost lots of jobs from them in the future. As it turned out, they loved the music, I booked several more jobs and the beat went on.
Cheers,
Gary
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Travlin' Easy
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