Power Drop: Conditioner or Regulator?!?!

[ibanez4life SZ!]

Hey guys!

So, my band played a gig at out school's pep assembly today....we played for 1400 people, and were paid, as we were replacing the DJ!

So, they introduce us, we're ready to go, and my Recto turns off....I panicted, thinking it was a fuse (which I didn't have any replacement ones of ). I check my surge protector, and it is getting no power.....so it was nothing woring with the amp....

Apparently, the school has very very shitty power, atleast in the gym where we played.....not enough to power everything obviously

After pulling in and out of the wall a few times, I finally got the power running again....

We played, but my amp sounded like ****.....

No one in the crowd noticed, they had a blast, but it bugged the hell out of me the whole show....

So, obviously, I learned first had the good power is a must for a tube amp....

What can I do about this? Would getting a power conditioner help me, or will it just act like a fancy surge protector? Or would I have to look into something like a voltage regulator?!?!

What would you recommend for my situation? I would like to make this not happen again.....

Thanks for all the help!

 

[Russ]

From my construction background, it sounds to me like you just ran into a typical bad outlet. These bad outlets can cause intermittent power if positive contact is not maintained. Sometimes the inner contacts of your outlet will not grasp your power plug firmly enough and it will lose connection. Also an outlet may have so much crap on the contacts inside that even if it holds it firmly enough it may need some manipulation to get conductivity to happen. I don't believe any product that you buy will help you to solve this sort of problem. If you are not getting power from the circuit in the wall then it doesn't matter what you plug into. A power conditioner and a voltage regulator are great if you are receiving inadequate power, but the key word is receiving. In your case, you were not receiving at all at times. There is not much you can do in such a case short of having an electrician handy to check the outlet you are plugging into. Places like schools are notorious for having terrible conditioned outlets. These outlets can be worse than bars and nightclubs. It is sad because there are kids there all day. I cannot suggest to you go buy your own electrical troubleshooting gear nor tell you how to use it due to a possible liability issue but if you were to learn how to use a couple simple tools you could avoid this from happening sometimes. I remember setting up this one time and finding a bad outlet. Other people seemed to be ok using it but I chose not to. The band that played a few bands after us used it because the information was not passed on and the guy lost power to his rack in the middle of the set. That was not good. It was a paying gig for a convention. There were many industry people there. Fortunately nothing was damaged but it could have been avoided. I have found many bad outlets in my time but this was the only one that I can attest to witnessing someone using it and having issues. I always try to mark a bad outlet if I find one with sharpie or cover it in duct tape so noone else will use it but that night I didn't have the sharpie nor duct tape or I would have solved the problem before it arose.

 

[Micah]

You could haul around a UPS with you but they are pretty heavy!! :lol: