need help laptop mixer and speakers frying

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M

mwmroadshow

New DJ
Oct 14, 2007
3
0
54
hi everyone im not sure if im in the right place (this is my first time on site) but i need some help urgently, i brought a laptop (packard bell) a mackie mixer and a pair of mackie srm450's the thing is i have been using the same gear for just over a year and last night i did a gig and my amp on my makies were hot very hot i thought it was my programe what i was using at first, the sound was very distorted so yep i went back to windows media just to get the same sound, even when i turned it right down it was still sounding distorted i noticed my mixer was hot and also my laptop too' now to be honest i havent been dj'ing that long so im still learning, i swap'd my speaker leads over but the same distorted sound was there,i have never came across this situation before and noticed on another forum that mackies dont like wow and i have just opend my laptop to find that wow on media player was switched on, so could that be the reason why the mackies amp was very hot??? i hope someone out there can help me out. many thanks
in advance mark.
 
mwmroadshow said:
hi everyone im not sure if im in the right place (this is my first time on site) but i need some help urgently, i brought a laptop (packard bell) a mackie mixer and a pair of mackie srm450's the thing is i have been using the same gear for just over a year and last night i did a gig and my amp on my makies were hot very hot i thought it was my programe what i was using at first, the sound was very distorted so yep i went back to windows media just to get the same sound, even when i turned it right down it was still sounding distorted i noticed my mixer was hot and also my laptop too' now to be honest i havent been dj'ing that long so im still learning, i swap'd my speaker leads over but the same distorted sound was there,i have never came across this situation before and noticed on another forum that mackies dont like wow and i have just opend my laptop to find that wow on media player was switched on, so could that be the reason why the mackies amp was very hot??? i hope someone out there can help me out. many thanks
in advance mark.
Click to expand...
Hi Mark and welcome to Ourdjtalk

OK first off I dont know what WOW is but I cant see software heating up the Mackies, mixer, and laptop.

My first and best guess is there was some sort of power problem. Anytime one thing is going thermal check the device when everything is going thermal the best bet would look to other areas.

Try setting the gear up at home and give it a go to see if the problem reoccurs. If it dosen't it was probably a power issue with the venue. If it does then investigate your gear piece by piece

Hope it helps
 
First, as Jeff mentioned, welcome.
WOW is a sound "enhancement" setting on some mixers (WOW, BBE Sonic Maximizer, etc.). The Mackies and a lot of powered speakers have their own processors and built in equalizers. Now even if the clip lights are not coming it does not mean you are not overdriving them which will lead to thermal shut downs. I would disengage the WOW enhancement, and take a look at your gain structure.

Once you get everything running at the correct levels you should not have problems. Another thing to remember is that sometimes the SRM-450 are not enough and you may need subs or lager full range speakers.

Last question. What sound card are you using ?
 
How old are the mackies? What is the model number of the mackie board? Did you apply a power tester before you started? Could you try directly plugging a source to the mackies without the mixer? Same effect? What was the location and ambient temperature of the room.
 
frying gear

hi there all and many thanks for getting back to me,

travis b
the mackies are only 14 months old they are not gigged evey week, the serial number (cannot see model number) is (21)cb263237 and below my manfacture date i have om15601 thats on the back of the mackie speakers, and as for the tempreture is was warm in the hall, but since then i have set them up at my house it was ok at first but then when the amps on back of speakers got warm it started to sound distorted again.

djsvo
im not sure what sound card im using it came with the laptop sorry, i have also turned the wow of which was running on windows media player and as metioned above i re set all the gear up at my house ok at first but then when amps got warm it went distorted again.

jeff
i took your advice and tested at home and still the problem exists.
once again many thanks for your help im really greatfull for it all
many thanks
mark
 
I would say its the Lappy... Try an external sound card....
If it is taking a while to happen (for the speakers to heat up) I would look at them... Check for damaged heat sinks and dust...
Other then that, I would call up mackie.... The only other thing which i doubt would be your wires... possible a bad connection, frayed wire creating a small short that when it gets warm, changes the input impedance, making the amp hot and sound bad or if you are running all your power cables really close to your speaker wires, you may receive interferance...
 
Does anyone else see it as odd that everything in the chain is heating up???
 
extremely odd...you wouldn't think a smaller mixer would heat up like that? Obviously the laptop will get warm when working it hard, speaking of which, I didn't even know packard bell was still around?

The Mackie problem is obviously a long standing issue that many peopel seem to have had with mackies throughout the years.

Also, have you considered using a more professional software like PCDJ or Ots Jukebox?
 
Thats why I suggested it was a power problem. A pasive mixer shouldn't heat up to any degree

Check for frayed wires
 
Hi and wlecome to the nutthouse...

can I ask do you have a laptop cooler ?

can you show us all a shot of what your setup looks like
also some screen shots of what the temps are on your system can be helpfull

as mentioned above you may hve to go over things one at a time and see what the problem is

hope some helps
 
mackies cooking

hi there all
firstly i would like to say a big thankyou to all of you for your help i did take some advice and brought a external soudcard, i used all the gear at a disco last night (with back up gear just in case) and everything worked perfect, but im just wondering how would a soundcard cause the mackies to fry?? im puzzeld look forward to your help on this one
many thanks
mwmroadshow:sqbiggrin:
 
You are clipping I think THD coming out of the original laptop soundcard should be off the chart. There's a huge difference in sound quality using an external soundcard instead of the built in soundcard.
Using the soundcard on my VAIO and then using an M-Audio card you can really tell the difference.
 
DjDennis said:
Hi and wlecome to the nutthouse...

can I ask do you have a laptop cooler ?

can you show us all a shot of what your setup looks like
also some screen shots of what the temps are on your system can be helpfull

as mentioned above you may hve to go over things one at a time and see what the problem is

hope some helps
Click to expand...

What's a laptop cooler?
 
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