sandall

All good advice from Timmeh, but a "I really don't want to have to take legal action, but ......" note sent with a copy invoice by signed-for post is a lot quicker if it is a genuine oversight. A threat to put them on the BECTU blacklist can also get a rapid response from those who would prefer not to pay, but if they really are a bunch of shysters it might be worth considering whether you would be better off cutting your losses (depending on the amount involved) & making sure it doesn't happen again.

Was this a Charity event or a "charity" event (they tend to work to different rules)? It's an unfortunate fact of life that some event organiser are keener to pay than others. For people or organisations I haven't worked with before I always put "cleared funds before the event" on the quote (they will have had to pay the venue in full at least 2 weeks before their event, so it doesn't seem an unreasonable request). Sometimes this produces cheques weeks or even months ahead, sometimes it means collaring the money-man before he leaves the building & a couple of times it has meant a visit to their HQ to wait while cheque-signers were summoned, but while I've been short-changed a few times, I've only had one total non-payer. Unless this was a charity you know all about it might be worth doing a bit of research into their organisation & officers - embarrassment can be far more effective than threats of legal action.

The +15V & -15Vthat feed all the audio ICs will come from regulator chips (with heatsinks) on the main PCB, but if your stereo channels are working these should be ok. As the fault is common to all your mic channels the problem must be between the regulators on the main PCB & the 1st mic channel on the ribbon cable. I can only give very general advice, - hopefully someone familiar with the MFX range might step in here ??

I had assumed the MFX would be similar inside to the EPM & EFX range, but obviously not :(. I have found service manuals for these on the web, but failed with the MFXi range. Can you find the +15V & -15V rails on the ribbon cable & check that they get to the PCBs (the Mute light & PFL switching probably use the +5V rail)?

Dismantling my EPM looks like a longer job than I've got time for at the moment, but the drawings I have found suggest that the top part of the channel-strips is attached to the rest by jumpers, so it may be that all the input ICs have lost a power rail (which would fit with the Mute & PFL buttons still working). It might be worth trying to talk to one of the engineers at Soundcraft, & there is probably someone on the BR who knows far more about them than me, but if you want to take a look inside first - Remove EVERYTHING from the top-panel; caps & faders pull off, jack sockets twist off - don't forget the 2 screws per XLR (unusually for Soundcraft there don't seem to be any other screws), then remove the 16 screws that hold the top / sides panel onto the bottom panel. The top / sides panel SHOULD then just lift off, exposing the PCBs. Good luck.

Is the mixer new (they are discontinued) or has it just stopped working? Just a thought - these come with different channel counts. Might be worth checking whether the mic/line channels are on 1 PCB & the stereo channels & master section (which are common across the range) are on a separate PCB, in which case it would be worth checking the ribbon connector to the mic/line PCB. Chances are a connector has come loose. I'll have a look inside my EPM tomorrow to see if there is an obvious suspect.

Even SVGA (800x600) is usually good enough for your average Powerpoint or SongPro slide, especially if you don't tell anyone !! Excellent suggestion

Those who passed through Wood Norton in the day may remember the pub at Fladbury, where my room-mate & I spent every lunchtime for 22 weeks. The Cider pump had lost most of its chrome & the cider was eating into the brass as well - possibly why my current dentist relies on me to help pay his mortgage.

ALL Coke is vile, unless heavily diluted with Navy Rum.

If you put "Trantec S5.5 Monitorting Software Online Download?" into the search box you should find a Dropbox link near the end of the thread.

Hi Stodd, welcome It's DOS software to re-programme the S3000 & S4000 ranges, but if you follow the thread you'll see that it relies on [a] a proprietary Trantec cable, Windows XP or earlier & [c] a PC old enough to have a parallel (printer) port - USB to parallel adaptors won't work. Not to be confused with programming software for the S5000 or later series, which was the subject of a different thread..

I watched (or at least tried to) "Easter from Kings" yesterday. The dynamic range as broadcast was so great that if you set the volume for speech & solos the organ & choir were painfully loud, & if you set the volume for the choir everything else was inaudible. Had to give up in the end - pity.

Aerials from an old router?

The Dropbox link that Jon Wiles posted on 6th October is still live.

The C451 (hand-held or on an extension tube) was the in-vision mic for all sorts of music in the 70s. Later on Neumanns became very popular (possibly because they were even more expensive!). Not to be confused with the TOTP dummy mics.

Having looked at Jon's Dropbox link I see that this is a totally different package to the S3000/4000 MicProg software that I have on offer, which needs a genuine parallel port & an adaptor lead to make it work. E2A: As the PR departments always say after a total ######-up - "sorry for any confusion"

I have a copy dated 2000, but no idea what version that makes it, also a floppy of v.2.7. E2A: Just reinstalled it to check - appears to be v.6.1.

That's obviously what my local council were doing when they referred to ambient level (which can vary between around 35 & 85dB depending on time of day) at the perimeter of the venue, rather than at the nearest noise sensitive dwelling (where the single complainant lived), which was over hundred yards away on the other side of a main railway line, with diesel trains (many of them double-loco HS125s) passing at speed every few minutes. The limiter as originally set would come close to tripping on polite applause.

Trantec off-the-shelf deregulated frequencies for their S.1, S.101 & S.2 ranges were 173.8, 174.1, 174.5, 174.8 & 175, the only problem being that 174.8 caused severe intermod with 174.5 & 175.0, so you couldn't run a set of 5, but I've run a set of 4 (+ a couple higher up) for years without problems. 173.8 & 175.0 appear to be standard across most manufacturers, but they all seem to use a different pair of frequencies for 174.x

Thanks Graeme, PM sent. I did notice a lot of heat being generated on MS forums about whether "SP4" was a miracle fix-all or the work of the devil. The one using W95 I was told about was Railtrack / Network Rail, but I've no idea what it might be controlling.

Time to admit defeat. Dropping the missing driver into either the windows drivers folder or the program folder had no effect. Even my Win-98 machine would only recognise the proper printer point, not the USB emulation, but listening to a pair of floppy discs clicking away brought back a few memories.

The problem is the parallel port (or lack of one). I've still got a Win-98 laptop & a cannibalised XP laptop with them, but these won't last for ever, so I was trying to do a bit of future-proofing by buying a (bi-directional) USB - parallel lead (the software only came with a parallel - custom connector lead)..

The ones in back of shot in BBC bulletins look like Win-7, but they were probably bought new for NBH.

Thanks Richard & Tim. After ploughing through many threads about how to make various old printers & software work with Win-7 it looks like you can do it for a printer ok (the lead initially shows as "USB Printing Support", but this apparently changes to "LTP Printer Port" when you get the drivers sorted out), & also for some software, if you can find or download the missing DLPORTIO.SYS driver, but the clincher is the message "A parallel port could not be found at either 378h or 278h", which goes well beyond my tinkering ability. I've only got one "real" XP laptop (cannibalised from a Dell with a dying HDD & a Toshiba with a dead graphics chip), which does have a parallel port; the others are Vista, but running XP, & only have USB. When I enquired of my local computer guru about finding a copy of SP3 for the cannibalised machine (I only had up to SP2 on CD) I was told that despite XP support being officially dead, business support doesn't end till 2019 (apparently 95% of business machines in the UK are still on XP, with some major infrastructure still on Win-95), & to download the unofficial"SP4", which claims to have all the updates since SP3 (I then found a download of SP3, so can't report on SP4).

Has anyone managed to make Trantec's mic programming software work with Windows-7, using a USB-parallel lead (or should I just bin the lead & hope that my Windows-98 machine discovers the secret of everlasting life)?