Keyboard amp for Voice and Fiddle?

[Steve Conner]

Yay, the SRM150 is pretty good, enjoy!

[Enzo]

Welcome to the world of bands and PAs. A saga that never ends. Believe me.

I have a Squire strat myself. Says Fender on the headstock, but it is a Squire. It is a Wayne's World commemorative strat. Like any other low end Fender strat but the neck bolt plate has a large overlapping WW engraved into it. It is white, well, cream.

[Rigormortis]

I got the little Mackie in the mail today, but I plugged it in and set it up and it didn't work. No pilot light, no noise, no nothing.

I tested all the microphone cables through another amp, and ruled that out.

At first I thought it must be something simple, like a switch I missed; so I read the entire manual, looking for a solution.

Then I tested the power cord, and it was okay. Then I opened it up and checked to make sure the juice was getting through the fuse and the switch and into the amp itself. And it was.

Then I just boxed it up and sent it back. I'll get another one and try again.

[Joe Bee]

Woah, that sure sucks! I had the impression that the Mackie was quite a good little PA from the specs, but aparently quality control is lacking at Mackies. Do give it another try though, I think IF it works, it would be ideally suited to your application.

[Rigormortis]

I think the Mackie is pretty good--at least it has some very nice features, like high-quality jacks that take either 1/4" or XLR. The overall design seems pretty good. It does pretty much everything, from amplifying microphones, to monitoring the main mixer output, to playing from an iPod, to mixing two incoming channels, and more stuff having to do with lines out.

Giving Mackie the benefit of the doubt, the one I ordered from Musician's Friend was marked as a "blemished" item. I didn't see any blemishes on the PA itself, except the merchandise box was scuffed up and looked as if it had been opened previously. Musicians Friend exchanged me a new one at the same discount; so those guys are fine.

I'm hoping the one I got was just a weird one. It seems to me if power is getting into it and nothing lights up or works, then it's probably a single fault somewhere in or near the power supply, and probably all the other stuff was good.

That one's history. The Mackie tech people will probably use it for scrap parts. Too bad I can't keep it to fix up myself, if it's just going to get tossed.

[Joe Bee]

You wouldn't have had much fun fixing THAT anyway. A very small package with a lot of functionality and power; I bet the guts look just like those of a mobile phone with SMD components all over the place.
It probably wont have a power transformer but rather a switch mode power supply, and the class D power amp is basically also a high frequency switch mode converter.

As to what might have been wrong with the box, I think the fault could have been pretty much anywhere, tripping a crowbar or some power good error amplifier, and therefore switching off the main power supply. Debugging would be virtually impossible without a lot of equipment and experience.

[Enzo]

I would not be so fast to label this a MAckie QC issue. This is one unit that was shipped to Alaska - about as far as it can go. WHo knows what it went through getting there. I am not going to assume all Mackies are going to fail because one does. Even the Rolls Royce dealer has a service department.

items marked BLEM generally refer to cosmetics. It it had an electronic problem that was repaired, it would be tagged refurbished. Doesn't matter, it is warranted either way.

DEAD units are usuaslly the easiest to repair. It is mostly simple stuff. Yours may be anything, but I'd be beting on a broken connrection, loose wire, that sort of thing.

[Rigormortis]

Wow!

Well, I guess it's a far cry from the amp kit I put together in 8th Grade!

(I inherited that kit and just started soldering it together one day out of curiosity, not knowing even what it would come to. I had so much fun doing it--really heavy transfomer and big tubes--but I somehow lost a capacitor and couldn't find one in my little town. Everything else was complete, but the missing cap made it unusable. Lots of fun though, and I got really good at soldering. I've wanted another kit like that, but now anything of that quality is going to come from Weber or someone and cost $.)


I went into the Mackie as far as I felt comfortable, feeling it was just as Enzo said, a loose connection or something I could spot. But alas!

The new one should be here soon. I'll keep you guys posted.

[Rigormortis]

The new Mackie finally came.

They sent it about three times before they actually got it right. Long story. I guess they had a hard time understanding what I meant when I told them "No trucks come here."

Anyway, the little Mackie is pretty good. It's not very loud, but the voice and fiddle come through really cleanly and bright.

Thanks for all your advice, guys!

And I'm getting this live amplified sound thing down now. Not so much flinching from the audience any more.

[Enzo]

And experience is the best teacher. Once you get the hang of it and get used to using it, then you wil come to know better just what you need and don't need, and will be much better equipped for any future gear purchases.

[kurtdaniel]

If you run your fiddle through a peavy MX you want need a pre-amp and at loud or soft volumes it will kick butt-If your band plays loud you will hear it

[kurtdaniel]

I used a Yorkville KB200 (200 watt) as a fiddle amp for small shows for a couple of years.

[Sloan]

I've had good experience at small gigs running vocals and other instruments through a behringer keyboard amp like this:
Buy Behringer ULTRATONE K3000FX Keyboard Amp/PA System | Keyboard Amplifiers & Monitors | Musician's Friend

It's basically a small 4-channel mixer and power amp built into a speaker cabinet.