Mackie DL32R locked up during show

[JohnMHoyt]

Well, last night we were playing for thousands of our closest friends at one of the areas largest weekly music concert series and opted to run our own sound since we had 8 people on stage and our tech knows us better than the sound company....

We used the DL32R, and provided the sound company a L+R feed to their system for mains.

Everything was great until 3/4 of the way through the show... Halfway through the 2nd hour and a half or so....

We were still connected via wi-fi to our router, but, MF went dormant...   Red disconnected indicator.  The system stayed live, with the mix exactly where it was, but there was no control from any iPad.
Today I checked and sure enough, the recording also stopped at the exact time this happened.

Now I have the DL on my kitchen table running for the last 30 minutes or so with a signal into it to see if this happens again.

My recordings are ruined - we had a 4 camera shoot, and was depending on that multitrack.

GAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   At least the show wasn't totally ruined.  We just didn't have effects or control.   

I believe the effects were down (delay and verb) too. Not sure if they crashed along with the control services or if the tech had them muted or down just before it went sideways.

This is the second time something like this has happened. The first time was at a bar gig, so we took a break and rebooted.   

Nothing else was affected - we were on solid mains, and we have a power conditioner too.

[WK154]

Sounds like it's time to retire the DL32R with all that history of cable failures etc.. I wouldn't wait for another critical show to ruin your reputation, Mackie's not worth that.

[JohnMHoyt]

Sounds like it's time to retire the DL32R with all that history of cable failures etc.. I wouldn't wait for another critical show to ruin your reputation, Mackie's not worth that.

If this ever happens to anyone... just finish the song, announce a quick break, turn the mains and mons off reboot mackie, wait a minute after power is back on and bring the mains+mons back online.. should only be down 2 minutes max... start recording again and get the show going.

Maybe I will take up juggling to entertain while it reboots.

Sure is sad that this happened at this particular show. Not like a wedding, or bar gig where we could stop... 

Not sure what other mixer to look at, I don’t want a physical console. I need 32 inputs, need 12+ outs, need 32 channel direct to disk recording. Those aren’t wants at this stage of the game.

[WK154]

A X32 rack and a S16 stage box along with the recording card would meet the requirements. Haven't heard of X32's locking up. No cables to re-seat inside. Music files don't need to be separated. Expandable to 40 channels.

[WK154]

A quick survey on the net leaves you with company. Turns out that Cinderella turns into a pumpkin after about 2-2.5Hrs. So  the reboot should be planed for before 2Hrs of operation. Mackie has a horrible track record for fixing intermittent problems (remember "white noise").

[JohnMHoyt]

A quick survey on the net leaves you with company. Turns out that Cinderella turns into a pumpkin after about 2-2.5Hrs. So  the reboot should be planed for before 2Hrs of operation. Mackie has a horrible track record for fixing intermittent problems (remember "white noise").

I think that out of a couple hundred shows, I have had the system on for anywhere from 3-8 hours at a time, and left on at my rehearsal spot for days at a time, with only maybe 3 lockups....
The first time was within weeks of getting it and I didn't know what was going on. It had been on only from sound check until we started the first song. As I recall, it was just like last friday and no response. 
We stopped and checked everything, then finally shut it all down and back up and it worked. That didn't happen again until a good while later.

I have a friend who has used his DL32r for 3 years in a pub for hundreds of acts. He's never had a single problem. It's on all the time, or most of the time.   Never had a cable come loose either. But it never moves.

[JohnMHoyt]

A X32 rack and a S16 stage box along with the recording card would meet the requirements. Haven't heard of X32's locking up. No cables to re-seat inside. Music files don't need to be separated. Expandable to 40 channels.

To get what I have now is almost impossible.

In 3 rack spaces, I have 32 inputs and 16 outputs.  All the ports are accessible from the front. I can record direct to disk.

Going to an X32 rack would have some of my ins/outs deep inside a rack.  So I would essentially need 2 S16s to get all my ins/outs where we could access them.  That is an even bigger rack than I have and more expense and more room in the car.  Of course I could build an XLR patch bay, but that's 2 spaces, plus 2 for the S16 and 3 for the mixer.

Then there's the recording issue... The card that I saw uses SD cards, not enough storage. I need to be able to record ~22 tracks - and have enough storage for 2 shows a weekend minimum.
There's a 3rd party card for 300 bucks or so.

Just doesn't seem like a "deal" compared to the Mackie...

[dpdan]

Hi John, sad to hear about your DL32R failure.

I would suggest letting Ben Olswang at Mackie know exactly what happended.
I don't imagine there is anything now that he or anyone could do for you after the fact.

I had one situation after hundreds and hundreds of jobs with my now three year old DL32R last summer and after one set, the band went backstage to eat,
we came back into the ballroom and I had no control of anything, of course the lead vocal mic was still working since I always leave it on, as well as the background music, which I was able to turn off since it was playing via "Airplay" from an old iPhone. Immediately, I tried a second iPad, no go, I then swapped routers, no go, nothing fixed the unresponsvie DL32R except a quick power down and back up again,, and all was good. I can surely understand your grief with losing the multi-track recording when you have multiple cameras running. GOSH! I suppose if it was being recorded to a laptop with a DAW, since the audio was still running fine, it may not have quit when the "connected hard drive" recording stopped. Who knows,,, 

All I can say is this.... somehow, "we" fall in love with this technology and the amazing luxury that it provides with so much stuff in one little box that we also expect it to behave flawlessy in every way, especially when for two plus years and close to three hundred events..... it does.
I too get complacent with the nearly PERFECT reliablilty, and when something does go wrong it is devastating. I think that as long as we are dealing with "zeros and ones" streaming at nine bazillion miles per millisecond, somewhere along the way, one of the little digits get's lost. I have no explanation except that this is one of the things that we know CAN happen. I have heard horror stories of concerts going down with Digico consoles that cost....  HOLY CRAP more than one can imagine.. Anyway, I feel your pain.     
 

[JohnMHoyt]

Hi John, sad to hear about your DL32R failure.

I would suggest letting Ben Olswang at Mackie know exactly what happended.
I don't imagine there is anything now that he or anyone could do for you after the fact.
     

My dl32r has had a slew of problems but most of them I can deal with in spite of the frustration.
The crash during a show is not one of them, so I am seriously looking, but it’s hard to Best the price and features of the dl32r.

It’s so close to perfect in design and features ...

I wonder if my problem is not related to the system clock being so far off. In the computer service work I do for a day job, time is important to servers and computers and network gear.

Anyway, Mackie isn’t going to do anything to help me - i’m Long out of warranty and I cannot afford to send this system in for service - sigh

[dpdan]

put that sucker on eBay with a used iPad and router then buy a new one,
you could also get extended warranty from Square Trade for the new one. 

I seriously doubt that the "way off" time stamping on your multi-channel wav files is to blame.
I'm wondering.... you should consider this... please don't call me an idiot,,, but a friend of mine repairs electronic stuff for a living. He has his own shop and on the counter where people bring in their gear for repair he has a power "conditioner" made by Monster sitting right there for everyone to see. It caught on fire when the home was struck by lightening and fried everything that it was supposed to protect. It almost burned down the customer's home. Almost everyone asks about it, and when they do he gets to slam Monster for the crap they make. He then explains that unless you buy a commercial AC power backup system you are wasting your money on these Furman and Monster consumer pieces of crap that claim to condition your power. Anyway, if I were you, I would try not using the "conditioner". I have done three years of shows, concerts and wedding receptions, probably pushing 300 jobs and the only device I use is a Furman PL-PLUS that sits above the DL32R in a four space SKB case, it is only for the convenience of displaying AC Volts, and providing AC outlets for the DL, two Sennheiser wireless receivers and the Apple router. I never expect it to protect my gear.
Just a thought,,,

It's worth trying a few jobs without it.

       

[JohnMHoyt]

put that sucker on eBay with a used iPad and router then buy a new one,
you could also get extended warranty from Square Trade for the new one. 
     

I was talking with my wife last night about options and the X32 is just not a good option for us...   3 spaces for the mixer, 2 for the s16 to get enough ports and then another 2 for a xlr panel to move the jacks of the X32 to the outside of the rack where we could reach them, then the recording card.  Lots of break points, more weight and size and a new rack.

So, I may just buy another Mackie DL32R even though it is a bit long in the tooth and no development that we can see happening.   Going to kick myself if 6 months from purchase, they release a new model!

I'll move the existing one into the studio and it will give me a mostly working mixer there for rehearsals, practice, recording, etc, and be a backup.

Funny you should mention power conditioners....   The first time this happened, when the thing was brand new, I was on stable power and using a big monster toroidal power conditioner from my work. It was about 2000 bucks. But it was so heavy, and took up so much room (it's bigger than the mixer) that we stopped carrying it years ago. That thing has the most stable output you have ever seen an o-scope on, it's a thing of beauty.   Soooooo, the very first time this happened to the mackie, I guarantee it wasn't power related. I don't know what caused it. 

The second time was with stable power at a commercial venue and I think it was heat related. Yes, a furman was in place.

This time was on power filtered by the pro sound company with a rack of filters, then into my furman, a different one from the 2nd time.... Guaranteed not heat, it was outdoors with a good breeze, both fans turning, low 70s temps, though, the sun was out, and may have been hitting the front rack at the beginning of the show and the black absorbing heat - but by the time it crashed it was dark and temps dropping....  Soooo, not thinking heat.

As I went through more of the video, and we headed into that second half of the second set, the band got hotter, and the crowd got bumpin - lots of great dancers and footage - and damn, no sound from the board!

OH!  One other thing when it crashed the very first time - I had a computer connected and was recording to it - the audio to the computer stopped too! So the USB goes dead when this happens.
Only the Ins/Outs remain active in the last mix state....   I believe the effects engines die too because in the video clips there are no effects and they were on during the previous song before the crash and the sound tech says they did not kill them before the crash.

[WK154]

Let me address the recording card issue first. The SDHC spec is only "officially" good to 32GB but Behringers ad refers to 64GB for 2 cards. So what's wrong with this picture? Well Microsoft in Windows 98 had Fat32 able to go to 2TB. So what happened? In an attempt to move their customers to NT and the NTFS file system they crippled the FAT32 formatter. Unfortunately there are lots of 3rd party apps that will in fact format it up to the original 2TB. Microsoft did not disable the read/write function. I am using a 128GB USB stick regularly without issues with a FAT32 format. My Zoom Q4N is used with 64GB SDXC cards without issues formatted with FAT32. It cant use exFAT. 6 hrs of 720p video plus 48 kHz of audio (stereo) uses ~ 32GB. Based on Behringers 3hrs of 32 channels (64 GB cards) for one of the cards running 3 hrs that would put 128 GB at 6 hrs.  More than enough even for your application and it's easily exchanged for a new one and beats dragging a fragile hard-drive around. I don't have the card at present so I can't be certain of the capacity but someone certainly can answer that question.

Correction the Q4N cant use exFat.

[WK154]

As to the X32r and a X16 I would certainly approach things differently. I would make a two stage-box setup 4U (room for the router) and 2U with the single network cable between them. This in my experience lends itself to less cable clutter on stage instead of all from the same box. The boxes would also be lighter to transport. The rear connector layout can easily become the front with the right box (front and rear rails short box). Since I don't have enough detail on your specific setup It's only a suggestion. Since I have the tools to make boxes this has never been an issue. Your mileage may vary.

[Weogo]

Hi Folks,

John, bummer about the gig and recording!

I posted about this on the LAB:
 http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,166836.0.html
Interesting comments. 
Even some of the big-name mixers have had show-stopping re-boots.
 
POWER:
On the internet we can read bad stuff about pretty much every digital mixer.
I would bet that a significant number of these problems are power related.

Do you meter the power for every show? 
A basic three-prong tester and volt-meter will show most, though not all, common problems.
Are you using a UPS?

SurgeX is probably the best surge protector you can get.
The SA-82 is plenty of protection for a digital mixer, router, DSP, digital wireless and
other things that you don't want to re-boot because of a power glitch.
Most other surge protectors use MOVs.  A few of these lower cost protectors will
indicate when their MOVs are no longer protecting, but most don't.
I don't always use my SurgeX unit, but I ALWAYS have anything digital on a UPS.

RECORDING:
With the USB drives, I have been stopping/restarting recordings, mostly to mark the end of songs.
This also saves everything up to that point.
I'm using USB sticks, or an SSD in a USB case, no fragile spinning drive issues.
One venue has a laptop installed next to the mixer so there I'm tracking directly to Reaper.

WK,
I own a DL1608, installed one in a local venue, own a DL32R and have two installed in local venues.
These are regularly doing 4~6 hours shows.
One does a bunch of 8+ hour concerts over the summer.
Last Saturday mine did theater from 6:30AM on to 3:30 off.
I have heard of no re-boots during a show, ever.
Frankly, for you to state these mixers need re-booting "about 2-2.5hrs"
makes me question your motivation for posting this.
Please back up your statement.
I want to believe you are posting to make the world a better place.

For me, all of this equipment is just tools.
I own AKG, Audix, Audio Technica, Countryman, Crown, Earthworks, EV, Heil, Rode,
Sennheiser, Shure, and even a couple Radio Shack microphones.
Generally, the best mic for the job gets used.
I own and use a Midas MR18 for some small gigs where it has the specific feature set needed. 
Considering the gigs I do, budget issues, time constraints, pack space, crew, recording options, etc.,
the DL32R is generally my first choice mixer.

John, if you want to consider something different, last week I did a show and the band
showed up with their own tech, carrying an Allen & Heath SQ5 and stage-box. 
(Contrary to the rider we were sent.  Also per the rider, we had six monitors on deck, and
they were carrying IEMs!)
He used our Cat5E between the stage and FOH, and all went well.
Seemed like a nice mixer, lots of ins and outs, and has some nice features.
From reading LAB posts, this mixer looks promising, but there are some early adopter issues.
For Ipad mixing I still prefer the DL32R over the A&H app.

Thanks and good health,  Weogo
 

[WK154]

WEGO
The 2-2.5 hr. preemptive reboot was for those that had a prior problem not for the general DL32 user base. I use a battery powered system for most venues, it comes with it's own problems, but not during the performance. The recording is limited to a max of 4 GB so it already has a saving feature in FAT32. I don't know if anyone would want to record for that long without a break.
So are you doing your part in this World?