The Unpublished Issues

Online Versions Of This And Past Issues

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Issue #1103

Problems with my audio mixer….

My mixer quit working and it’s a good thing I found out. I don’t get to use it and my sound system very often as I don’t play out in public very ofter anymore but I did have a little gig this week at the retirement home here in town. I’ve played there before and they seem to like my music. In preparations for that, I decided it would be prudent to turn on my old digital mixer and make sure it was working the way it should. Long periods of inaction are hard on everything, including electronics so firing it up once in a while is a good thing as the wifi connection to my iPad had been a bit weak the last several times I used the thing. I turned it on, set my iPad to the mixer’s channel and …. nothing. The iPad could not make a connection and showed no ‘internet service’. Bummer, now I’m stressed. Did I mention that the mixer itself has no controls on it except an off/on switch, everything is controlled from an app on the iPad.

I tried over and over, rebooting and so on. Even tried downloading the X-air app onto Sue’s iPad but it couldn’t make a connection. The mixer’s wireless system had crapped out, or some other issue had popped into existance. Now what to do? I fired off a text message to Ryan for ideas and then started to think of what my options might be. Option 1 would be silly as it entailed driving in to the music store in the city and buying another mixer, an analog mixer, last resort but it would work. Option 2, wait for Ryan to get back to me that evening to execute his idea of using our old Air-porter unit, which would be the best of all worlds but I would need his help to make it work. Option 3, hook up the old Windows laptop which hasn’t been turned on in years and hook it to the mixer via rj5 cable as I do have an X-air computer version of the app program on the laptop. This work-around would be a bit clumsy and I’d have to carry the laptop around to gigs and set it up and so on. Do-able but more stuff to haul around. For something to do and as a backup to Ryan’s idea, I went to work and connected the mixer to the laptop via the internet cable and worked my way through the steps necessary to get the mixer to talk to the laptop and vice-versa. It worked, I got the system to work. Hooked up a speaker and mic and tested it and it worked. This is now ‘plan B’ as I knew Ryan’s idea would be the best and easiest way if we could get it to work.

Ryan talked me through configuring the Airport unit via my iPad and low and behold, we were able to get the iPad X-air app to communicate with the mixer. ONCE! Then it crapped out and would not re-connect. Tried Sue’s iPad, no luck. Tried everything I could think of, no luck. So, back to the hard wired laptop and bingo, everything works. So now plan ‘B’ is plan ‘A’ unless the connection issue can be figured out. That would have to wait until sometime in the future when Ryan can actually be here to help in person. I did some digging and discovered that the X-air app had been recently updated and app updates are automatically uploaded onto iPads etc, and now all sorts of users were complaining that it no longer works. Well, that answers a lot of questions. This has happened in the past where the maker of the mixer has updated their app only to break it in doing so. It has also happened when Apple has updated the iPad O/S and the X-air could no longer function. So, the whole thing is out of my hands and I’ll have to stick with plan ‘A’, the hard wired laptop, for now. Not a problem, just a hassle but at least it works quite well.

Playing my gig….

Thursday came along and we loaded the sound system into the back of my truck and headed to the gig at the local retirement home. Joyce saw us drive up and opened a side door so we could bring the system in easily and bypass the lobby. It takes about half an hour to set up and check the sound and volume, and then I played my gig. The old inmates tend to like the old music I play for them and it’s music I tend to like so it went nicely. One old guy is into Ian Tyson music to he appreciated the Tyson songs I played. They all tapped their feet, nodded their heads along to the music although some of the nodding turned into napping but that’s also ok. I was supposed to play until 3:30 but they kept wanting another song or two so it went a bit overtime but that was also ok. By the end I was feeling pretty beat as it’s a lot more work than most would think, but I also felt pretty good. It’s nice to play in public and feel welcomed and appreciated.

And yes, the laptop solution worked just fine. It required a few more steps, a few more wires, and a few more minutes to get up and running and connected but thats ok.

doug

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This series of ‘unpublished’ issues is my way of keeping track of what I’ve been up to during the summer when we are not sending out the normal Squamidian. No one knows about these issues but that’s ok. This also keeps the issue number in sync with the passing weeks.