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Does 'Dirty Electricity' Exist?

Hurricane Jimmie

Hurricane Jimmie

Supporting Member
Nov 21, 2014
2,325
4,668
75
Edwardsville IL (St. Louis Metro)
#1
So Anyway, I have an Ashdown Studio 15 combo that I use in our little Americana Trio. We play wineries, antler halls and a couple of bar/restaurants. We're not loud and the amp is never set beyond 12:00 on volume. All other settings are flat, except 'Drive' which is off. My bass is a passive G&L Fallout Tribute, with the volume & tone set at about 1/2. No pedals.
We've played one small venue several times. On two separate occasions, the Ashdown has occasionally distorted badly at the beginning of the night. It stopped later in the 2nd set. The only place this has ever happened is at this venue. The PA wasn't distorting, and the guitar player had no noticeable issues with his amp. We're loudest at the end of the last set and the amp wasn't distorting.
At this venue there's one outlet that we have to access with extension cords. On my side, I have two Bose L1's, a mixer, the drummer's mixer and my amp. The other cord goes to the guitarist for his small Fender amp and pedals. We always set up this way and have used this arrangement (one outlet, two cords) at other venues without any problems.

One of my former bandmates (an electrician) was at the gig and he said it could be 'Dirty Electricity'.

I was ready to go shopping for a new amp, but now I'm not so sure. I played the amp for several hours at home the next day with no issues. I'm wondering if it's an amp issue or a venue issue.
I like the Ashdown because it's light and it's only a year old.
Either way, I'll take a different amp to that venue next time we work there.

Any insight or resolution of similar experiences would be appreciated.
 
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#3
Not your amp. I've always hoped there was some sort of filter product to solve such issues, but I've become convinced that not even the expensive ones work reliably. The alternative is not to play that venue, and tell them to fix their power....
 
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#4
bholder said:
Not your amp. I've always hoped there was some sort of filter product to solve such issues, but I've become convinced that not even the expensive ones work reliably. The alternative is not to play that venue, and tell them to fix their power....
Click to expand...
I have a Furman power conditioner that I thought about using, in addition to my surge protector. But If we're not getting enough power or 'overloading' the circuit, I don't think it will help.
 
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#5
Hurricane Jimmie said:
I have a Furman power conditioner that I thought about using, in addition to my surge protector. But If we're not getting enough power or 'overloading' the circuit, I don't think it will help.
Click to expand...
Yeah from my experience, those help against equipment damage more than they do dirty power noise abatement. I've read that some higher end units do work for noise, hoping someone who knows will jump in here with recommendations.
 
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#6
bholder said:
Yeah from my experience, those help against equipment damage more than they do dirty power noise abatement. I've read that some higher end units do work for noise, hoping someone who knows will jump in here with recommendations.
Click to expand...

Anecdote: one of my bands had a monthly gig at a room with "dirty" power that primarily affected the guitarist's rig. The guitarist went to Guitar Center for a solution and came back with one of the lower-end Furman "power conditioners", which was GC's recommendation. I didn't believe it would solve the problem and it didn't.

I'm also curious about the high-end units. Bumping your question to hear back from a tech -- @agedhorse ?
 
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#7
In live venues, dirty electricity can result from sharing circuits with lighting (especially dimmers), large appliances (eg refrigeration or air conditioning units), or old wiring. These disturbances can cause audio equipment—like a bass amp—to exhibit distortion or noise.

The smooth flow of AC is disrupted by spikes, surges, or high-frequency electrical noise that travels through power lines and building wiring.
 
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#8
Hurricane Jimmie said:
I have a Furman power conditioner that I thought about using, in addition to my surge protector. But If we're not getting enough power or 'overloading' the circuit, I don't think it will help.
Click to expand...
I was playing at a pretty nice venue recently, but the powerstrip I had to plug my rig into just looked kind of consumer-grade. My amp starting dipping down in volume to almost inaudible and then it would come back up--this happened randomly during the first of two sets. No time to really troubleshoot, and my rig was bone simple anyway--was just bass>tuner>DI to FOH/thru to amp. FOH said my signal was fine out front. Second set I plugged into a different outlet on their powerstrip, and the problem went away. Apparently it was a sketchy outlet on their strip. I don't think there's any power conditioner that could help with that.
 
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#11
The Chief Electrician at the utility where I used to work complained often about the effects of 'dirty power' in a section of the grid where a key (critical) pump station was located. I never understood what exactly that meant, but we had a lot of glitchy power there... over/under current faults on high voltage equipment. Most of that stuff has safeties built-in so that it isn't damaged in these occurrences but getting called in three nights a week to reset something kinda' sucked.
 
#13
Hurricane Jimmie said:
So Anyway, I have an Ashdown Studio 15 combo that I use in our little Americana Trio. We play wineries, antler halls and a couple of bar/restaurants. We're not loud and the amp is never set beyond 12:00 on volume. All other settings are flat, except 'Drive' which is off. My bass is a passive G&L Fallout Tribute, with the volume & tone set at about 1/2. No pedals.
We've played one small venue several times. On two separate occasions, the Ashdown has occasionally distorted badly at the beginning of the night. It stopped later in the 2nd set. The only place this has ever happened is at this venue. The PA wasn't distorting, and the guitar player had no noticeable issues with his amp. We're loudest at the end of the last set and the amp wasn't distorting.
At this venue there's one outlet that we have to access with extension cords. On my side, I have two Bose L1's, a mixer, the drummer's mixer and my amp. The other cord goes to the guitarist for his small Fender amp and pedals. We always set up this way and have used this arrangement (one outlet, two cords) at other venues without any problems.

One of my former bandmates (an electrician) was at the gig and he said it could be 'Dirty Electricity'.

I was ready to go shopping for a new amp, but now I'm not so sure. I played the amp for several hours at home the next day with no issues. I'm wondering if it's an amp issue or a venue issue.
I like the Ashdown because it's light and it's only a year old.
Either way, I'll take a different amp to that venue next time we work there.

Any insight or resolution of similar experiences would be appreciated.
Click to expand...
There is also the Tripp Lite stuff to look at, discussed here…

Power conditioner for dirty AC mains... snake oil or not?

I think the BackUPS 1500 is 865 watt? I'd have to double check...I run my VHT 2562 and rack off the APC as it draws 350watts; but my 2902 draws 700 watts and that overloads the 1500 I actually want to run another two 350watt amps as well...yes, simultaneously BTW it is dangerous to daisy chain...
www.thegearpage.net
 
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#14
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#15
Power conditioners are mostly a waste of your money.

You want a voltage regulator. It gurantees constant voltage at the cost of less current available if the source voltage is very low. A regulator also provides all the “conditioning” you want.

Look into the Furman P1800AR (or one of the older AR models bought second hand).
 
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#18
brianrost said:
Power conditioners are mostly a waste of your money.

You want a voltage regulator. It gurantees constant voltage at the cost of less current available if the source voltage is very low. A regulator also provides all the “conditioning” you want.

Look into the Furman P1800AR (or one of the older AR models bought second hand).
Click to expand...
Thanks! Sweetwater had a refurb Furman P-1800 PF R 15A Prestige on closeout, not cheap, but I jumped on it, will post here how it works...
 
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#19
I played an Island venue thirty years ago where my mains amp (a Peavey) went into thermal protect mode (or did it blow an internal fuse? I forget). Any way, we had to use the sub amp (Crown MT 1200) to power the mains and ditch the subs for the remainder of the gig. Our sound tech measured the voltage on our circuit... 85 volts! Yikes! I'm glad I didn't blow the Crown, too. They got the issue fixed in the off season that year. I don't know what bands after us had to do the rest of that summer...
 
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#20
bholder said:
I've always hoped there was some sort of filter product to solve such issues, but I've become convinced that not even the expensive ones work reliably.
Click to expand...

What you're describing is not a power filter, but an "online" uninterruptible power supply, which converts AC to DC and then generates new clean AC power. These are expensive, but effective.

To the OP, the best thing you can do is carry a receptacle tester to make sure that things are not mis-wired. And if you notice issues on a properly-wired outlet, try to find out what else is living on the circuit that could be affecting your power.
 
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