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Problem with my Mackie soundboard please help!

N

nboyer941

Jul 22, 2008
528
13
Burnsville, MN
#1
Hello, I live in a town-home and I play late at night so I have always had a soundboard that I run everything through so that I can use headphones at night.

I run guitar, bass, vocals, ipod, drum machine, ect.

My old board went out, so I went and purchased a used Mackie 1604 soundboard off Craigslist for $150.

It is awsome and I love it, but the headphone port started to go out. The right ear would fade in and out. When it would go out, I would wiggle the volume slider left/right and up/down and the right headphone would sometimes phade back in.

Now, it won't come back at all. Playing with only the right headphone is unbearable. Other than this problem, everything works great. There are no fuzzy pots or anything. The live sound out of the mains sounds great.

Any ideas how I can fix the headphone problem?
(in the pic, it is the slider right below the headphone jack.)


Thanks for the help.
 

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#2
First step is to isolate the problem.

1) Try another set of headphones or powered monitors connected to the headphone out jack.

2) Wiggle the plug around in the jack. If the sound pops in and out in the ear that's not working, the jack's the problem. Push in the contacts, tighten the nuts, clean off any crud, and reseat and resolder the connections.

3) Bring the Headphone/Solo fader and Mains faders up to low to moderate levels. Hit the SOLO TO MAIN button above the Headphone/Solo fader. Solo one of your channels and listen. If that's intermittent or sounds funky, then you probably won't have any luck fixing it yourself. Take it to a tech.

NOTE: Please don't do either of the last two with any faders full up. You might damage your ears severely.
 
#3
that is a great small format mixer. "original" (and high-quality) made-in-usa mackie--- actually one of the first mixers they produced.

my guess is the "fader" that controls can volume is either dirty or failing. the jack probably *isnt* at fault, and if it is, it is because it is oxidized (not very likely, IME, but not impossible).

the good news is it can almost certainly be cleaned, but you dont want to use just any old contact cleaner. you want stuff designed for faders/pots/tv-tuners/etc. it will be a cleaner/deoxidizer, as well as lubricant.
with no lube, the "clean" fader will die in short order, as it literally tears itself apart from friction.
with no cleaner, the gunk just gets gunkier (please dont spray wd-40 or something along those lines in to an electro-mechanical device!).
the caig products are highly regarded, and there are other options as well. hell, you can even get a couple of versions at radio shack, and their house-branded stuff doesnt suck.

BTW, ive used this exact mixer (with a handful of XLR-TRS adapters) to mix a live-band situation plenty of times--- occasionally using up to 8 condenser mics and/or active DI's. 16 channels with up to 6 aux sends, and you can roll the connector bay around so that the mixer can be flush rack-mounted--- cool. the EQ is very basic, however, and there are no low-cut filters. and the faders are so short they feel like toys!
:hiding:
 
#4
and in the short term you can try this: with the mixer off (or at least, with no signal going through it), actuate the headphone fader up and down, going all the way from 0 to 100, so to speak, about 50 times.

does it work now? if not, see my post above.
 
#7
the headphone slider has totally gone out on me and I'm back to the same old problem. I called mackie and ordered a new slider for $11.

Does anyone have any advice for a newbie on how to install it? Any links or references for my board? I do know how to soldier.

Thanks.
 

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