Playing MP3s through PA

roundthebend

I provided some tunes for my Mum's garden party recently. I downloaded a load of tracks from Spotify onto my laptop, then used the headphone socket into my little mixing desk which then split the signal to my 2 powered PA speakers. Some tracks had this kind of digital blippy noise issue, and some were fine. On some the vocal track was so quiet it sounded like a karaoke backing track.

So, what was going wrong? And how should I do it in future?

IanSavage

The missing vocal thing indicates that you MIGHT have run the stereo output from the laptop into a single balanced input on the desk, which would have the consequence of cancelling out anything that was panned centrally...

Emp_Fab

Laptops are also a bugger for digital noise and earth loops.  If the noise goes away when it's on batteries, then use it that way if you can.

Also as Ian says... split the output from the laptop to two mono channels on the mixer, if you don't have a dedicated stereo one.

roundthebend

The digital noise thing is more of an effect - you can still make it the tune but it's like it's being scrambled.

I'll see what my mixing desk offers as input options.

ICBM

roundthebend said:

The digital noise thing is more of an effect - you can still make it the tune but it's like it's being scrambled.

Check out Synthman's work, he's the master of this technique.

Ianpdq

When I did it I kept the volume level on the laptop as low as possible and brought up the volume on the PA and it worked fine

maltingsaudio

Digital noise otherwise known as switching noise from the lap power supply .Ian's done my guess about the vocal cancelling. However I also get the blippy noiise on playback from the web sometimes and have encountered it on some other computers its a software glitch. I have found its more common when a update is either downloading or wants to be installed

close2u

Thread hijack ...

 

what are the cable / connection options for playing mp3s loaded on to an mp3 player through a pa?

ICBM

You need a stereo mini-jack to dual phono or dual 1/4" cable (which will preserve the stereo, if that matters), or a stereo mini-jack to mono 1/4" with the two sides connected together - usually it's safe to do it directly.

maltingsaudio

Stereo Mini jack to 2x phono readily available,  stereo mini jack to quarter inch jack readily available and if its an ipod quick hunt on amazon and you will find a ipod connector to phono connector 

close2u

Cheers.

It's a Sansa Clip.

This sort of thing:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/4m-Twin-RED-WHITE-2x-RCA-PHONO-to-Stereo-3-5mm-Mini-Jack-STEREO-Audio-Aux-Cable-/320999123927?pt=UK_Computing_Sound_Vision_Audio_Cables_Adapters&hash=item4abd09ebd7#ht_1045wt_773

close2u

bump - as I didn't get confirmation that I'd be buying the right thing .... is that link to the connector lad I need?

 

Thanks

John_P

close2u said:

bump - as I didn't get confirmation that I'd be buying the right thing .... is that link to the connector lad I need?

 

Thanks

That should work fine, if you are using the 2track playback type input  that has phono sockets.   

The other option is something with a minijack to two mono 1/4" jacks that you can plug into two channels on the desk like this

close2u

Ah yes that looks much more like the thing .. .a tiny jack to use on the headphone out of my mp3 and two 1/4 inch jacks to go to the pa

 

I'm a pa noob

 do they all take the red/black 1/4 inch jacks somewhere on them?

 

edit - for clarity's sake

 

I don't own a pa and have left the knob twiddling / connecting to others who know what they're doing

my current workplace has music practice rooms with pas

I hope to plug my mp3 and my Zoom fx pedal both into the pa to practice to backing tracks ... I haven't looked the pa connections over yet

maltingsaudio

If its an Apple product there is this available http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B006ZKOZG4/ref=pd_lpo_k2_dp_sr_1?pf_rd_p=103612307&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=B00083D7WC&pf_rd_m=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE&pf_rd_r=0P9EVE6Y1RFKXCA651KE

close2u

it's a Sansa clip mp3 player