something burning while playing!

liquidsmoke · July 08, 2011, 05:50:50 PM

Fuck. And I don't know what it is. I stuck my nose near everything but the smell was too vague. Had on- Fender 80 watt solid state bass combo, Laney GH50 into 2x12 cab, small bass combo running my Boss drum machine as a metronome, PA combo monitor for vocals and about 10 pedals- splitter/wah/distortions/etc. In a few hours if the smell is completely gone I plan on playing through each amp really loud by itself to see if I can get the burning smell to come back, otherwise I don't know how to figure out which unit was fucking up. I couldn't actually see any smoke.
Anyone have this happen when you have tons of gear running at the same time? I was by myself, playing at about half band practice volume. Fuck.

Last practice I was like "lets see how this newerish 2x12 cab sounds when cranked up super loud" so I turned up my Laney(50 watts) to about 7 or 8 and the speakers started distorting right away which doesn't sound right for the type of metal we play, I normal have the volume at about 2 or 3. My 2x12 has Eminence Red Coat Governor speakers which are rated at 75 watts each! But I tune down to A(guitar), am I slamming the speakers with too much bass? Perhaps I really fucked up thinking I could get by with a 2x12. I don't remember my 4x12 with Eminence Manowars(120 watts each) ever distorting like that. So the speaker cab is my first guess for what was smelling. But what if I was the amp?

Anyone have any thoughts on this?

Hemisaurus · July 08, 2011, 06:56:27 PM

Move everything far apart, or take it into the next room a piece at a time, the smell should go with.

liquidsmoke · July 09, 2011, 04:57:46 PM

No smell or smoke at practice today, was just going through my guitar rig. Will play just through the bass amp next time.

Lumpy · July 09, 2011, 06:16:06 PM

Maybe it was your fingertips.

liquidsmoke · July 10, 2011, 01:26:22 PM

Quote from: Lumpy on July 09, 2011, 06:16:06 PM
Maybe it was your fingertips.

I wish!

Lumpy · July 10, 2011, 05:05:53 PM

Probably on the verge of burning up your speaker coils, but that's a guess. Besides noise, speakers also produce heat when driven. Something about efficiency and power. If you feed more power to your speakers than they can convert to sound energy, it gets converted to heat. Something like that.

I went to see a show (Frank Bretschneider, I know "who?" Electronic musician) who was really pushing the fuck out of the PA, and it smelled like smoke near the PA speakers.

apekillman · July 10, 2011, 08:26:36 PM

guy in eagle twin caught his 4x12 on fire from playing.

RacerX · July 11, 2011, 12:14:04 AM

^^^^^^^^^
There ya go. So if you're stuck in the wilderness, you can use your ELECTRICBUTTPUSSYFIELDCABINET^TM to start a campfire. Why look like a dork rubbing two sticks together when you can rock out?

liquidsmoke · July 13, 2011, 03:06:14 AM

I used to have an Electric 4x12 but it didn't have a built in butt pussy, is that standard on the new models? I missed out!

I just thought it was really weird that I would smell smoke playing at low volume but it was the time after the time I almost dimed my Laney and had the speakers distorting pretty bad. I should have gone with higher wattage handling speakers I'm thinking.

liquidsmoke · July 18, 2011, 01:45:53 AM

Played the other day for awhile just through my bass combo and didn't notice any burning smell. Played through my full setup yesterday at practice and didn't notice anything either although it seems like my guitar cab speakers don't sound as good anymore but I could be wrong. They just don't sound as warm and thick.