Conference napalm::guitar

    I'd suggest alcohol.  I'd also suggest letting the "bandmember" do it. 
    As a soundman, you're NOT responsible for being their Mom too ... 8^)
    
    Jerry

What scary said - let THEM clean it up.  However, I've recommend Freon 
to clean it up.  Most Radio Shacks have Freon in a areosol can - they work
good for cleaning spooge (official sounding word for coke-syrup heated to 
melting point by electronic components).  :)   Also electrical contact 
cleaners are available. 

WEAR SAFETY GLASSES !!

Greg will tell you how it feels to get nailed in the eye by these solvents.
:)

jc

    Lesson learned! As a sound man,  you should NEVER let anyone with 
    drinks or butts near audio/electrical equipment such as that.
    Never fails, murphy be right there with you.
    
    I would take care that the freon or alcohol does not melt anything
    that may be of a plastic or rubber material. Water may be a good/better
    choice, followed by contact cleaner for all your rotory and slide pots.
    
    Let it dry a few days or so prior to use.
    
    Dave'
    

Yep, water may be good, but water conducts - freon won't.
I don't *think* freon will effect plastics and so forth, but 
whay do I know ??  There are a lot of electronics doods in
here that may contibute.

I second the emotion about cokes/beers/butts around the board - 
But I'm the guy who puts a beer on his rack everytime he plays,
and usually has a butt-kit hanging around too.  Its' not good,
but ya can't teach an old dogs new tricks, as they say.  :)

jc

    And never, I mean *NEVER* put any type of drink on a bass bin or bass
    cab.  It will disappear behind the cab, never to be heard from again.
    
    One night (at Shooter's) I kept putting my beer on an SVT bass cab.  2
    songs later, I couldn't find my beer !  After a weekend of playing, we
    were breaking down the stage gear, and lo and behold ... about 6-8 Sol
    bottles behind this cab.  We were cranking so we never heard the
    bottles break when they hit.  Since Shooter's has an elevated stage
    (with plenty of drainage holes) the beer simply disappeared.
    
    Jerry

    re:4
    
    > Water will conduct
    
      That's why the instuctions say, allow to dry for a few days, then it
      will be fine.
    
    Dave'
    

    Re: Freon
    
    Most of the Shacks have stopped selling this in favor of an
    environmentally safe substitute.  Contact cleaner will work too
    (basically the same thing).
    
    Mike

    most contact cleaners will not work too well on water soluble spooge.
    Try soap and water (NO, NOT WHILE IT"S PLUGGED IN) and then rinse well,
    dry as much as humanly possible then use a contact cleaner to get the
    rest of the water out of the nooks and crannies. Let dry for a few 
    days to ensure that the water is completely out of the equipment.
    You could use a hair dryer to aid the process (BUT BE CAREFUL as most
    electronic equipment likes heat only marginally better than swimming
    in salt water.
    
    Lowell
    

    
Yep ! What  Lowell said.

Coke 'n stuff is just plain sticky, so a little water and *small* amount of
washing up liquid applied with a soft(ish) brush, then a second wash with pure
water.

I don't like using any "active" liquids. PCB's have a thin coating of laquer
and if this gets removed then oxidization can lead to trouble later.

Shake the board dry, and again, as Lowell said, careful use of a hair drier.

Do not attempt to rub the board/components dry as this *may* cause static 
damage to sensistive gate technology fet chips.

If you have any chips (op-amps etc) on board you may wish to remove them to 
ensure you don't leave any water residue inside the pin sockets or underneith
them (take 'em out and point the hair drier vertically at the chip holder).

I can assure you, no harm will come to the PCB or components provided you note
the precautions stated.

Dave

    Before I bought my board someone had spilled Southern Comfort ("what
    ain't alcohol is sugar") on it. When I got it home I then proceeded
    to spill a can of Dr. Pepper in the same spot...
    
    Dead, right? Nope. The only casualty were some of the pots. I tried the
    freon based cleaners (Ditto the safety glasses remark. It's amazing
    how accurate the return spray is!) but that only freed the pots up
    temporarily, long enough for me to turn them to a new position where
    the sugar would eventually "weld" them in place again...
    
    I then tried that miracle of the 20th century, WD-40. Problem solved.
    Nice, free turning pots...
    
    Edd

    
    
    I remember playing a frat party gig where a similar thing happened.  We
    we set up in the basement ('natch) and the beer keg was on the first
    floor, right above the power amp for the the PA.  We didn't have a
    rack, the amp sat on a table.  
    
    The night went well until somebody upstairs went wild with the keg. 
    Being an old house, the floor boards had some gaps and a tidal wave of
    beer gushed through into the basement, right into the top of the power
    amp!   There was much smoke and smell, and no usable sound remaining.
    
    Didn't stop the party, though.
    
    Kevin
     

    
    	I play gigs where folks come up and sing with me - especially
    	at parties.  Last weekend, several came up with drinks in
    	hand.  I've never, in my entire life, put a drink on any of
    	my amps and to see these people with their drinks freaks me
    	out.  They usually have no idea and I just ask them politely
    	to put the drink down off stage.
    
    	People coming up with drinks is expected for me and I'll just
    	keep smiling them off the stage...
    
    	But I find it amazing when I see drinks on an amp.  Might as
    	well pour a beer on your pickups, ya know?
    
    

    Man, like Coop sez, do NOT get those spray solvents in you EYES!!!
    Unless you happen to enjoy intense pain, temporary blindness, and trips
    to the emergency room.
    
    Yes, I know about this from personal experience.  Edd's right, the
    return spray can be extremely accurate.  I took a giant plume of it in
    both eyes a few months ago.
    
    Makes 'em burn just thinking about it!
    
    Greg

Brrrr...  Jeez man that makes my scr... errr... give me goose bumps thinking 
about it...

You only got two - take care of 'em !

jc

    >Might as well pour a beer on your pickups, ya know?
    
    The secret of the ultimate blues tone  8^)  8^)  8^)
    
    					   Brian

    I played in a band for years that never allowed *ANY* drinks or smokes
    on stage,therefore we never had any of these types of problems.....
    except when we were playing one night on a stage made up of four-foot
    high,four-foot square sections,and had our empty guitar cases etc
    stored underneath.
    	A guy bought the band members a drink each,and brought them to the
    stage,on a tray,and laid the tray at my feet.Ten minutes later,I
    stepped on the raised edge of the tray,and five pints of beer were
    flipped over my feet and stage (remember,1pint=20oz in the UK!!)
    	We laughed it off,but at the end of the night I opened the case
    for my strat and about 40oz of beer poured out! The case had been
    sitting directly beneath and in line with one of the stage joins.
     Took about 2 hours with a fan heater to dry out the furry lining.
    
    								Jim.
    

    Has anyone used or have information about Real Time Analyzers?
    Are they worth the investment?  How do they work? etc.......
    
    Thanks,
    
    RJ 

    I've used RTAs.  The basic idea is that it will graphically represent
    the frequency response of the room.  Most will provide a pink noise
    generator and a reference mike to sample with.
    
    What kind of environment would you be using it in?  Live sound?  PA? 
    Studio?
    
    Greg

    It would be used for the PA when playing live.  Since we don't have a
    sound person I thought one of these might help.
    
    Thanks,
    
    RJ

The best use for an RTA is when setting up the PA.  I used to use one, in
conjunction with a pink/white noise generator to set the EQ for the room at
various location.  

GONZO

    The good thing about an RTA is you can set the room up for a "flat" EQ. 
    The bad thing is once you set it, people come into the room and screw
    up the settings  8^)  The setting up can be painful, pink/white noise
    at high (rock) volumes sounds like a jet engine.
    
    I'm surprised on how few soundmen actually use these.  Most prefer to
    tweak the room EQ by ear. 
    
    If you're mostly concerned about feedback, you might check into the
    Sabine feedback eliminator box as an alternative.
    
    							Brian

re -1; Brian, absolutly!  When I would eq the room i'd set the noise
generator/pa up so that I read 0db (that's right, 0) on my sound pressure meter.
 Then IU'd eq thee room for a flat curve on the RTA.

Whe people started to come in the most noticable thing was the low end dropping
out.  Bodies absorb sound really good.

By the way, 0db is REALLY LOUD!

GONZO

    I agree with checking into the Sabine Feedback Exterminator - 
    my last project used one in a funky room and we had monitors and
    mains volume for days!!!!!  I was impressed!
    
    Also, PV has a new Spectrum analyzer/EQ that gens your pink/white
    noise, and sets the EQ automatically...then you can save the preset for
    the next time your in the room.  Sounds pretty TRICK to me!!
    jc

    We are going to be upgrading our board soon and I thought I would
    ask you guys, the experts, for input so fire away,  rj/31334

    How about an SSL or a Mackie 1202??    ;-)
    
    Seriously - 
    
    What do you need?  Input channels, subs, budget, aux ??

    Guess I forgot the important stuff.. need 16 low imp, channels, around 1k
    or less, will be used live not for studio, dont know nuthin bout no subs
    unless its meatball.
    
     later,
    rj

    Recommend minimum of four SUBS.
    
    These allow you to "group" things into a SUBmix (single-fader) like
    all the vocal mikes are grouped to one fader, drums to another,
    guitars to another, blah-blah...  That way when you need the drums
    hotter in the mix, you don't need to diddle with 8 faders - just
    one SUB.  Cool idea, eh??
    
    Recommend PV, Carvin, Sammick (good stuff cheap!), ART, EV, etc...
    but really recommend looking for a deal in the want-ad, or internet.
    You should be able to get a killer mixer for $500-$1500.
    
    By the way, what you should look for is a 16x4x2 (16 inputs, by
    4 subs, by 2 outs -L and R).  More inputs means more options for FX
    and stuff.  Also look for nice things like direct output (channels),
    INSERT pointed, anna talk-back system.  So don't sneer atta 24x4x2
    or something.  :-)
    
    jc
      

    
    
      The Peavey EQ/RTA/MIDI unit you mentioned is the Autograph 2 and 
    it looks like an impressive piece of gear. 1/3 octave EQ that is 
    MIDI and 128 patch location programmable. Built in RTA that you can
    take multiple room samples and have the Autograph "average" the
    samples. The other "trick" thing is that the unit displays both the 
    EQ settings and RTA in real time, and in that mode incorporates a 
    "feedback finder". The cursor automatically jumps to the frequency
    that is feeding back so that a push on the [arrow-down] button should
    do the trick. At $499 it looks like this thing could take away sales
    from a few other MIDI EQ's (Digitech) or EQ/RTA combos (Rane). 
      I know, I've been looking at the Rane RE27 that has been on the
    market for at least 10 years, but I have to check out this P-V thing.
    
    							-John R-

    Hard to imagine more bang for the buck than an Alesis 1622.
    
    At first I wasn't crazy about the technology they used to make it cheap
    but here we are 3-4 years later and I haven't heard any complaints from
    folks who have them.  It works, it's cheap, and the sound quality is
    plenty good for live work.
    
    	db