Power On Procedure:

Power on switches:

At the top of the rack, on the right side of the desk, you'll see the Furman PL-Plus. It has a bunch of colored LED's. This should always be on, and you should never need to touch it.

The next space down hold a rack of switches. These are labeled:

  1. Mixer
  2. Rack
  3. HD1's
  4. Genelecs
  5. Fostex
  6. empty
  7. empty
  8. Powerstrip

Turn these on slowly, from left to right. If you aren't using all the speakers, you don't have to turn them on. All of the items in the rack should be left on, and don't need to be switched separately. (An exception to this is the ADAT, which is used so infrequently that it stays off.) Note that you must have the rack powered up so that the MOTU 2048 will function before opening the "_MOTU PCI-424 Proper Configuration" file. This MOTU configuration file sets up the preferred routing for most digital audio applications on the Rear Studio Mac; if you try to open the config file or audio applications with the MOTU interface off, you will have problems.

All additional gear that plugs into the studio should plug into the powerstrip at the foot of the rack, not into the wall. If you are using this strip, it should be turned on before the loudspeakers.

Mixer Power on:

If the mixer is powered off incorrectly, it will complain the next time it is started up. Press one of the cursor keys (any of the arrow keys between the mixer screen and the jog wheel) to reload the project from the flash memory. This should restore the mixer to CNMAT basic setup. Note that it is possible to configure the Tascam with either the "Basic" project for 44.1KHz projects, or with the "Basic 48k" project for 48KHz work. To change sample rates, select the desired project on the LCD readout using the jog wheel, then press the soft key "LOAD" at the bottom right of the screen.

Power on Computer:

Press the button on the front of the CPU (in the middle studio) to power on.

Power Off Procedure:

The power off procedure is the reverse of the power on.

Mixer Power down:

  1. Press and hold the SHIFT and CTRL keys (left side of the surface, near the bus assignments).
  2. While holding those keys, press the ALT key (near the jog wheel).
  3. A popup message appears; press ENTER.
  4. The mixer is now ready to shut off.

Power off switches:

Turn off the switches in the rack from right to left (starting with the speakers). There is no need to turn off anything else in the rack.

Power off computer:
Select "Shutdown" from the Apple menu and power off the computer.

Principles:

There are two major principles at work in any Studio Electrical Setup. The first is to avoid "noisy" electricity and the second is to protect the equipment from power fluctuations.

Electricity from the wall is not always perfect: the voltage and frequency can vary in a pretty wide range. This could upset delicate gear and introduce noise into the signal pathway. For this reason, we run everything through a power conditioner -- the Furman PL-Plus. It smoothes out any inconstancies in the incoming power, and delivers a "clean" 120 volts to all the studio gear. It also protect the gear from power surges.

Another source of noise is a "ground loop." One cause of this is when different audio devices in the same system are plugged into different circuits with different ground points. This causes a characteristic, 60 Hz hum. To avoid this, all electricity passes through the power conditioner. (NB: There are two circuits in the Rear Studio; one with orange plugs and one with beige. If all devices are plugged into the same-colored plug, there should be no problem.)

The other danger in a studio is power surges when equipment is turned on and off. Loudspeakers are especially susceptible to this. If you hear a loud "pop" through the speakers when patching something in or turning something on or off, then something undesirable has happened. For that reason, the speakers are usually the last thing to turn on, and the first thing to turn off.