Behind The Mixer

Learn Church Audio Artistry | Church Sound

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Don't knock down your friends with the power of the POP!Photo provided by abulic_monkey

Don’t knock down your friends
with the power of the POP!
Photo provided by abulic_monkey

POW! POP! Is that what you hear in the house speakers when you turn off your equipment? Ummmm, that’s not good.  There is a specific order in which audio equipment should be turned off (and turned on for that matter).  Following this order, the POW’s and POP’s will stop and your equipment will thank you for it.

Audio gear components can emit a power spike, which is heard as a POW, POP, or THUMP, when they are turned on or off. This spike is then transmitted through the audio system, amplified, and passed out to the house speakers.  Did I mention that’s not good?  Let’s look at a good order for powering your equipment on and off.

Tip: Think of it this way; move through the equipment in the same way as the signal flows.

Turn it on

  1. Outboard effects and anything else leading into the mixer.
  2. The Mixer
  3. DSP units.  These include limiters, house EQ, etc.
  4. Amplifiers or powered speakers.

Turn it off

  1. Amplifiers or powered speakers. WAIT!  Before kicking off everything else, wait a few moments.  Amplifiers store energy and need to discharge this energy.
  2. DSP units.  These include limiters, house EQ, etc.
  3. The Mixer
  4. Outboard effects and anything else leading into the mixer.

LOFO

Laugh Our Faces Off…just kidding.  When you can’t remember the order, fall back on this acronym for powering the amps; Last On, First Off (LOFO).

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Comments

  1. Hi Chris,
    My vintage audio amp and preamp on/off switches don’t work anymore. So I need to turn them on/off using either a surge protector or a power conditioner or some protection unit with a delayed soft start. Do you recommend any specific power protection device for safely turning on the amp and preamp on a daily basis?
    Thanks
    SP

    Reply

  2. Chris,
    Read through the string of comments. In my case the existing ‘Theater Sound’ needs to be ‘cut-off’ during a Panic/Fire condition. From your description, I can easily interrupt the 120VAC circuits powering the house speakers and solve my situation. I haven’t looked into killing the signals from the sound equipment, but de-energizing the speaker power would be an appealing solution, no matter what equipment is replaced/updated in the future.
    Best Regards,
    Ken

    Reply

  3. Quite useful information. Our Church uses a rather primitive type of sound system i.e 1 Active and 4 Passive speakers. It seems I’m the only one that makes it sound right thanks to this little piece of information😊

    Reply

  4. Hi sir. Thanks for your article.
    I have a newly bought Edifier 2.1 speaker system, i.e. a subwoofer connected with 2 satellite speakers. And yes I do encounter these pop sounds whenever I turn on/off the switch on the subwoofer.
    What are the good steps/order for powering my speaker on/off?

    Reply

  5. Can you please help me with the order to turn on/off my new system for my aerobic classes?
    Plugged into my mixing board (which does not have an on/off swich), are my Fender Expo sound system, a 2nd speaker and my microphone & iPod. Everything is plugged onto a powerbar.
    So am I correct with these orders?
    Turn on: power bar, Fender Expo, 2nd speaker, microphone & iPod
    Turn off: microphone & iPod, 2nd speaker, Fender Expo, power bar

    Reply

    • Turn on everything until the last two things in which case turn on the 2nd speaker and then the Fender Expo last. WHen turning things off, turn off the Fender system first then everything else. In both cases, the fender system has the amp built in.

      Reply

  6. This was very helpful, thank you! I’ve experienced a couple of unintended and unwanted pops with my equipment, and it’s never enjoyable. Although LOFO did make me laugh my face off, for the reason already mentioned – 2 O’s don’t help haha. But otherwise the advice here is easy and straightforward to follow, so thanks! :)

    Reply

  8. Hi,
    Is the likelihood of damage, if you do this, predicted by how loud the pop or crackle is? I pulled a preamp cable out of some active speakers a few times at medium volume, and got an extended crackle from the speakers— but nothing to loud. Am worried that by doing this I’ve degraded the sound of my new and very expensive speakers.
    I ask because in online discussions some people suggest that inaudible energy (a “square wave”) might be doing the damage. In which case how loud the crackle/ pop is gives no indication of what damage might be being done to the speaker.

    S

    Reply

  9. Hey…I have Mackey subs and monitors, Rane mixer and turntables. I record my mixes and sometimes the quality is poor. Flat sounding with a hiss. Could that be a result of Nkrumah turning on in the right sequence? Thanks.

    Reply

    • Make sure you have the output volume to the recorder cranked up. The recorder might also have a way to control the incoming signal strength. That’s my guess, that the incoming signal strength to the recorder is too low.

      Reply

  10. I run my guitar amp, laptop, monitors, headphones and a subwoofer to my mixer. I have everything plugged into two separate 6 plug power strips. I read this article the other day and followed your order. I still get the pop on the sub since there’s no on/off switch for that. Does it matter in the order for my guitar amp? It’s always in standby when turning it on and off. Also, when I’m done for the day I hit the switches on the power strips. Power conditioner maybe?

    Reply

      • My sub is always on unless I turn the power conditioner off. It’s old anyway. It makes a weird thumping sound it sits for a while too. I will be replacing it.

        Reply

  11. I’m new to running a sound board. When I took over I was instructed to never shut down the board or the amps ever. This does not sound right to me. Any help would be highly appreciated.

    Reply

    • You are right, that is the wrong way of doing things. Heat destroys, plain and simple. The longer something is running, the shorter life it will have. I’ve known people who left mixers on all the time and cut off YEARS on the life of the equipment.

      Turn amps off first, then everything else. Turn amps on last, so you don’t get the individual pops of turning on the other equipment.

      Reply

  12. I have a question. The sound team in my church requires us to switch off the breakers that are connected to the speakers to power down our sound equipment. Also, in order to power up our sound equipment we have to switch on the breakers. I still get a loud pop when I do this and I am not sure if this is damaging to our speakers.

    Can someone tell me why this is not the proper shutdown process so I could find a way to address this and provide a solution? Also, what are the long-term consequences if we keep continuing this method. (We have been doing it for over 1 year now).

    Reply

    • You might turn everything on/off manually and then hit the breaker. Or at least turn on the amp last. And yes, that pop enough times can damage a speaker. Maybe not if it’s only once a week…but I’d avoid it.

      Reply

  13. If you are doing a sound check, then have a while before the performance starts, do you have to turn off EVERYthing for the interim or can you just turn down the master and then turn the sound box off? Our manual is telling us to turn everything off/turn all volumes down to zero, but that defeats the idea of a sound check ahead of the performance. Looking for some guidance.

    Reply

    • Once you do the sound check, as long as it’s in the same day, leave it on. Now if other people will use that room between the sound check and the event, such as with a multi-purpose room, then shut it down. When you turn everything back on, settings will remain. The problem comes when people turn on a mixer and leave it on for years – yes, people do this and it wears out the gear faster because of the heat produced.

      Reply

  14. Ive done this accidentally. I turned of my P.A mixing desk (the volume was all the way down) and it still made a POP through my powered speakers. Now I always make sure to power off my speakers 1st before the mixer. My question though is.. My speakers appear to be working fine , sound great. Is it possible that this “POP” could had done “some” damage thats unseen or unheard? Thanks!

    Reply

    • If they popped all the time for year, yes. If they popped really loud enough times, yes. It’s hard to say. As long as you can play recorded music through it and it sounds like the day you got them, then you’re good. You’d hear if there was damage.

      Reply

      • Cheers Chris. Iv not had these long only a few days so hard to say if the sounds changed but sounds fine to me. In what way do these “pops” damage the speakers Chris? And if there was damage, in what audible way would that damage manifest itself? Cheers!

        Reply

      • Just to add Chris. These speakers are powered speakers and it was just a passive mixer that I turned off (or on I can actually remember) while the speakers were on. It wasn’t so much a pop as a click as such.

        Reply

  15. Don’t forget to mute any channels before unplugging mics or instruments.

    We had to replace all 16 drivers in our speakers last December because our system was wasn’t being turned on/off in the correct sequence, and mics/instruments were being unplugged before the channels were muted.

    Reply

  16. Great suggestions Chris!

    One thing to add is that a lot of churches rely on a power strip or surge protector to turn equipment on and off. But when you do that with amps you lose the shutdown feature that a lot of modern amps (especially those with DSP) have. So you still get that pop because the amps aren’t going through their shutdown sequence.

    Reply

    • Brian, that’s very true! We use an automated shutoff processor. We turn the key to the OFF position and the equipment is shut off in the right order and timed appropriately. Same with turning it to the ON position.

      Reply