Bluetooth Pedal Control in Planning Center Music Stand App

I posted a video showing how to enable bluetooth pedal control in Planning Center’s Music Stand iOS app.

FIX: Shure PG88 PG2 won’t turn on

I recently had 2 of these handheld mics give me some problems. One of the microphones wouldn’t respond reliably to presses to the power/mute button. Sometimes it would work, sometimes it wouldn’t (usually when it mattered the most, of course). The other microphone simply wouldn’t power on at all. Here is how I fixed them both.

0. Check the Frequency

I gave this a Step Zero designation because before you even bother trying to fix a discontinued wireless microphone, you should make sure that the unit you have operates in a frequency band that is still allowed by the FCC. If not, recycle it and start fresh. If you are outside the U.S.A., check your country’s wireless regulations.

1. Check the Battery

First, make sure you have a good 9V battery. A battery tester can help remove doubts about power supply issues. If I had a dollar for every time I hadn’t checked the simplest thing first… 🤦

I don’t know what the minimum voltage specification is that Shure designed the PG2 series to operate on, but the further a 9V battery drops from a full 9V, the less likely you are going to have a good time as an audio engineer. Get a fresh battery and give that slightly drained battery to an electric guitar player. Allegedly some guitar pedals—specifically distortions and overdrives—produce “better” sound when the power is under-voltaged or sagging a little. You probably should ask R.G. Keen about that.

This cheap battery tester works well enough.

*** Everything beyond this point runs the risk of damaging something, possibly permanently. If you’re “not good with this sort of thing,” consider taking your microphone to a professional or a friend who quotes The IT Crowd and knows the difference between a Ben Heck and a Ben Eater. ***

2. Short the Button

Is the microphone really DEAD dead or is the mechanical button maybe the problem? Narrow the search by opening the microphone, connecting a good battery, and using tweezers or something metal to short the button leads. If that makes the microphone turn on/off/mute, then you know that the board isn’t completely dead and the switch is probably the culprit. Be careful not to touch the tweezers to other parts of the circuit. There’s only 9V at play here, but who knows what you could fry by touching something wrong.

This is the spot to unscrew.

If you grab too high, you’ll unscrew the grill from the capsule.

Grab lower to unscrew the capsule and grill from the body.

One small phillips screw holds the PCB inside the microphone body.

Once the rear screw is removed, the PCB can slide out of the microphone body.

CAREFULLY place tweezers across the legs of the surface mount momentary switch.

If the LED lights up after holding the tweezers on the button leads, you have a good mic with a button that is dirty (at best) or bad (at worst).

3. Clean the Button Contacts

Maybe it’s just dirty? If you’re certain the battery is good and the tweezers light up the mic, the next step is to try cleaning the power/mute button. Contact cleaner for electronics can revive buttons and faders like magic. DeoxIT is basically the defacto industry standard electronics cleaner. Spray a little DeoxIT directly into the power button and press the button a bunch of times. The idea is to mechanically work the cleaner down into the button between the internal metal contacts to clean away dust and corrosion. Try a few rounds of spraying a little cleaner and tapping the button a bunch of times. If that lights up the microphone, then you might be good. If not, try the spray and tap a couple more times.

4. Replace the Button

If the contact cleaner still doesn’t do the trick, you might have to order a replacement button and re-solder the part onto the PCB. Apparently, that is a common repair and, luckily, Full Compass carries an exact replacement for the switch. Once you have the replacement button in hand, you’ll have to desolder the existing button and resolder the new one into place. If that sounds daunting, again, contact your friend that can explain the nuanced differences between the foul-mouthed, jargon-blending curmudgeons behind EEVblog and AvE.

5. Give Up

If none of the above steps worked, I guess buy a newer product that isn’t discontinued? Why try to fix something? Why did you have so much unfounded hope? </bleak-sarcasm>

No, but for real though, good on you for trying to repair what you have. Louis Rossman, patron saint of the right to repair, wants to bless you and your children and their children and their children for your eagerness to fix what you already have. It’s good to try to fix our stuff and we should keep trying to do so regardless of the outcome. I always learn a lot when I try to fix things. Only sometimes do I succeed at it, but I certainly learn something every time I try and that makes me better at solving the next problem that comes my way. When I do find success, I blog about it with the hope that others can learn from what I have figured out for myself. I hope you found success on this project too. Let me know how it turned out for you in the comments below.

FIX: iZotope RX8 The selected audio device cannot be opened.

The selected audio device cannot be opened. Please make sure it’s not in use by another application and its drivers are up to date. (CAD 0x6E6F7065 [0x6])

Getting this error? If so, you probably can’t play back your file. The problem might not be the output device, but the input device you have selected.

The Fix

1. Open the Preferences for RX and select the Audio tab (if it is not already selected).
2. Under the “Input device” field choose a different device than what is currently set. “No audio device” worked for me.
3. Click OK to close Preferences.
4. Try playing back your file. If that doesn’t work, try another device.

Let me know if that worked for you.

Convert 29.97fps Audio to 30fps

Choosing different frame rates for your audio recording versus your video recording is a really stupid mistake. I would never be so thoughtless, and you, dear reader, certainly would never do such a thing. But for the sake of argument, let’s pretend that hypothetically I happened to have recorded some audio at 29.97fps for a recent project, but the matching video was at shot at 30fps. With no possibility of a reshoot or overdub, I really needed to get the audio and video frame rates to match. Again, I would never make this mistake, but if I had, this is what I would do to fix my screw up.

The Fix for a Purely Hypothetical Scenario

1. Record some audio at the wrong FPS. Way to go!
2. Fire up the application Izotope RX. I used version 7 for this example and cannot recommend it enough. This is not an advertisement. I’m simply a fan of this software suite. It has saved and improved countless recordings for me.
3. Open the Preferences for RX and select the Misc tab.
4. Set the “Time scale frame rate” to your destination frame rate (the frame rate of your video).
5. Click OK to close Preferences.
6. Open your audio with RX.
7. Make any edits you desire.
8. Save or Export your audio.
9. Import your audio with the corrected frame rate into your video editing software and time align it with your video.
10. Wipe your brow and breathe a sigh of relief.

Let me know if this worked for your friend or co-worker, because, again, like me, you would never make this mistake.

Soapbox

I’m posting this article because when I try searching for solutions to this problem the typical results are mostly professionals on forums with their stance: “THE RIGHT WAY TO DO IT IS TO RECORD IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, NOOB.” Yeah? Well you know what? No.

FIX: wp-admin white screen of death (WSOD)

Got a blank screen after you login into your WordPress admin panel? If you have tried all the other things suggested on various sites (disabling themes, disabling plugins, increasing memory limit, removing bits from wp-config.php, repairing databases, contacting your host, and enabling debug mode) and you still can’t get it working, try this.

PLEASE NOTE: I offer absolutely no promises it will work for you and no support if it doesn’t.

Aim your big bad browser at:
http://your-domain-here.whatever/wp-admin/upgrade.php

Your WP installation might give you a button to press to update your database. If so, click it. Et voilà! You’re back in business.

Again, I offer no support for WordPress installations. I got out of the website design business a long time ago and only do this WP stuff for my own interests now.

Changing Input Voltage on a Roland HP107e-RW Electric Piano

Electrical power grids around the world provide electricity to their end users at a handful of different voltages and frequencies. For example, consumer electronics in the USA typically operate on 100-120 V @ 60 Hz while in the UK most everything runs on 220-240 V @ 50 Hz. In addition to the voltage and frequency variations, there are a handful of power cable plug shapes that various regions use too. People generally don’t have to concern themselves with all this information unless they are traveling or moving abroad and taking their electronics with them.

Friends of ours recently gave Katie a Roland HP107e-RW electric piano they had purchased while living in the UK. When they moved back to the USA, they brought the piano and quite a few other items with them that all ran on 230V. To power those items on the US electrical grid, they purchased a step up converter.

This particular model is the HP107e-RW. There are probably several other similar models for which this modification would work.

Instead of buying a bulky step up convertor to run the piano at our house, I wanted to convert the piano to run natively on the US electrical grid. In order to make this possible I needed to do 2 things:

1. Change the shape of the power cable plug from UK style (Type G) to NEMA 1-15 ungrounded (Type A)
2. Change the input voltage from 220-240 V to 110-120 V

Changing the power cable plug was easy. The power inlet on the piano is an IEC 60320 C8. Many of the electronic devices I own use the Type A cable I needed to replace the Type G cable. Swapping out the cable was simple, but that only changed the shape of the plug, not the voltage.

Interestingly, the Type G plug was actually a wrapper around the head of a Europlug (Type C) plug. This was perhaps a cost-saving measure.

A sneaky Europlug hiding inside the Type G plug.

Changing the input voltage was a little harder. Some consumer electronics have little voltage switches next to the power inlet that are easily accessible on the outside. I didn’t see one of those, but sometimes the switch (or jumper) is inside the chassis on the power PCB.

To get a look at the power situation I opened up the top of the piano. That required removing 8 screws grouped in 4 pairs along the top rear of the piano, then sliding the top board forward and lifting it off. There are no wires or other connections made to the top board.

The blue arrows indicate the 8 screws that need to be removed to take the top off the piano.

After opening up the top I found this beefy power transformer staring back at me. There was no super convenient voltage switch, but surprisingly the input pins on the transformer were labeled—an easy solution! The fix was simple…desolder the black hot wire from the 230 V pin and resolder it to the 120 V pin.

The label on the transformer indicates what voltages are expected on the input pins.

CAUTION: Before beginning this surgery, I recommend isolating the transformer from everything else. Unplug the input power cable from the wall oulet AND disconnect the output power cable connector from the main PCB. As with all things electrical, you could kill yourself if you don’t know what you are doing. Be safe! Be smart!

Out of caution I unplugged this cable connector before unsoldering and resoldering the cable to the transformer.

After moving the hot wire to the correct input pin, reconnecting the cable connector to the PCB, reattaching the top board, and plugging in the new power cable the piano fired up perfectly.

Let me know if this helped you. If you fried your keyboard or yourself, sorry, I am not responsible for your mistake. Better luck next time! 😉

Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 Power Supply Unit Fix

A friend of mine brought over his Focusrite Liquid Saffire 56 audio interface to have me look at it. The unit wasn’t working. After turning on the power switch a few LEDs would blink and an internal relay would continually click, but it wouldn’t power on fully and wasn’t recognized by the computer.

We opened up the chassis and tried powering it on. WARNING: THIS IS REEEEAALLY DANGEROUS. DO NOT ATTEMPT UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING! We looked around to see if we could spot anything suspect. There were no obvious culprits like burn marks on the PCBs, blown fuses, or exploded/leaking capacitors.

Given the symptoms, I suspected that some of the electrolytic capacitors in the PSU were dried up or had vented—a common problem in gear that has aged a few years. Bad caps in the PSU could cause the unit to be under- or over-powered, which probably was causing the relay to keep tripping and preventing the main board from fully booting. After I pulled out the PSU I could more clearly see that the largest cap was bulged on top. That probably was the problem component.

Electrolytic capacitors go bad over time. At least one cap on this board had failed—perhaps others had failed too.

Since the interface was about a decade old and discontinued from manufacturing, it was essentially out of warranty. We decided to try fixing it ourselves.

The new PSU has a cool new look and maybe some better electrical engineering too.

I found a suitable replacement PSU sold by Full Compass. This replacement PSU doesn’t look the same as the original PSU that comes in the Liquid Saffire 56 and the Liquid Saffire 56 is not specifically listed as one of the compatible units, but it is in fact compatible. A Focusrite support representative confirmed that this PSU is the correct replacement.

So my friend ordered the PSU. A few days later it arrived and I swapped the old for the new. The interface fired right up and is working like new.

It’s working!

FIX: Pro Tools “Could not create a new document because Assertion in…”

The Problem

Could not create a new document because Assertion in “/Volumes/Development/223020/ProTools/DFW/Views/UMenu.MacOS.mm”, line 1813. (Use the Copy button to copy this message to the clipboard.).

Pro Tools 2018 error

If you get this error, it’s likely due to Pro Tools trying to use the wrong audio interface.

The Fix

1. Quit Pro Tools. (Not forever, just for a moment.)
2. Restart Pro Tools while holding the ‘N’ key. This forces Pro Tools to ask you which interface to use.
3. Select your interface.
4. Boom. No more error, hopefully.

Caveat Emptor

This worked for me on a Mac Pro trashcan running macOS High Sierra 10.13.6 and Pro Tools 2018.7.0 on a Tuesday in November. The Moon phase was Waning Crescent. I had vegetable soup for lunch and was facing South at the time of the error. Your mileage may vary.

FIX: Neumann KMS 105

My wife Katie Nelson and I both use Neumann KMS 105 condenser microphones for live performance. We love how the microphones sound and trust the Neumann brand.

The Problem

Recently Katie’s microphone was passing audio inconsistently. Sometimes it was normal, sometimes the output volume was quieter, and sometimes it would crackle as if the XLR cable was bad.

I called Sennheiser, the parent company of Neumann, to inquire about repairs. They connected me directly with a bench technician who kindly asked questions about the symptoms and then walked me through the fix. He correctly suspected that the hex screws holding the capsule to the internal printed circuit board (PCB) were loose. In fact, the capsule was completely disconnected from the PCB. I was surprised that the microphone worked at all considering there was almost no contact between the capsule and PCB.

The Fix

1. Take out the machine screw on the side of the microphone that holds the XLR insert in place. There may be a small lock washer underneath the screw. Set them aside.
2. Unscrew the basket (or grille, as people often refer to it).
3. Slide off the black capsule cover screen.
4. Very carefully pull on the capsule while simultaneously pushing on the XLR insert. WARNING: BE VERY CAREFUL WITH THIS STEP. THE PCB HAS A SERIES OF WAVY CUTS IN IT. TOO MUCH PUSHING OR PULLING CAN BREAK THE PCB. GO SLOW. GO EASY.
5. Pull back the rubber ring around the brass capsule body. Remember the orientation of the ring in reference to the notch in the body.
6. Confirm that spring is seated properly on the capsule center pin.
7. Push the capsule body onto the PCB until fully seated. The hex screws should be positioned over the solder-tinned holes.
8. While holding the capsule and PCB together in that position, use a 0.035″ (0.89mm) hex key to tighten down the tiny set screws.
9. Replace the rubber ring. Make sure the orientation of the ring fits into the notch in the body.
10. Carefully insert the assembly back into the body. Again, be very careful. You will likely need small pliers/grips/etc. to pull the XLR insert all the way into position while simultaneously pushing the capsule into the body.
11. Tighten the screw through the body into the XLR insert.
12. Slide the capsule cover screen onto the capsule.
13. Screw the basket onto the body.
14. Test the microphone. If you still are experiencing audio problems, contact Sennheiser for service.

Affiliate Links

Disclaimer: The links to the hex key and microphone above are Amazon affiliate codes. By clicking through and purchasing, I receive a small kick back. Thank you for your support.

FIX: Waves Preferences “Don’t ask me again”

The Problem

After doing a fresh install of Pro Tools and my Waves plugins, this Waves 9.2.100 Preferences dialog window (pictured below) kept popping up every time I fired up Pro Tools.

Checking the “Don’t ask me again” checkbox didn’t seem to be working.

I searched for some solutions on the Google machine and found some forums were recommending a complete uninstall and reinstall of all Waves plugins. This didn’t seem necessary. Here’s the fix I used:

The Fix

1. Quit Pro Tools.
2. Trash the entire Waves Preferences folder. The folder is located in the Preferences folder in your user Library folder, not your system Library folder. A quick way to locate the folder is to switch to the Finder and hit Shift+Command+G. A Go to Folder dialog window will pop up. Copy and paste the following line in that field and hit enter.

   ~/Library/Preferences/Waves Preferences

   Put that folder in the trash and empty the trash.

3. Start Pro Tools.
4. A window should pop up asking you to select the Waves 9.2 Plug-Ins folder. By default, it should be located in the Waves folder in your Applications folder.

   /Applications/Waves/Waves Plug-Ins

   Once you’ve located the folder, click Open.

5. The Waves 9.2.100 Preferences dialog window should pop up again. The “Don’t ask me again” box should be checked. If not, check it and hit OK.
6. To test if everything worked, quit Pro Tools and start it again. The Waves dialog window shouldn’t reappear.

About the Fix

I adapted this solution from a somewhat unrelated problem I found on Sweetwater Sound’s SweetCare Knowledge Base. The fix definitely works for the following system set up. YMMV

• OS X Mavericks 10.9.3
• Pro Tools 9.0.6
• Waves 9.2.100 plugins

Please leave a comment below if this helped you or not.

Bluetooth Pairing Unsuccessful

Can’t get your Apple Bluetooth keyboard to pair with your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch? I couldn’t either. My A1255 keyboard wouldn’t connect at all. The iPhone would find the keyboard, but wouldn’t update the name of it, nor ever present the four digit code for pairing. I could only get this error:

Pairing Unsuccessful
Make sure “Keyboard” is turned on, in range, and is ready to pair.

I tried a bunch of fixes I read about online and none of these worked in any combination nor configuration:

1. turning Bluetooth off and on
2. rebooting the iPhone
3. holding the power button on the keyboard
4. deleting other Bluetooth device pairing from the iPhone
5. clicking ‘Forget This Device’
6. connecting to another device and then my iPhone
7. replacing the batteries
8. holding the V, A, and R keys while powering on the keyboard
9. turning off Bluetooth on any other nearby devices

It seems Bluetooth under iOS 7 is broken. Lots of people are having issues with Bluetooth on iOS 7 that weren’t there in older iOS versions. Unfortunately, Apple is apparently ignoring this problem.

The Fix

Here’s how I finally connected my keyboard to my iPhone.

1. Switch off Bluetooth on iOS device under Settings > Bluetooth.
2. Shut off the keyboard by pressing and holding the power button for 3 seconds.
3. Switch on Bluetooth on iOS device.
4. Turn on the keyboard by pressing and holding the power button until it green light blinks.
5. The keyboard should appear listed under the DEVICES heading in the iPhone Bluetooth settings screen with “Not Paired” in gray next to it.
6. Now at this point you’re supposed to just tap on the listed device on the iPhone to begin the pairing process, but when I would do that it would time out with the “Pairing Unsuccessful” alert. Here’s the trick: repeatedly tap on the listing (maybe 5-6 times) and hopefully the “Bluetooth Pairing Request” alert will appear with the four digit code you’ll need to enter.
7. The pairing may fail the first time. Try again.
8. I also found that subsequent attempts to connect after forgetting the device worked much better after that initial connection.

I hope this fix works for you. Let me know if it does.

FIX: Pro Tools “You do not have appropriate access privileges (-5000)”

A friend gave me a Pro Tools session on a thumb drive. I copied the entire session folder to my external hard drive and opened it. After changing the routing to work on my system, everything played back fine. Then I tried to clean up the session.

Every time I attempted to cross fade or consolidate an audio or MIDI region, I would get an error like this:

“Could not complete your request because You do not have appropriate access privileges (-5000)…” Why do you build me up, Buttercup? Capitalize ‘You,’ then award me negative five thousand points…pssh.

The Fix

Seeing the “access privileges” bit, I figured the problem was probably an operating system issue, not a Pro Tools thing. The session files were indeed set to ‘Read Only,’ which is why I could play back the session, but couldn’t do anything to the regions or fades.

Here’s how to fix the issue.

1. Close the session. You shouldn’t have your Pro Tools session open while changing its permissions.
2. Select the session folder in Finder. Make sure the session folder is highlighted, not the files inside the session.
3. Get Info. Hit Command-I (capital i) or from the Finder menu select File > Get Info. An Info window will pop open.
4. Change all privileges to ‘Read & Write.’ At the very bottom of the Info window is a box with a list of users and their privileges. They should all be set to ‘Read & Write.’ You may be asked for user password to unlock and verify the change.
   
   

   Not listed are NSA permissions, which by default are set to ‘Collect All,’ but, like, totally isn’t a violation of your privacy.

5. Close the Info window. After making the privilege changes, try reopening your Pro Tools session and editing some regions. If you can, this fix worked for you.

Why does this error occur?

Many common problems that Macs develop are related to file permissions errors. Files are given various permissions to maintain privacy between computer users and prevent users from easily messing up the operating system.

Permissions can get wrecked when disks are removed without being ejected and during unexpected shut downs. That’s why it is important always to try to eject disks and shut down your Mac properly.

Permissions can also get messed up during copying and moving of files or while installing software. That appears to be why I experienced this error. During the copying of the files, the permissions were never changed to grant me access. Simple problem, simple fix.

UPDATE 2013-10-30

After encountering this problem on several other sessions, I tried another method and found a better (and probably more proper) solution. Try this in addition to or instead of the above fix:

In the problematic Pro Tools session, pop open the Disk Allocation dialog (Setup > Disk Allocation…).

When the dialog window opens, you’ll be presented with a list of all the tracks in your session and the location where that track should be located. If you’re having problems creating fade files and getting the sort of error that brought you to this page, then you’ll probably see something like the picture below.

As you can see, not all of the tracks had their disk allocation pointing to the right place. To fix them, select all of the incorrectly allocated tracks, then click and hold the little up/down arrows on the right hand side. A little window will appear and ask you to select a folder. In my case, the session file was looking on my internal system drive instead of my external audio drive. Choose the correct location of your session files and click OK. That should solve the issue. Let me know if this worked for you.

FIX: Pro Tools An unexpected authorization error 14051 occurred.

Error
An unexpected authorization error 14051 occurred.
ID: ePAY : 14051 / Dngl : 1595

I got this error a few days ago. It’s a new one for me. What caused this? Good question. I have no idea. Pro Tools wouldn’t really start after this.

As usual the Avid forums weren’t very helpful. Which led to this tweet…

1. Pro Tools error occurs.
2. Google the error.
3. Find Avid forum entry with no solution.
4. Go to step 2.

— scotttroyer (@ScottTroyer) July 17, 2013

For the record, at the time the error occurred I was running OS 10.8.4 and Pro Tools 9.0.6 on a Mac Book Pro with an iLok 2.

The Fix

I had to force quit Pro Tools. Then I unplugged my iLok 2 and plugged it into a different USB jack. Presto. Working again. Not sure what caused it, nor if switching USB jacks was actually the fix, but I did get it working again after doing so. Hope this helps somebody.

UPDATE

I confirmed again that switching which USB jack the iLok 2 was plugged into made the difference. I would think that this is a problem with that particular USB jack, but all other USB devices work just fine plugged in there. Hmm…

FIX: Pro Tools could not set sample rate to specified value

After upgrading to the newly released Pro Tools 9, I couldn’t open sessions or create new ones. I got this error: “Could not complete the Open Session… command because Pro Tools could not set sample rate to specified value..” I hunted around on the web and various forums, but couldn’t find a solution that fit. I found several items relating to Windows and Pro Tools 8, but nothing for a Mac running Pro Tools 9. After messing around a bit I figured out the problem was with my playback engine. Here’s how I solved it. Let me know if it works for you too.

Open the Playback Engine dialog under the Setup menu item.

From the menu bar select Setup > Playback Engine… to open the Playback Engine dialog window.

The problem is with the Pro Tools Aggregate I/O.

By default, my current engine was set to “Pro Tools Aggregate I/O.” It’s odd that this Pro Tools would leave it that way after an installation since AVID states that it is not supported in OS X.

Select your current playback engine.

The fix is easy. Simply select the right playback engine. Your options may differ based on your setup.

In my case, I usually would edit with my Mbox 2 Micro, but since Pro Tools 9 gives us so many more options for hardware compatibility, I selected Built-in Output. I was able to edit some vocal takes using my Macbook Pro’s speakers instead of pulling out my headphones. Nice!