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The sound system at our church cuts in and out if there are only low volume sounds being played, such as soft pad on a keyboard or background music off a computer.

I have a suspicion that this might be related to our amp settings, which are maxed out. Thoughts?

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    Thet's most probably some kind of noise gate taking action too early. Impossible to tell where exactly, without more information on the sound system.
    – leftaroundabout
    Commented Feb 26, 2012 at 21:47

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I agree with @leftaroundabout, this sounds just like a problem I saw at my old middle school many years ago. Almost certainly there is a noise gate somewhere in the signal chain that is cutting out when the input signal is too low, or not responding fast enough when the signal is present.

Look for something with a "threshold" parameter. If the system is installed in a rack, it could even ben on the back of the mixer next to the input, and thus out of sight. Look for the word "threshold" on a knob, or "thresh" for short. If you lower the threshold to its minimum, or remove the gate from the chain entirely, you should see the problem go away.

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  • It was indeed. I haven't had much need to check the EQ rack since I started running sound, so it's probably about time I got familiar with it. The gate was set at the minimum setting, but still on. I switched it off and that particular issue went away, though of course now the system allows more white noise through.
    – Technobabble
    Commented Mar 2, 2012 at 22:38

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