Keep Your Studio Running: Power Failure Lessons – Tuesday Tech Tip

The lights started flickering as if possessed. The winds in our neck of the woods had been whipping up to the ridiculous range and the fallout had begun. Sure enough, the lights started flickering. There was a sudden “tick” sound and the room got dark and my monitor went black. Yeah – I’d gotten lazy and never set up a working UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply). Drat. 

I was suddenly adrift in a very quiet house. 5G hadn’t been knocked out, so my phone could work as a hotspot with which to connect if necessary. The happy yellow generator, which had been sitting patiently in the shed, was just waiting for its chance to shine. However, since nothing was rigged, things had to be set up. 

Avoiding downtime in the home voiceover studio

When the VO production studio is your business, any unanticipated downtime can be a significant issue. We need to be able to get work out the door. Delays aren’t always acceptable. Even in the best of circumstances, being unable to work for any period of time is a bad thing.

I set to hooking up the propane, laying out the power cables, then stretching the tarp over the generator. Winds whipped feverishly and the rains had not let up. I am pretty certain that electricity and water remain a not-too-great combination so I let the worst of the storm subside before engaging things. Hunkered down in its little tent, the generator kicked on at the touch of the starter button and hummed away as it warmed up. Thank goodness for backup systems.

Fixing found flaws

Redundant systems against potential failures is something I’m always reassessing and refining. These recent weather challenges definitely found some flaws. To paraphrase the popular idea, “Plans do not survive contact with real-world conditions…” As always, it’s the smaller details which created some of the more annoying moments. For example, some of the lighting which I’ve added for live classes ended up being plugged into a very hard to reach outlet, so swapping them over to the power feed from the generator meant some difficult stretching.

Evaluating your challenges

These were a few other questions that came to mind – 

• How long does it take to be up and running again? UPS’s are immediate if set up correctly. Generators are great for supplying electricity on a long term basis, but switching over can take a while.
• How long do you need to be running? Decent UPS’s should be able to provide a couple hours of backup with minimal gear.
• Which are your studio’s vital pieces of equipment? Your recording computer, of course, which also supplies power to the interface. But what about your router or modem?  
• Is there anything you are taking for granted? I found out that if I was connected to the internet via my phone’s hotspot, using my wireless printer became monstrously tricky. 
• Is information accessible to you? Keeping a PDF copy of key setup lists on a local drive is a good plan. Any resources stored out on a cloud drive doesn’t help if you can’t access it. A printed copy stored in a physical file folder is good practical insurance. 

Each situation is an opportunity to tune things further, and find those little gaps which can cause panic. I know I’ll find more next time, but this most recent storm provided some very helpful data points.

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