will a power conditioner help this?

[J. FO]

here's the deal, i'm the drum tech/percussion instructor at a local high school. for their marching band show, they are doing a large mallet ensemble and we are miking 2 marimbas, vibes, and 2 xylophones. here's the rub, the power for the board, speakers, wireless mic receivers (for woodwind soloists) comes from a portable battery, because an extension chord tends to trip people tyring to march over it (go figure). the battery is causing the speakers to hum a great deal. the speakers are powered JBL's, but don't hum at all when plugged into a wall outlet. now, i'm new to the live sound reinforcement biz, but am i correct in assuming a power conditioner or rack mountable power supply unit help to get rid of this hum/buzz? thanks for your help.

[where02190]

The most likely cause is that the voltage is not high enough, either due to low voltage from the battery supply, or too much current draw. Get a larger battery PSU, or secure the AC power cable better.

Hope this is helpful.

[J. FO]

thanks. any other ideas? i doubt they'll be able to get another power supply. they've already tweaked this one to provide a little more juice. any other thoughts, tricks? thanks for your help

[Vegadark]

it might be do to a lack of a real ground in the circuit.

[BradLyons]

WHERE is right.... if you do not have enough power, you can easily get hum. Besides, this is DANGEROUS to your gear... you can fry it if it gets to the extreme. Many years ago, a great invention was found..... DUCT-TAPE!!!!!! Go out of the power socket from the wall if you can, I just don't think this generator is going to cut it.

[J. FO]

thanks again everybody. there's no way it can be run from the wall, can't run an extension from the stadium wall to the middle of the field, even if the stadium has sockets down at field level. can you guys suggest any portable power supplies that would have what it takes. again, it has to run the two powered JBL mains (they're pretty small), a mackie vlzpro 16 channel mixer, and two wireless mic receivers. as usualy with schools, it would have to be fairly cheap, and it has to be pretty portable to get on and off the field in a hurry (the competition performances are strictly timed). thanks for the advice.