How long should/do you leave your gear on for?

[blavatsky]

Sort of a dumb basic question, but one i'm not sure about: Is it better to leave a setup on for several hours if you are playing, pause, and come back, or better to turn everything off and on again?

I have a tendency to play in bursts, so for example, get home at 5:30, mess around till 6:30, eat or go to gym, etc and I may not get back to it until 9, 10, 11, etc. Should I just leave stuff running? Also I should mention this is mostly 90s/00s gear so nothing with a shady old power supply I would hope (running RS7000, ESX, SP555, X-station, fusion, KP3, Virus TI, mixer, BBE sonic maximizer and PA for example...).

Power bill not an issue, really more concerned with turning stuff off and on too much (for example I leave a PC running 24/7 usually, of course I would not with a keyboard), or things getting too warm.

[OntarioHydro]

From what I understand it is more strenuous for the piece to be powered on and off than it is to leave it on.

[Hybrid88]

Not a dumb question at all, actually it's something I've been thinking about a bit too, I mostly only turn on my stuff as I use it, so a bit of switching happens - one thing I found interesting about some other people is that they leave all of their stuff on for hours on end even if they're only using one thing, something I would never do (I'm pretty paranoid about power wastage in the studio).

But interesting as to which is better for the gear, I imagine overheating would be an issue leaving things on for long periods of time.

[monolith]

After lots of searching i found this old thread on the same topic.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/forum/viewt ... witched+on

Within the thread is a ridiculously off topic post by me. For the record, I had an infection in my spine at the time, and was on a lot of painkillers

[pricklyrobot]

Opinions are all over the place on this. And most people with the really strong ones tend to have some pretty dodgy "science" to back them up.

Personally, if something doesn't get too warm when it's on, I assume it's using power reasonably efficiently, and I don't worry about walking away from it for a while. If something gets hot enough to fry eggs on (I'm looking at you Moog Source I used to have), I'll turn if off if I think I'm going to be away for more than an hour or so.

[meatballfulton]

As someone mentioned in the other thread, if you have lots of thunderstorms or power outages where you live, not only shut your stuff down but UNPLUG it (plug all your gear into power strips and then just unplug those).

I had the motherboard on my SQ80 toasted when lightning made a direct hit to the power lines a few houses down the street. The unit was turned off but plugged into a power strip with a surge protector (which blew). Luckily this was back when Ensoniq still existed and still repaired stuff.

[sequentialsoftshock]

"THE POPE TOUCHED ME DOWN UNDER!"

ME TOO!

[Esus]

If you have gear with internal power supplies (not wall warts), leaving everything on for a few hours at a time is a non-issue. If you know you're not going to use them for the rest of the evening or a weekend, it's only common sense to turn them off.
BUT, buy a good UPS and plug them into it--it's cheap insurance, giving you time to power down before a spike hits your stuff.

[ninja6485]

After lots of searching i found this old thread on the same topic.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/forum/viewt ... witched+on

Within the thread is a ridiculously off topic post by me. For the record, I had an infection in my spine at the time, and was on a lot of painkillers

i love how everyone COMPLETELY ignored the pope gag...i thought it was great.

[monolith]

After lots of searching i found this old thread on the same topic.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/forum/viewt ... witched+on

Within the thread is a ridiculously off topic post by me. For the record, I had an infection in my spine at the time, and was on a lot of painkillers

i love how everyone COMPLETELY ignored the pope gag...i thought it was great.

Yeah it was a tough crowd.. Internetz is serious business.

[balma]

If you put saliva in the tip of your finger, and touch the screen of the synth and it vapourizes immediately leaving your finger red, you should let it rest.....


This depends a lot of the synth and the location, also the amount of horny things inside your room.

I have a tendency to play in bursts, so for example, get home at 5:30, mess around till 6:30, eat or go to gym, etc

Ha we have the same schedule. I arrive at the time, and the first thing I do after kissing my mom, is to turn on all the gear and jumping of happiness. My job sucks a big time. Such a contrast when arriving home, is the most beautiful feeling in the world