Power Distribution: The Hardware

Every rig runs on a second signal chain that nobody soundchecks: the one that starts at a wall socket and ends at every mains inlet on the stage. The stage-power lesson covers the electrical logic — circuits, breaker maths, what a wall socket actually supplies in North America and in the UK. This chapter is the hardware that logic flows through: the leads, blocks, distros and safety devices between the wall and the gear, how to identify each one, and the short list of rules that keep the whole subject boring, which is the only thing mains power should ever be.

Boring is worth defending, because power faults are the ones that don't stay in their lane. A signal fault loses a channel; a power fault can lose the show, the equipment, or worse. The good news is that the hardware layer is simple, and almost every dangerous configuration looks wrong once you know what you are looking at.

The Inventory

• IEC leads — the detachable "kettle lead" on the back of most desks, amps and computers (the connector family is IEC C13/C14; the actual high-temperature kettle version is a different, notched variant). Ubiquitous, interchangeable, and the first thing to go missing — the kit-bag chapter's spares doctrine applies.
• powerCON and locking mains connectors — the blue (in) and white/grey (out) twist-locks on powered speakers and touring gear, met already in the connectors chapter of this manual. They lock so vibration and feet cannot unplug the PA; they are not load-break devices — switch off before connecting or separating.
• Extension leads and cable reels — the workhorses, and the place cheap goes wrong. Conductor size determines what a lead can carry: a light domestic lead feeding a power amp rack is a heater in a jacket. Reels add their own rule — a coiled cable under heavy load cannot shed heat, so reels get fully unwound before they feed anything hungry; the rating printed on the reel is usually given twice, coiled and unwound, and the difference is the warning.
• Power strips — fine for the pedalboard and the laptop, provided they are one layer deep. Strip-into-strip daisy-chains concentrate the whole stage's current through the first strip's contacts and lead, which is why the stage-power lesson bans the practice outright.
• Stage distros — the professional answer: one heavy feed in, breakered and metered outlets out, so the distribution is planned once instead of improvised per-socket. On bigger stages this is where audio's circuits are deliberately separated from lighting's — dimmers and motors are the noisiest neighbours mains can have.
• RCD / GFCI protection — the device that trips in milliseconds when current leaks to earth, meaning through a fault or through a person. Fixed versions live in modern panels; plug-in versions cost little and travel well. Outdoors, or in any venue whose wiring predates your drummer, a plug-in RCD on the audio feed is the cheapest insurance in this entire guide. Test-button it now and then; a dead RCD looks identical to a live one.
• UPS (uninterruptible power supply) — a battery that carries computers and digital desks through the sags and micro-dropouts that analogue gear never noticed. A digital console rebooting takes a minute or more of dead silence; a small UPS under it turns that scenario into a log entry. The consoles lesson explains everything else that desk is holding in memory.

Region, Voltage and the Travelling Rig

North American venues put roughly 120 volts on a socket; the UK puts about 230 on a different plug — the stage-power lesson carries the figures side by side, and this site covers venues on both sides of that divide, so the difference is practical, not academic. Most modern switched-mode gear (desks, powered speakers, laptop supplies) is universal-voltage and says so beside its inlet: "100–240 V" means a plug adapter is genuinely all it needs. Gear with a transformer designed for one region — vintage amps above all — is a different story: a 120-volt tube amp on a 230-volt socket is a same-day repair bill, and the fix is a properly rated step-down transformer or the correct-voltage version of the amp, never optimism. Check the inlet label before the gear crosses an ocean, or before an imported amp crosses your stage.

Generators and "power from the food truck's supply" deserve their own suspicion outdoors: voltage that sags under load, earthing arrangements you can't inspect, and neighbours whose compressors share your feed. An RCD, a distro you brought yourself, and a polite question about what else is on the circuit are the minimum.

The Rules That Keep It Boring

Almost everything above compresses into conduct. Mains leads get uncoiled, routed along the routes the stage-hardware chapter prescribes for every cable, and crossed with signal lines at right angles rather than run alongside them. Damaged leads — cracked jackets, bent pins, warm plugs — get retired on sight, not "watched". The earth pin is sacred: the cables lesson explains why lifting a mains earth to cure a hum makes the signal wiring the fault path, and no buzz is worth that trade. And the boundary from the kit-bag chapter holds here with full force — plugs, leads and strips are user territory; anything behind a panel, inside a distro, or upstream of the venue's sockets belongs to an electrician.

Sequencing is the last habit: power the rig from source to speakers — desk and stage gear first, amplifiers and powered speakers last — and reverse it at the end of the night, exactly as the loudspeakers chapter of this manual describes, so nothing's power-up thump ever meets a live driver.

What to Check Before the Next Load-In

• Heavy loads on heavy leads — read the rating on the lead, not the hope in the moment; reels fully unwound before they feed amplifiers.
• One layer of power strips, ever — the moment a strip feeds a strip, stop and re-plan the run.
• RCD protection outdoors and in old rooms — and press its test button often enough to trust it.
• Audio and lighting on separate circuits where any choice exists — dimmers are the hum you cannot EQ out.
• Check voltage labels on anything that has travelled — "100–240 V" adapts with a plug; a single-voltage transformer does not.
• Retire damaged leads immediately — a warm plug is a fault report, not a quirk.
• Never lift an earth, never open the hardware — the two absolute rules; everything else in this chapter is judgement.