I’m going to be delayed delivering tracks to Brian Maw for the new EP. This afternoon I was setting up to record some tracks for the EP in my hotel room in London. I brought my Digitech RP255 to London with me for that very purpose. I plugged the wall socket converter for the UK into the wall, then plugged the RP into the converter.

A few seconds later I smelled something unusual, and I saw that the RP had powered down. I pulled the power converter from the wall and looked it over, and that’s when I saw that the RP’s power converter, which I had assumed worked on 220 volts (Euro power) as well as 120 volts (US power), was designed only to work on 120 volts. (Hey! Every OTHER power supply I’ve got, including the one for the Zoom G3, works on 220 volts too.) In other words, I burned out the power supply, or the RP, or both.

If I’m lucky, it was only the power supply that died. (Five minutes after I unplugged it, after being in the wall for less than a minute, it was still hot–in fact, it seemed to be getting hotter.) I have plenty of spare RP power supplies at home. (That’s what happens when you develop patches for RPs–you get another RP, you get another power supply.) If I’m not so lucky, I killed the RP too. That’s not a disaster either–I can get another RP255 pretty easily. (And if I plan to keep developing patches for it, I better.) However, the odds of getting another power supply before Monday are pretty close to zero, and after that I don’t have time to record until Friday.

So that’s my rampantly unforced error of the day. What’s yours?

UPDATE MARCH 14 2013: I’ve returned home and plugged the 255 in. Everything lit up on schedule, including the v16 patch set I installed in it, and when I play through it the sounds are there. Only remaining thing to test is the USB connection for recording and patch setup, but if we made it this far we’re pretty likely to make it all the way. I’m glad the loss this time was limited to the power supply. Power supplies aren’t cheap at $25 or so apiece, but I’ve already got lots of ’em, and I’ve only got one RP255. And while we’re at it, kudos to the engineers at Digitech for buffering the RP from the power supply, so it’s only the power supply that takes the hit when you get stupid like I did.