Dave Horne Posted July 4, 2003 Share Posted July 4, 2003 I can think of four or five jobs in my lifetime where something went wrong and had to be fixed or worked around. I once had a Polytone guitar amp blow up on me during a wedding reception. I drove a short distance and picked up something else ... just a little break for the crowd. I had a fuse blow out in a Leslie tone cabinet and didn't know what the problem was at first. After calling my repairman, he told me to look there and that was that. I didn't have a fuse and we used tin foil from a pack of cigarettes. Not smart, but it was just a blown fuse. I had a Yamaha keyboard die on a job (one of those CP models, I believe) and this happned before the job actually started. I went back and picked up another keyboard. No one from the wedding party was ever the wiser and I worked the entire job on a Rhodes, I believe. A few years ago I had an amp blow up on me (a QSC 1.4 Powerlight). Two output transistors simply exploded. This was a Christmas dinner at a big hotel with a piano trio. I couldn't use any of my electronic set up and just switched over to the hotel's acoustic upright which was only a few feet away and that was that. I thought about bringing an additional amp to jobs after that, but one amp blowing in more than 35 years of club dates isn't too bad. What have been your experiences with equipment failure on jobs? (No jokes please, I receive a dozen offers every week to buy Viagra at a discount.) No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message. In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
billjv Posted July 4, 2003 Share Posted July 4, 2003 Hiya Dave, Yep, one of the worst ones was (of course) one that could have been avoided if I had prepared more thoroughly. I got to a bar with my rig (PC88 & Roland JP8080) and I had about 1 hour before we went on. I plugged everything in, and poof - all of my setups in the PC88 had reverted to factory defaults. I had a custom setup for every song! I spent the next 50 minutes sitting on the stage with headphones, sweating it out and reprogramming all kinds of key splits, channel assignments and other misc. stuff. Normally I have a sys-ex backup of all my setups, but didn't have the DataDisk with me that I use to send sys-ex to everything. The most interesting thing about the entire nite was that I never missed a cue. I had to do some quick changes and thinking, but I think having to focus on everything so much actually made me play better. Funny how that works sometimes. bv "If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe." -Carl Sagan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Horne Posted July 4, 2003 Author Share Posted July 4, 2003 <> After my QSC amp blew up on a job, I bought a power conditioner. I'll never know the real source of the blown output transistors, but I figure a conditioner can't hurt. Out of curiosity, did you use a power conditioner on that job and do you think they really make a difference? No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message. In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rod S Posted July 4, 2003 Share Posted July 4, 2003 I had a very close one - I would have been pissed if I hadn't avoided it in the last minute. I set up my rig, and I usually wait till everything is in place, cables connected until I plug the outlet strip to an outlet. I have no idea why I asked, but I did confirm with the soundman: "this place is 110, right?" .. he says.." no, 220, dude" . Huh, WTF? The whole city of Rio is 110. The only place 220 exists are commercial builiding (labeled), and in some households for the washer/dryer. Always clearly marked. There was no indication anywhere that the freaking place was 220. Good think I didn't plug anything in. Man, I would have fried the freaking equipment. The only 'real' experience was with my poly 800 - the freaking power supply just didn't work. I ended up running to a convenience stores and getting batteries (we were only doing 2 songs) Korg Kronos X73 / ARP Odyssey / Motif ES Rack / Roland D-05 / JP-08 / SE-05 / Jupiter Xm / Novation Mininova / NL2X / Waldorf Pulse II MBP-LOGIC American Deluxe P-Bass, Yamaha RBX760 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marino Posted July 4, 2003 Share Posted July 4, 2003 Just from the top of my head... I only used my Matrix-12 live a few times... As I learned, it was a bit too sensitive to voltage fluctuations. Once, it started spitting random notes by itself, very loud and short, during the course of a whole piece. One note every 15-20 seconds, maybe... It was pure musical terrorism, and quite funny in a way. Another time, I was playing with a big band, and we were about to launch in a glorious arrangement of "Birland", so I thought, "Better tune the Matrix", as I had programmed a nasty version of the opening bass sound. Well, the thing refused to finish the tune procedure, and shutted itself up completely! So I had to start "Birland" on the piano.... "Deng, deng, deng...." More recently, my Wavestation A/D went mad an hour before a concert, so I had to reprogram the whole show on my XP-80 alone..! More to come... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superbobus Posted July 4, 2003 Share Posted July 4, 2003 - Adapter of a Sound Canvas fried on a gig. - A borrowed Roland JX8P started pitch shifting during a gig. - Blew the fuse of my monitor during a soundcheck. A monitor from the PA dudes saved my gig. - An inside cable of my Rhodes fucked up during a party gig and I didn't have those small connectors with me to take the output directly from the pickups. I was sitting the rest of the gig with my left hand inside the Rhodes holding the cable in a position were it still would give sound! http://www.bobwijnen.nl Hipness is not a state of mind, it's a fact of life. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RABid Posted July 4, 2003 Share Posted July 4, 2003 Played at a YWCA where the voltage was very low. Only my Rhodes Chroma had autotune and It kept loosing voices throughout the night. I ended the night with only the Chroma and 6 voices. Afterwards I was mad at myself for not shutting everything down and refusing to play. We played an outdoor pool pary at a hotel that wanted to feature bands every Sunday evening. We thought it was a good way to play on Sunday. There was no shelter and the direct sun was so hot the vinyl covering on my keyboards started to bubble up. Robert This post edited for speling. My Sweetwater Gear Exchange Page Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
humannoyed Posted July 5, 2003 Share Posted July 5, 2003 I once played on top of a house boat where the voltage was so low my JX8P locked up. As it was my only keyboard I had with me, I played percussion.... Fortunately I'm a halfway decent percussionist... There is nothing worse than someone who thinks he can play percussion but can't, except... maybe someone who thinks they can sing... Did you hear about the space music artist whose digital reverb went out on him mid concert? Completely flipped, checked him into the psyche ward. Diagnosis.......psychoacoustic claustrophobia.... He won't even walk into a room with carpet now. Day "It is a danger to create something and risk rejection. It is a greater danger to create nothing and allow mediocrity to rule." "You owe it to us all to get on with what you're good at." W.H. Auden Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Horne Posted July 5, 2003 Author Share Posted July 5, 2003 I had a problem on a job (a small big band) where I was playing piano and supplying the sound system for the band as well. We were playing in a field and the power source was about 100 yards away. My amp (at that time in the US) was a Carver 2.0t ... an extremely powerful, but light weight amp - 11 lbs, 465 wpc/RMS into 8 ohms). The amp kept acting up. Lots of distortion, one channel worked intermittently. Got home, the amp worked just fine. I called up Carver and the first question from the tech, 'was it an outside job with a long cable run?' I quickly learned that equipment was sensitive to drops in voltage. (If anyone in Europe is moving to the US and wants to trade their 230 volt Carver 1250 or 2.0t for my 110 volt version, let me know.) No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message. In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Fiala Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Most of my gig problems have been "human error" (usually my own!), rather than voltage or gear problems. Fortunately, these don't happen very often. Tom F. "It is what it is." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Yamis Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Many years ago I used a Crumar portable organ as my main keyboard. On one gig, it started going in and out of tune intermittently. When I took it in for repairs, it worked perfectly for the repair guy. When I took it back out on the job, it again went in and out of tune (and I'm talking several steps and not just slightly out of tune). It was embarassing. My solution, whenever it started going out of tune, I would lift one end of the keyboard from the stand about 4 inches and drop it. That solution worked every time. I didn't keep the Crumar much longer after that though. Yamis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jeff Irok Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 /entering my irresponsible musician persona... I had a keybaord, which I used as my main & master, for years that had a chronic problem. If the current it was receiving was from a source that was subject to fluctuations, or delivered currently slightly less than normal, it would cut out on me. That really sucked. Usually, it was an outside gig. It usaully didn't start cutting out, however, until the rest of the band started playing, which would create an additional drain, just enough to whack the keyboard out. So I'd set up, it would be running fine, and it wouldn't cut out till the sound check, or if we didn't do one (which sometimes in outside gigs, they just want us to start up), not until the first or the second song. I recall once when we were playing outside and the keyboard didn't start cutting out until it got darker, after somebody switched lights on. We started unscrewing each light, one by one, until the current was stable enough to keep me going! AAAGGGHHH!!! How embarassing! I finally replaced the keyboard and don't have that problem any more. It only crept up maybe a half doaen times over the course of a dozen or so years. If I could've afforded it, I would've replaced it a long time ago, or replaced the transformer in it. But I'm totaly estatic with what I replaced it with (an S-80), so perhaps putting it off was a good thing! Check out my band's site at: The Key Components! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
opp Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 I broke a key on my trinity so it wouldn't return then went inside and fixed it.The fix would usually last 3-4 gigs.We were playing a very upscale convention for event planners and not only was my high D ringing away but the whole board was sliding off my newly rigged stand. Lesson, don't try to mickey mouse anything cause he will let you down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dementia13 Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Playing bass through a Small Stone phaser. This song had a percussion break and then a bass solo, and I would kick in the phaser at the bass solo. The battery in the phaser was new, but there were a couple of hours before we got to that song, so the battery was draining the whole time the phaser was inline. When I went to kick it in- no sound. I had to scramble, remove the phaser from the chain, and continue the song. Without the bass solo, some of the rest of the group lost their place in the song, and all of them were standing there looking frightened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dementia13 Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Playing bass through a Small Stone phaser. This song had a percussion break and then a bass solo, and I would kick in the phaser at the bass solo. The battery in the phaser was new, but there were a couple of hours before we got to that song, so the battery was draining the whole time the phaser was inline. When I went to kick it in- no sound. I had to scramble, remove the phaser from the chain, and continue the song. Without the bass solo, some of the rest of the group lost their place in the song, and all of them were standing there looking frightened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Horne Posted July 11, 2003 Author Share Posted July 11, 2003 I just remembered a situation from over 35 years ago. I was working with older musicians and was helping set up their sound system. The sax player hands me a plug. He handed me a plug which looked exactly like a plug for line voltage. It seems someone in that group wired up extension chords for the speakers using regular electric plugs. I plugged it into 115 VAC, there was a loud, but short protest from the speaker and that was that. One speaker died that day. I didn't feel too bad about that and looking back, who in their right mind would ever use an electric plug for speakers? (An aside - those banana plugs, which we do not use in Europe, fit the 230 receptacles over here perfectly. I have used them on occasion as actual electrical plugs.) No guitarists were harmed during the making of this message. In general, harmonic complexity is inversely proportional to the ratio between chording and non-chording instruments. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cconroy Posted July 11, 2003 Share Posted July 11, 2003 Nothing major, but... I had a tiny Crate keyboard amp that I used to use for church. Eventually something went flaky with the power switch (loose connection, I guess) where it would occasionally shut off at random intervals -- always in the middle of a song, of course. I would have to turn around quickly, nudge the switch to pop it back on, and jump back into the song. I eventually got fed up with it and bought a new amp (probably could have fixed it, but that thing sounded pretty crappy anyway). Also had a sustain pedal that got stuck in sustain mode a couple times. Sometimes stomping on it hard would get it unstuck, sometimes not. If not, depending on where we were in the mass, I would either just unplug it or whip out my swiss army knife to unscrew it and pry the contacts apart. After a couple occurrences, I replaced that too. Then there was the time I thought the pedal had died (wouldn't sustain), and played a whole mass without it. Only afterwards did I realize I had somehow managed to plug it into the headphone jack (which wasn't anywhere near the pedal jack). Not really a gear problem though... -Chris Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelonius Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 Yamis, That is classic! "Lifting the crumar up 4" and dropping it"I used gig w/ one of those damn things(crumar t-2)for about 6 months,and had nothing but problems. The thing was possesed by the devil. I would get to a gig, and it would Shyte-out 3/4ths of the time. You'd go to turn it on, and it would only make these harsh precussive noises. The crumar was connected to a home-made stomp box to a Leslie 122. One time I was connecting it w/ the power on,(stupid I know) and got the shyte shocked out of me( I actully felt it in my genitals).Sooooo,that was always a lovely experiance w/ the good'ol crumar.My Korg CX-3 is wayyyyyyy better, and I dont throw my f'in back out humpin' that bastard around:) www.colonelburns.com Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Reverend Rhythm Posted July 12, 2003 Share Posted July 12, 2003 My worst equipment moment was back in the 80s when my Mac SE locked up in a gig with a good sized "Jazz" band. In the middle of a number the computer started sending out an incredible amount of notes and then stuck with all kinds of notes playing. Needless to say, the song came to a halt... followed by several embarrassing minutes of rebooting. Oh for the 80s.... David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KybdCanuck Posted July 14, 2003 Share Posted July 14, 2003 Hmmm... Let's see. My A-90 had three keys break towards the beginning of a jazz gig (C4-E4). Not fun. I had my Kurz K2600's main outs crap out, had to repatch to direct outs, but lost volume control. If I want to go way back, I show up to a gig with a (embarassed grin) M1 and the backup battery had died--no internal sounds. Sad day. --KBC Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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