How often have you needed a backup amp?

[Pea Turgh]

Ola peeps.  Just curious as to how many times in your playing career have you needed a backup amp?

I’ve been playing for around 25 years, but fairly regularly for the past 10 in a function band. I can think of two examples of needing a backup amp.

1. My old-age Peterson just made farting noises at soundcheck. Luckily the venue had a Trace combo for me to use.  Got it serviced afterwards and all was well for another couple of years.

2. My Peterson (got retired after this point!) power amp section seemed to cut out, but the FOH signal from the built-in DI was unaffected.

Thankfully I’d had a soundman on hand for these issues, but now I’m playing in another band with less likeliness of a soundman being present, I’m world a little backup is needed.

Let me know your stories of amp woes!!!

Edited November 18, 2018 by Pea Turgh

[warwickhunt]

I've been playing/gigging live for 38 years and I've never had an amp or cab die on me.  I do however take a DI box so I could go into PA as last resort.  

[Paul S]

I have been gigging for 10 years - something of  late-comer - and had an amp fail on me once at soundcheck.  Mesa Boogie - one of the valves went and took an amount of the pcb with it.  As usual I had my back up Quilter Basssblock in the car - so all was good.  Could have got away with a DI from the BDI-121 I also carry but prefer to have backline. 

To my way of thinking the number of times I have used a back up amp is kind of a side issue.  Same with taking a back up bass.  It seems a bit like asking how many times you have had to claim on your house insurance - I guess most people will pay it annually regardless of claiming.

But that is just me - I am very much a belt and braces type.  .  

[BassBunny]

Never needed to use a back-up. Probably because I have a back-up. 🙂

[Dood]

Never for me either. I think I've clocked up over 25 years gigging. I've only ever once had a signal path cable fail and I borrowed a speaker cable that failed on me at a gig as well. So, I would say make sure you have duplicates of cables, spare batteries and the like as well as WH has suggested - a contingency plan like plugging directly in to the PA. My pedal board has always been set up in a way that I can break a connection and get my noise direct to PA somehow!

[Dood]

Oh wait! I've just remembered! I had the cables on my IEMs fail last year. By luck I'd bought a really cheap cable off eBay... which is still working today. I think if I had an IEM fail then I'd grab my ear plugs and wing it until the set breaks.

[Beer of the Bass]

Only once that I can recall, though I've also had a couple of run-ins with knackered, barely working supplied backline where I wished I'd brought my own. 

[chris_b]

The last time I needed a back up amp (and I didn't have one!!) was to cover last valve amp I owned. Bloody valves!!

In the late 90's I bought a new Mesa 400+ from the Bass Centre, which popped a valve the moment that Chris and me took it out of the box in the shop. Then carried on blowing valves over the next 5 months that I owned it. It went back 4 or 5 times but they never found the problem. In the end Nick (good guy) offered me a swap with an Ampeg SVT3-PRO. I lost a fortune on that deal (but not as bad as the deal Barry wanted. He tried to get me to give them the 400+ and buy the Ampeg for half price!!) but I was happy to get rid of an expensive and unreliable pile of poo. I could get great sounds out of that Ampeg, through my Mesa cabs, and I used it for the next 8 or so years. By which time the cabs, which weighed about 100lbs each, had permanently damaged my back!! I've done a couple of thousand gigs since and haven't needed a back up since moving to SS and D class amps.

A great idea that went very wrong.

Edited November 18, 2018 by chris_b

[Lozz196]

The only time I`ve had amp failure was luckily at the very end of a gig. We finished, got called for an encore, my amp suddenly didn`t work, so we didn`t do one. Turned out the pre-amp valve had become slightly dislodged. Always wise to have a Sansamp or similar in the bag, just in case. 

[Al Krow]

1 hour ago, warwickhunt said:

I've been playing/gigging live for 38 years and I've never had an amp or cab die on me.  I do however take a DI box so I could go into PA as last resort.  

+1^^ 

In my case I've been playing / gigging for a fraction of that time but also never had an amp or cab die on me. To be fair I've only been gigging quality gear in very good condition that is < 5 years old.

But I'd absolutely hate to ruin a wedding gig - the DI box into PA seems like a very sensible insurance policy for me. This one was recommended to me by a fellow BCer / function band player and costs £14:

Edited November 18, 2018 by Al Krow

[Al Krow]

How many times has our guitarist broken a string on a set though? We're now pleasantly surprised when he doesn't! 😂

[AndyTravis]

Once.

and I just ran into the DI I used to carry.

Awful gig as no matter what I said, the sound engineer ran very little bass through the monitor.

[JapanAxe]

Twice.

1. Ashdown ABM combo cut out, so I plugged straight into the PA. Sounded awful but got us through. One of the flying leads from the speaker terminals to the voice coil had come loose at the terminal end. 
2. Demeter head started cutting out, pilot lights going off, for about 20 seconds. It did this a couple of times, then was ok for the rest of the gig. Turned out the rectifier for the DC heater supply in the preamp was dying.

I now generally carry a Markbass Nano 300 in a laptop bag as a spare, but that wouldn't have helped me in scenario 1.

Edited November 18, 2018 by JapanAxe

[la bam]

Luckily never during a gig, but I did have a mag300 break a week or two into buying it new, years ago, so it's always a good idea to have a back up just in case.

I have had a cable go on me. First song of first set. Worked perfect in sound check.

So I now always have, spare bass, spare tuner, spare cable and spare amp on top of my main amp.

[Woodinblack]

45 minutes ago, Al Krow said:

How many times has our guitarist broken a string on a set though? We're now pleasantly surprised when he doesn't! 😂

I am always pleasantly surprised if the guitarists amp doesn't fail, he doesn't break a string, he doesn't have a lead (normally his fender replacement lead he insists on using) die, doesn't forget his strap or something else. I don't have a problem with any of my stuff, never had an amp fail, always have a spare bass but only needed it for an audition (and only because they hated the tone of the bass).

I carry a lot of spares. Mostly, it has to be said, to give to the guitarist when his stuff fails! 

[PaulWarning]

about 3 times, once the output transisters failed in my elderly Trace Elliot, twice when signal to the sound engineer mysterious disappeared, no fault found with the amp later but I always have a spare available, but as I said I'm using elderly Trace amps.

Another amp failure story, our guitarist orange amp wouldn't switch on, he finished up using my spare Trace Elliot (sounded ok according to the crowd but he was not happy). When he took it in for repair it was just the warning light bulb that had blown, the amp was working ok all the time 

[paul_c2]

4 times and counting, in the past couple of years. The 5th time an amp blew up on me was at home, so I've had 5 failures in recent times. I think its all the travelling in cars which does it, I do about 3-4 rehearsals per week and the amp(s) inevitably are jiggled around during transport, I'm loathe to put them onto a car seat (will probably damage the seat) and if they're not, even if they're secured, then they're on the floor or the boot floor where the vibrations are transmitted through. 

[Al Krow]

52 minutes ago, paul_c2 said:

4 times and counting, in the past couple of years. The 5th time an amp blew up on me was at home, so I've had 5 failures in recent times. I think its all the travelling in cars which does it, I do about 3-4 rehearsals per week and the amp(s) inevitably are jiggled around during transport, I'm loathe to put them onto a car seat (will probably damage the seat) and if they're not, even if they're secured, then they're on the floor or the boot floor where the vibrations are transmitted through. 

Ouch! 

Are they relatively new amps?

I've got mine (DG M900) in a padded amp case so zero risk to the car seats. Sounds like the amp gig bag has been a good investment!

[paul_c2]

Out of the ones owned by me: one was a few years old, the other was 3 weeks old, and the other (which went faulty at home) was an unknown age. The other 2 weren't mine, they were supplied backline so unknown (but bear in mind, both blew up at the same gig). Out of the 3 owned, the 3 weeks one was replaced (with a different amp) when I took it back, I fixed one and am unable to fix the other.

[fretmeister]

My backup is a 2.2 lb Tecamp.

 

It's so light that it is not a hassle to bring it with me, but it would be very unprofessional if my main amp went bang and I couldn't continue. So I take it.

[Jack]

Never. I once lost a preamp tube sometime between practicing at home and soundcheck, but thankfully I managed just fine by playing my pedalboard into the effects return. This hasn't stopped me from carrying some sort of backup to every gig though. Sometimes an amp, most often just a Behringer BDI.

[bassfan]

Never.... 10 years gigging.... thought my wireless system failed once but it was a battery 😂 I carry spares for all my cables and a DI “ just in case” but never needed them. 

The guitarist on the other hand..... strings, midi cables, power cables, amp jack...you name it, it’s broken on him, and in his defence not his fault either. 

Edited November 18, 2018 by bassfan

[walshy]

Yep never for me but I always carry a small class D just in case along with cables, batteries, strings etc... So far nothing needed 🤞

[b7l4s]

Once during a rehearsal, and once having just set up for a gig... one a series 6 TE and the other a Mk V TE - both heads rather than combos.

The rehearsal failure was a mystery. Mid song it just cut out? I used to carry a Crate Powerblock - anyone remember them? - in case of emergency and used that to finish the practice, but the supposedly broken amp was fine when I got it home, and has been ever since. The gig failure was human error... my amp and cab were as usual on top of the keyboard amp which is a huge Peavey on casters, and someone (still don't know who) pushed the lot back against a wall, and the speaker lead hit first, damaging the socket in my cab, effectively killing the rig. I got round it by going through a BD121, used as a pre-amp, into the spare channel of the Peavey - sounded a bit sh*t but got me through the gig. I should have used the pre-amp stage of the bass head, but at the time I had no idea what was wrong and 5 minutes to sort something out for the gig, so took the quickest safe option.

I guess that between us all in the band we can work around certain problems, but there are so many things that could go wrong - and no realistic way to account for them all.

[mazdah]

Twice since 2006 (regular gigs since then). 

One time the sound guy fried my Kustom Groove head - and then did the same thing with my Sansamp.

Next, few years later my 3pro started to blast fuses in the club - luckily I had a spare Fender amp. 

Last time I had to borrow an amp when I took my Ashdown LB-30 to the gig and couldn’t connect it to Aguilar fridge since it was connectable only by using two cables.